“Didn’t he tell you?” she asked, her eyes very bright in the lantern light.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Have they hurt you?”
She laughed with an ease Damon had never seen before. He tried to make sense of the joy in her eyes and failed.
“What is this?” he asked Theron, who returned his stare without softening.
“She is not yours,” he said. “She is not anyone’s now. There is a reason we call this place Eleutheria, and it is not only because here we regard all Opiri as equals.”
And then Damon understood. The humans he had seen gathering when he and Alexia had arrived hadn’t been afraid of chastisement from their owners, because they were not possessions to be berated and punished for the smallest disobedience. The young man outside the lavatory had seen no need to genuflect because he had nothing to fear from Sergius or any other Opiri in the settlement.
Damon’s head and wrist began to throb again. “It seems we didn’t have to be quite so cautious,” he said to Alexia.
“I can hardly believe it myself,” she said. “Emma told me what had happened to you. I asked her to get you out of the holding cell, but she wanted to give the colony leaders time to discuss it.” She grinned wickedly. “Serves you right for playing your part a little too well.”
Theron cleared his throat. “Apparently I was mistaken in my suspicions, Damon,” he said. “I had to be sure that Ms. Fox was not under duress when she told us of your purpose here.”
“I did not enjoy the deception,” Damon said stiffly, “but we couldn’t be sure of the reception we would receive, and we had no reason to believe Agent Fox would be treated as a free woman. She is an extraordinary person, and I had no pleasure in treating her—” He broke off before his emotions could become too apparent. “We had no way of knowing you had taken your philosophy to such extremes.”
“Now you see why the Expansionists want to see us destroyed,” Sergius said.
Damon glanced at Sergius and then did a double take. Now that his vision had returned to normal, he saw the Opir’s features clearly for the first time.
“Nikanor!” he said.
“I no longer go by that name,” Sergius said, meeting Damon’s gaze with a little more friendliness than he’d shown earlier.
“Many of us have changed our names since we took up our new life here,” Theron said. “We wish to forget the way of life we once took for granted. No one has been more devoted to our goals than Sergius.”
Nikanor inclined his head in acknowledgment of Theron’s praise. “I was not the first to see the wisdom in Theron’s philosophy, but when I did I knew it must be put into practice as thoroughly as possible.”
“He has been invaluable to the colony,” Theron said, fondness in his voice. “He has risked much.”
Damon wasn’t surprised that Nikanor was involved with Theron’s experiment. He had been one of the Bloodmaster’s most devoted disciples. Once Theron had freed him from vassalage, he could have struck out on his own and worked to move up the ranks, but instead he had chosen to remain with Theron and reap the benefits of the Bloodmaster’s considerable wisdom. For a time, he and Damon had shared Theron’s tutelage, and Nikanor had treated Damon as a fellow student rather than an inferior.
“You knew I wasn’t able to see the details of your face,” Damon said, meeting Sergius’s gaze. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were? Why didn’t you acknowledge me earlier?”
Sergius’s expression was grave. “None of us could be sure of your motives when you first arrived,” he said, “especially given your treatment of Ms. Fox. We wished to keep you uncomfortable until we could learn more about your purpose in coming.”
Damon touched the back of his head. “You did that very well,” he said drily.
A slight smile touched the corner of Sergius’s mouth. “I only just learned what Ms.
Fox had told Emma when Theron sent for you.”
“He hurt you?” Alexia asked, stretching to peer at the back of Damon’s head. She glared at Sergius. “I was told he would not be harmed.”
A weight in Damon’s heart lightened at the anger and concern in her voice. “I believe I will survive,” he said, briefly meeting her troubled gaze. He turned to Sergius again. “I thank you for seeing to Agent Fox’s welfare.”
“It was my pleasure, though Emma deserves the credit,” Sergius said with an approving glance at Alexia.
“You house the humans in the dormitories, I take it?” he asked. “Where will Ms. Fox
—”
“For pity’s sake,” Alexia cut in. “There’s no need for such formality. All the rules seem to have been broken here already.” She smiled up at Damon, and he felt as if that smile alone could send him crashing to the floor again.
“Alexia,” he breathed, wondering if she recognized what he meant to express in that single word. She held his gaze a moment longer and then looked away.
“We shouldn’t waste any more time,” she said, sobering. “I told Emma about the Expansionists’ plan to move on them soon, but I’m sure Theron and his Council will want the details of what we managed to find out from Lysander and the other Nightsider.”
Damon hoped she hadn’t told Emma more than they’d agreed to reveal. “It would be wise to put more sentries on your walls immediately,” he said to Theron. “The Expansionists may take action at any time.”
“Perhaps you have forgotten that Theron was sired before humans built their first city,” Sergius said. “He needs none of your advice.”
Just as he finished speaking, a young human woman entered the room with a tray bearing a decanter, five wineglasses—two filled with clear water—and a plate of biscuits.
She set the tray on the small table next to the generator, smiled at Theron and went back out the door.
“Ah,” Theron said. “Let us have a little refreshment before we continue. It does no good to talk of such serious matters on an empty stomach.”
He moved to the table and picked up the tinted glass decanter. “Damon,” he said, “you will not be surprised, I think, to learn that we do not force any human citizen of Eleutheria to provide blood. They do so because it is their desire to contribute to our community and build new bonds of trust between our peoples.”
Carefully he poured the rich red liquid into one of the glasses. The blood was fresh and pungent, and the smell alone seemed to choke off Damon’s breath.
He had tried to disregard his growing hunger, refusing to acknowledge the warning signs since Lysander had mocked him about taking Alexia’s blood. Now he was in a place where he could find nourishment, and yet he didn’t reach for the glass Theron offered. He looked down at Alexia’s face for the expression of revulsion he expected to find.
Instead, he saw neither approval nor disgust, only a faint frown accompanied by an unreadable glance at Damon’s face. He raised his hand to refuse the glass. The door opened again, and Emma came into the room with another plate of fresh bread and a wedge of cheese. Her gaze lingered on Sergius, and then she joined Theron at the table.
“You must be hungry,” she said, smiling at Alexia. “Since you wouldn’t eat earlier, I thought—” Damon didn’t hear the rest of her words, for he was staggering, falling, his stomach turning inside out as he caught himself against the desk and cracked his head on the edge.
Alexia cried out, her small, strong hands clamping around his arm. His vision dimmed again.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded, her voice thin and far away. “Help him!”
“He needs blood,” a male voice said.
Someone lifted Damon’s head from the floor and pushed a glass to his lips. He nearly gagged before the blood flowed over his tongue, and then there was a profound relief, as if his body had been numb for years and had suddenly come back to life.
“He never said anything,” Alexia said. “I should have recognized—”
“He needs rest,” Theron said. There was a sound of feet moving on the floor, and then the cup was taken
