Nightfallen

Epilogue

You're healing up fast," Jackson said.

Sucking on blood packets like they were juice boxes had sped up the process. "You too," I said, huddling on the dusty floor in his black coat.

Jackson had taken off his bloody T-shirt to examine his stomach and shoulder. His bayonet and saber wounds were now fresh, white skin. "Suppose I should thank you for that."

"My pleasure." And it had been. As with most of Jackson's modifications, the process that had changed him had been good but not great. He had some enhanced healing, but I'd helped, literally licking his wounds. The same effect that heals a victim's neck can go deeper, if you work it long enough.

We were beneath Ramsgate's upper quad, in its steam tunnels. We'd eventually made it to Jackson's jeep through the woods, and from there to campus. He had medical supplies in the backseat, including blood. It had been meant for an emergency self-transfusion for him, but I'd made good use of it.

"You know, this might have gone easier for you if you'd just brought some crosses," I said.

"Can't. Orders. Have to maintain my cover. Turned out to be the right call, since your sisters or girlfriends or whatever you want to call them lived to tell the tale."

"You even obey orders that will get you killed?" I asked.

"Men throughout history have." He looked at his watch. "Almost nighttime."

"Once the sun's down, I'll break into the campus store," I said. "Probably not a good idea to wander around campus naked. Then we can talk about what to do next."

"I won't hold you to helping me," he said.

That surprised me. "Why not?"

"Your sire's dead, so you're free. Not much incentive for you to stick around. Mission's going to be hard enough without wondering when you're going to turn on me, so I'd rather just get it over with. Besides, I owe you for cutting me free there at the end."

"And if I walk away now, what happens next time we meet?"

"One of us kills the other," he said. "It'd probably be sooner rather than later since, again, I have to keep my cover."

"Even without the threat, I'd rather stay with you, though."

"You things are all about self-interest. What am I not seeing here? What's in it for you now?"

In the jeep, I had explained to him that I'd been able to argue with my predator mind, to reason with it to allow me to disobey Nathan. But I hadn't told Jackson what my winning argument had been.

"We're also into deviancy. Betraying my own kind to help a rogue warrior whose own people dropped him into all this evil? Sounds hot."

He smiled. "Fair enough."

That was a lie, of course. Deviancy is cheap, easy to find. I was in this for something more.

Mypredator mind had said that Jackson could be King of the Nightfallen one day. Handsome,strong, and violent—how could I not want to be his queen?