child. "Everything will be better in the morning," he lied.
Chapter Ten
Rashed paced inside the cave below his warehouse in nearly panicked agitation. He'd raced back home to find Teesha and Ratboy—assuming that Ratboy would have run home as well—in order to move them someplace safe. The hunter had clearly seen his face, and many people in town knew him or knew of him as the owner of the warehouse. Sunrise was only moments away, and not only was Ratboy still missing, but he'd come back to find Teesha gone as well.
Had she gone looking for them or taken Ratboy to safety herself? Either act was certainly in the realm of Teesha's nature, but he couldn't be certain. Rashed moved toward the lower end of the cave, ready to head back out in search of Teesha, but he could sense the time. After long years in the night, any vampire was fully aware of the time and movement of the unseen sun. Any who failed to build such an awareness had long since burned to ash in the light of day. He knew the sun was cresting the horizon, and so he stopped short of leaving, turning to pace again, back and forth in the dark.
Where was Teesha?
He'd constructed their world carefully in a place where they could exist and thrive, feed judiciously and not worry over being discovered. It was home enough, but not without Teesha. Given time, he'd even hoped one day she might be free of that specter of a husband who clung to her in after-life. If she had gone to find Ratboy and himself and been burned in the daylight? Then Ratboy best have burned with her, or Rashed would tear him apart slowly, piece by piece, over long blood-starved years, never letting the filthy little wretch have his second death.
Damn the hunter to eternal torture as well. And what a fool he'd been himself.
Blood dripped openly from the gaping wound in Rashed's shoulder, and he could not easily move his left arm. His collarbone was cleanly broken. The shallow wound down his chest seeped. Each injury burned as if he'd been dowsed with some priest's blessed oils. The wounds weren't healing at all. He remembered Ratboy's own panic upon returning from the fight on the road with the hunter, and he knew he would have to feed soon in order to close his wounds.
He'd told Ratboy "no noise." Was that such a difficult concept to understand? In a matter of moments, he'd lost control of his fight with the hunter, and Ratboy had managed to alert the entire household. Now the hunter had confirmation that at least two undeads inhabited the town. The situation could hardly be worse.
And what in all the demons of the underworld had happened to him during the fight itself? The hunter's sword was magically endowed, if not magically created; that much was obvious. Where did she get it? Even a blade that had been warded or arcanely made to battle the undead should not have prevailed against his open attack—he was too strong and skilled. This was not arrogance or pride, but realism. He should have been able to beat her down, if not kill her outright, and been back out the window with the body in a matter of seconds. Instead of tiring, her strength and speed had grown to match his every attack.
And she had bitten him as if she were one of his own kind.
He'd felt the heat of her body, heard the pounding of her heart, and smelled living blood in her veins. She was not a vampire or some other Noble Dead. What had happened? And she had seen his face. It was only a matter of time and questions asked before the hunter connected him to the warehouse.
"We must leave here," he murmured.
"Rashed!" Teesha's voice called to him from the far side of the cave.
Relief flooded Rashed at the sound of her voice. But when he turned to see her in the dark, stumbling toward him, her face was filled with as much fear as he'd felt when he dove through the inn's window to save his own existence. He ran toward her, and anger returned quickly at what he saw.
Teesha held on to Ratboy's half-conscious form by the back of his shirt collar, dragging him into the cave. She looked exhausted. She'd never had the physical strength with which most Noble Dead were gifted. Perhaps it was a trade-off for her higher ability