Page 57 of Nightshade

I forced a dry swallow. “I should go,” I whispered.

“No!” he clutched me closer.

I’d expected his refusal, but it was Viktor’s annoyed eyeroll that caught my attention. “There’s no sense in that,” he snipped. “You leaving won’t guarantee Ivan leaves us alone, especially if he thinks we helped you. He’s a fucking sadist.” The way Viktor’s gaze darted to his brother made my stomach clench. “If he thinks coming here has the slightest chance of hurting you, we’ll be seeing him.”

Katya had pulled over a stool and was sitting beside Tristan, bandaging his bite, but Tristan was blinking at me. “You really have them fooled, don’t you?” He looked up at Viktor and Aleks. “They don’t have feelings. You know that, right?”

I sucked in my cheeks and stared down at Leo’s hand around mine. He wasn’t exactly wrong. It was easier to get by, when you didn’t feel.

Aleks scoffed. “Coming from a guy who’d call us beasts? Forgive me if I don’t take you as an authority on anything.”

“You saw how fast he killed Kate. You don’t watch him, and he’ll do the same to any of you.”

My lap was rumbling, and I didn’t know why at first, but then I saw Evie’s lips pull back from her fangs.

Cash snorted. “Fuck what you and your disgusting coven think you know. You had a vampire locked against his will for decades and you’re shocked he didn’t let you in as a confidant? You’re just a bunch of users, and you’re lucky we haven’t rolled over your pathetic group and wiped you out already.”

Until that moment, Cash had struck me as someone meek and afraid, but there was a seething fury in him beneath all that. He was indignant, and whether or not he liked me, I ranked well above the witches.

“If it comes down to my life or some witch who is attacking me,” I admitted. “I’m going to protect myself.”

“And if it came down to choosing between your life and Leo’s?” Viktor shot back, glaring my way again.

I bristled. I didn’t want to think about that.

“Back off, Viktor,” Leo said. “We haven’t known each other that long. That’s an insane thing to ask.”

“You put your life on the line for him,” Viktor said, “regularly.”

I nodded. He did. Even when I attacked him, he offered to let me bite him. “He’s right. I—I don’t want to hurt you. Or for you to get hurt because of me.”

Leo’s expression went soft, and he squeezed my hand. “That’s enough for me.”

Aleks rubbed both his palms over his face for a second. When he dropped his arms, he looked exhausted. “I get why you didn’t tell us about Ivan before, but Altair, if we’re going to work together, you have to let us in. Is there anything else you’re not telling us that might affect the pack?”

I shook my head. “Not that I can think of. I didn’t know Ivan would come here. I didn’t know he was thinking about me at all until I heard the witches in the woods, and I didn’t think—” I swallowed. “I didn’t think you’d let me stay if you knew I might bring more trouble.”

Viktor’s next breath escaped through his teeth, hissing. “We shouldn’t have.”

“Vitya,” Katya said, a warning note in her voice.

He shrugged. “The witch is right—next to Ivan, Altair’s harmless.”

I couldn’t argue that. Guilt rolling through me, I stared down at my lap, at Leo’s steady hand curled around mine. “Ivan’s ancient. The older a vampire is, the more powerful they tend to be, but Ivan was . . . particularly skilled. I know why he killed me, but I don’t know why he decided to keep me.”

“Why did he kill you?” Leo asked, choked.

My lips twisted into a sad smile. “I was willing. Not to die, but . . . Ivan sets his traps with honey. I was young and naive. I thought it was just a tryst, but he—I didn’t make it out of his bed alive.”

“But you drank his blood,” Viktor said.

“I did. He said I’d live forever, stay beautiful, and I—” I hadn’t let myself think about this in so long. It was hard to go back and hold onto the way I’d felt that night. I’d spent years building up layers of defenses. “I was afraid. There was so much blood, and I didn’t want to die. I thought if I did what he said he’d . . . I thought he’d stop.”

Viktor stared at me. “But Ivan never stops.”

His eyes were flat. He was struggling to tamp down something, just as I was. And that, more than anything, convinced me that we weren’t lucky enough for this to be a different vampire.

Viktor knew my sire precisely as he was.