his lips when our eyes meet.
“You should really get some sleep. I don’t think Ky will let me carry you if you fall behind tomorrow,” he says sarcastically.
The thought of Asher carrying me anywhere sends a frenzied fluttering feeling through my chest. I also smile at how quickly Ky and my mother would reject the notion.
My eyes roam over his arms that are corded in muscle, his handsome features shadowed in the moonlight. It’s like a picture ready to paint—the white of his shirt, the rushing water behind him, the crystal of the sword reflecting the pale light onto his face and against the uneven wall of the cliff, and the darkness of the world settling in around him.
He catches me staring again and shakes his head at me. I blush, thankful for the dim lighting.
“You don’t need sleep?” I ask in a small voice.
He shakes his head without looking at me. “Not as much as you. Hardly any at all, really. The physical appearance of a human with the attributes of a vampire.”
It occurs to me I’ve never seen an older hybrid. Most of the ones locked within the compound die … unnatural deaths. Will Asher live forever, out here in the wild, away from the testing of the compound?
“Will you age?”
He breathes out a short laugh.
“Your society should really educate you on other races. It’s unsafe not to know what is out there and what they’re capable of.”
He’s right. I know better than to trust the wisdom of our elders, the lies they tell to keep us within our villages.
“My strength and heightened senses are useless to time. My heart pounds, ticking with the hands of time, just like yours. I will age, reluctantly, a little slower than yourself, but I will age and I will die. I’m not immortal, just death defying,” he says with a wink.
Thinking of Asher as a human feels odd. He’s not immortal, he’s not human, but he’s somewhere right in the middle, toying with mortality.
He glances back at me out of the corner of his eye. “Tell me about your camp since you refuse to sleep,” he says.
My camp. I wonder how far from camp we really are. My home and my camp family have been left miles behind, and I haven’t really given them a second thought. My heart dips slightly at how easily I left it all behind.
“It’s pretty uneventful. A lot of working. Every day, really,” I say with a laugh.
He looks out into the darkness, not smiling with me. “Do you consider yourself a slave then?” he asks with seriousness.
A slave? We work with no pay, but it’s not like that. Our life has changed from how generations before us lived. There’s no poverty like I’m told there once was; people work for what they own. People are better provided for because of how our government is set up. There is no exchange for goods and services. Only rules and duties. And, in return, there is never the fear of starvation. We are cared for and lucky.
As long as you follow the rules.
“No, not at all. We’re provided with food and shelter, everything we need to survive, in exchange for the work we do. We are compensated.”
“Sounds like the compound without walls.”
I shake my head adamantly at him, and he raises his eyebrows at my denial. “So, you’re like a pet then?” he asks. “Fed and sheltered but with no say for yourself.”
His jaw tics in the moonlight and I shift into a less uncomfortable spot on my blanket. Anger now creases my face. The feeling simmers as I think. Why does he care how I live? I don’t need his judgment, especially for something he doesn’t understand.
“I’m no one’s pet,” I say in annoyance.
“I like the fight you have in you. The anger and strength you so rarely show.” His compliment catches me off guard but doesn’t diffuse the growing irritation in my chest. He bites back a smirk at my hostility. “Then explain it to me, Fallon.”
I take a breath and slowly release it to contain the scream I want to expel. Once I’m sure I can continue our hushed conversation without sounding like a crying child, I think through what life at camp really feels like.
“I think most people like this lifestyle, really, as strange as it is. There’s less worry, less stress. You don’t have to worry about whether you’ll get that job, or if your boyfriend will stick around, or if you’ll want