Night Falls on the Wicked - By Sharie Kohler Page 0,46
I do to help her through it?”
“The fever will rage—no stopping that. Try to get her to drink. There’s not much else you can do for her. It is what it is. Her human DNA is dying, turning over. She’ll sleep for the next few days.”
“A few days?” She blinked. “That’s unnatural.”
“She’s an unnatural creature now.” He cocked his head and gave her a look that reminded her that she was unnatural, too. Just as he was.
“We should cover as much ground as we can during the time she sleeps,” he said brusquely. “It’s going to be hard enough to track him, but when she wakes, she’ll slow us down. I’ll be back soon. Until then, try to get some rest yourself.”
Rest. She doubted she could ever close her eyes again.
He opened the door and the muted light of daybreak spilled through the door, a milky violet that promised sunlight to come later.
How she’d longed for the sight of that—every breath from this hellish night, she had prayed to make it to this moment, to see daylight one more time.
“There’s something I have to know.”
He cocked his head, waiting for her to elaborate.
“If you’re not afflicted with a lycan’s desire to feed, why not shift then? I mean … could it help? Could you track Cyprian quicker?”
He shut the door and faced her, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at her that way again. That intense and unnerving way that made her want to hide from his gaze.
She resisted stepping back and held her ground. She continued, babbling, “If you have free will, why won’t you turn? It could give you an advantage, it could help—”
“It makes me too much like them.”
She blinked once and stared at him hard. “But you’re not. At least in the way that matters.” But if he could be like them in other ways—tracking, speed, strength—he might be able to find them faster. “If it could help us …”
Her voice faded. His eyes gleamed down at her, the light there bright and dangerous. He seemed untouchable. As beautiful as a fatal serpent. “All you need to know is that we do this my way.”
Indignation flared hotly in her chest. It was her turn to cross her arms. “As far as explanations go, that’s not good enough. You’re going to have to do better than that.”
His expression darkened, and she felt certain he’d had enough of her.
Bracing herself, she waited for what he would do next.
NIKLAS INHALED DEEPLY, NOT sure why he should explain anything to her at all. He didn’t owe her anything.
Then why are you here? Why are you doing any of this at all?
Ignoring the nagging voice in his head that warned him he was getting too involved, he moved into her small apartment and lowered himself to the couch. After a moment, she moved to sit beside him.
“I finally pulled myself together about a year after I was turned,” he began. “That’s when I started hunting Cyprian’s pack. I wasn’t very good at first—the scent of any lycan would distract me and confuse me as to what trail I needed to follow. I was basically hunting them all. One night I came across a pair of lycans attacking a woman, a girl really.” He winced. “Not much older than me.”
His shoulders tensed, tightening as he saw the scene all over again in his head.
“What happened?”
“I engaged the lycans.” His voice became clipped, emotionless, like he was reading off a piece of paper and not relating anything significant, but he would never forget the ugliness he had stumbled upon … what they were doing to that girl. “I tried to stop them, but they were strong.” His jaw clenched. He told himself to relax, to not let the past affect him anymore. Easier said than done, he was discovering. He’d never told this story to another soul. You never had anyone to tell it to before.
He drew a deep breath through his nose, pushing that thought away. Being alone had never bothered him before. Meeting her shouldn’t change that; it shouldn’t bother him now. “As I said, I was new to it all. Inexperienced.” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I couldn’t handle them on my own, in human form. I thought I needed an advantage. So I shifted.”
“Did you beat them?” She winced at the question, clearly realizing he must have or he wouldn’t be sitting in front of her.