“Yes,” Paige said. “But we’re the ones at a disadvantage here. We’re on your turf while ours is burning, and the longer we’re away, the more it’ll burn.” Pointing to Milosh, she said, “I was with him in Atoka. Nadya and I were the ones to risk our asses running through a field of Full Bloods to keep him from turning into a Half Breed. If he can’t vouch for me after all of that, I don’t know what else you want from us.”
When Sophie looked over to him, it didn’t take long for Milosh to nod his approval. “My issue isn’t with you,” she said, “or Cole. It’s with the company you keep. We know you work with Nymar, and we can’t afford to have the American vampires infecting any more of ours with the Shadow Spore. For all we know, they could be watching you. Or,” she added while focusing on Waggoner, “using you as spies.”
“Having a bit of an uprising here, huh?” Cole chided. Although he’d thrown the comment out offhandedly, he could tell by the looks on the Amriany faces around him that he’d struck one hell of a nerve.
Sophie’s next words came very deliberately and weighed heavily as she spoke them. “The European Nymar have been taking lessons from the Americans. Already, several police officials as well as military personnel have been killed in a way that would implicate Amriany involvement.”
Paige chuckled. “Now there’s some classic sweet talk. So your Nymar are stepping out of line. That just means now is the time to act before things get as bad here as they are back home.”
“The Full Bloods were always going to return,” George said. “That’s never been a question. Esteban is only the first.”
“Which is why we all need to figure out a way to keep it from getting worse,” Paige insisted. “The Nymar can be dealt with just as long as there are people willing to take them on. Unless things change where the Full Bloods are concerned, we could be looking at extinction. Not just Skinners. Humans.”
Sophie placed a hand on the mantel, less than an inch away from the sword. After looking around to the other Amriany, she spoke a few words in their language, got a few words back from each one, then shifted her attention back to the Skinners. “You’ll have your meeting with the Chokesari.”
Cole let out a tired breath. It might have been a small victory, but it felt good to have one at all.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Amriany proved to be gracious hosts, offering their guests a place to sleep and food to eat. Due to the instant time change they’d experienced in their unusual travel method, the Skinners were barely able to fall asleep long enough for it to be considered a nap. The rest of the time was spent varnishing weapons, cleaning guns, and limbering up with the normal exercise routines. Paige mixed up some more healing serum and prepared a batch of the tattooing ink she’d invented. Even though Cole had given the stuff its first successful field test when fighting Lancroft, she was still unable to use it. Daniels couldn’t be sure if the good ink would interact with whatever remained of the bad ink that still might be trapped in her wounded arm, and she wasn’t about to risk it by being as impatient as he’d been when her arm was wounded in the first place.
Cole had just finished taking inventory on what Daniels sent along with him when he found Paige standing outside going through a series of steps with her weapons, intended to strengthen her arm. He stood behind her and to one side, taking in the sight of her lithe body going through its well-practiced motions against a backdrop of a red and orange sky. Being so far away from a big city, his breaths were like a spray of cold water cleaning the grit from lungs infected by too many years of urban living. “Tristan told me something interesting before we left,” he said.
Paige’s weapons were in their blunted form, but she swung them as if they’d sprouted the deadly blades that had cut short so many werewolves’ lives. “Let me guess. Pole climbing tips? Be sure to let me know when you’re gonna attempt that.”
“Not exactly. She told me not to let you feed me anymore. What’s that mean?”
Her next swing snapped to a sharp conclusion with the right-handed weapon pointing directly in front of her. “I’m not the one who said it, Cole.”
“But you know what it means.”
She resumed her exercises, launching into a series of circular swings that turned both weapons into a blur as they struck and parried an invisible opponent.
“Let me see your arm.”
It wasn’t an unfamiliar request, and Paige had long ago given up discouraging him from checking on her from time to time. Allowing her one-sided sparring match to point her in his direction, she extended her right arm and said, “It’s been doing a lot better ever since I’ve been able to get my weapon to make the right shape again. Maybe it’s got something to do with the Breaking Moon. Didn’t you say that Skinners draw from the Torva’ox too?”
Cole wasn’t interested in what she was saying and he didn’t bother looking at the arm she’d offered. “Not that arm.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the other one,” she said with a grin that dissolved as she took her arm back. Standing in a way that kept her left side away from him, she asked, “What’s this about?”
“I thought I’d just gotten used to the pain,” Cole said. “Thought I’d toughened up enough to keep it from bothering me.”
“You have toughened up,” she mused. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed, big boy.” He grabbed her wrist then. Though she pulled against his grip, it took her two tries to break lose. That meant he had indeed been toughening up. “Let go of me,” she snapped.
He felt the tendrils inside him constrict, which sent a jolt of adrenaline through his system, allowing him to snag her again. Knowing he wasn’t going to get much of a chance to examine her, he took advantage of this opportunity by twisting her arm so her wrist was exposed. There was nothing to mar her skin apart from a few little scars that had been there since a childhood run-in with a broken window.
“Happy?” she asked while pulling away and turning her back to him.
“You healed,” he told her. “And since you fought me so much just now, it means you were thinking there was a chance that I might have found something.” Walking around so he could see her face again, Cole asked, “What might I have found, Paige?”
She let out a strained breath. “There wasn’t much of a choice. It was either help you or let you feed the normal way.”
“What do I need help with? You know how much I like to eat.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about! I mean the shit inside of you that Hope’s Shadow Spore flunkie left behind.”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “I just needed to hear you say it. So,” he sighed, “you’ve been feeding me blood when I wasn’t looking?”
“When you’re asleep.”
“Please tell me it was your blood.”
“Yes,” she replied while looking down at her left wrist. “And usually from this arm. How’d you guess?”
“Because I know how you feel about the right. Even though it’s healing, you still look like you want to saw it off sometimes. I’d like to think you’d give me the good stuff instead of blood you might think is tainted somehow.”
“If the blood in my arm is tainted, it’s all tainted. It was a stupid idea to begin with.”
The sun crested the horizon and spread its rays out as if to embrace the landscape below. A cold wind sliced across Cole’s face, bringing with it the taste of fresh dew along with a harsh seasonal chill. “And what was your idea, exactly? Keep those things alive inside of me while I thought I was getting better?”
“I was keeping you alive, Cole. And in case you haven’t noticed, you weren’t getting any better.” Bringing up one of her weapons, she tightened her grip until the sickle blade formed into an implement she might use to take on a Full Blood. When she looked over at the weapon, it seemed as if the blade’s appearance was more of a surprise to her than it was to Cole. She snapped her arm down to send the weapon into the ground. A second later the other weapon was driven into the dirt directly beside it. “That wasn’t supposed to happen to you.”