Promises to Keep - By Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Page 0,54
Xeke spooned against his back, Brina snuggled against his chest, and Lynx keeping his feet warm. He had been worried that Brina’s ladylike manners might make her balk at the sleeping arrangements, but she accepted them as part of the ongoing quest.
Jay was the one who had some qualms, mostly about the vampire nuzzling at his neck and not-so-idly recalling their first conversation.
Was it was safer to give a little blood and risk being weaker in the morning, or to leave the vampire hungry? This is only the first night. What about tomorrow?
“Fire is bound in blood, but earth is bound in flesh,” Rikai said, making Jay jump. “I can’t entirely block the blood-hunger, because that comes from Leona’s seeking power, but all he needs to be able to sustain himself is to be able to touch you, as he is now.” That was … unsettling. Rikai added, “He should not be able to draw enough power from you to be a danger, but I will keep watch just in case.”
And you care so much about my well-being. Rikai kept Jay with them for the same reason she tolerated Brina: she thought he would be useful. Knowing that wasn’t the same as actually trusting her.
A restless night led into an even longer day in which their off-trail hike became increasingly challenging. Jay’s irritation only grew as his foot skidded on an ice-slicked rock and he fell into a winter-stripped thornbush.
As he extracted himself, he felt a burst of triumph from Brina. Throwing herself down to look more closely at the bush, she exclaimed, “Look!”
She frowned up at them all when they failed to respond, and then touched a reddish bulb growing at the end of one branch. “Rose hips,” she said, as if that should have been sufficient explanation.
“Are you craving tea?” Rikai snapped. Rose hips were the fruit left behind after a rose’s blooms fell.
Brina stood up and announced, with what sounded like genuine disappointment, “It took Rhok nearly a century to breed a rose that blooms so dark it appears black to human eyes, and you look at it like it’s a dead bush.”
“It isn’t blooming at the moment,” Xeke pointed out.
“And it hasn’t been eaten,” Jay replied as he examined the bush more closely. Long-stemmed formal roses generally couldn’t survive in darkly canopied forests. This one not only had, but the rose’s fruit hadn’t been touched by any of the numerous animals who should have enjoyed it as a delicious snack.
“Silver’s line is the one known for black roses,” Xeke said.
“When Silver’s line took over after Midnight’s fall, they made the symbol their own,” Brina replied. “I know this place. See these stones, here, and here?” It took a great deal of imagination to see anything more than random rocks strewn amidst trees and brush, but Brina recognized something, and through her Jay could see the plaza that had once been in that place.
“This was a freeblood market,” Brina said, one gloved hand lingering on a stone with faint vestiges of etched letters, its message long lost to lichen and moss. “All the shapeshifter nations traded their best goods here. We should be less than a day from Midnight proper.” With a slight pout, she added, “There used to be a road.”
“Well, there’s no road now,” Jay replied, more sharply than he’d intended. He glanced down at the stupid GPS, which informed him that they had overshot their destination … suggesting that the coordinates they were using hadn’t been correct in the first place.
“Let’s try that path,” Xeke suggested, pointing.
“That’s a deer trail,” Rikai replied.
Jay turned toward the unremarkable break in the woods. He wouldn’t have noticed it if the vampire hadn’t pointed it out first, and it still didn’t seem a likely prospect. It wasn’t even going in the right direction.
Lynx gave him a mental poke, saying, You don’t know where you are or where you’re going. How can a direction be wrong?
Pondering that insight, Jay stepped closer, and realized the path was wider than he had first thought. The closer he moved to it, the more he realized his eyes were playing tricks on him. This wasn’t a deer trail.
“I think we’ve found your road,” Jay said to Brina. “Xeke, I’m going to need you to tell me if you see forks … or anything dangerous, come to think of it. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you saw this and I didn’t.”
“Where—” Rikai paused, closed her eyes, and tilted her head as if