“Then I suggest our primary goal now should be to catch the shooter and stay alive in the process.”
Alexia studied him a moment longer, green eyes slitted like those of a deceptively lazy cat. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”
They started back down the other side of the hill, Alexia taking the lead. There were no more shots, no sound but the typical movements of small mammals and leaves sighing in the evening breeze. The sun was beginning to set, and soon, Damon knew, he would have to rely on Alexia’s superior ability to see in the dark. Darketans were by no means night-blind like humans, but Opir-like night vision was one of the few advantages dhampires had over his kind.
But his advantages over her—greater speed and strength—would come into play sooner or later, if they remained together. And he would make sure they did.
Perhaps it was time for a little reinforcement of Alexia’s decision to work with him. He would do so by telling her part of the truth.
As they turned south, hiking parallel to the valley, Damon caught up with her.
“There is something I should have disclosed earlier,” he said.
She stopped abruptly, her hand moving to the strap of her rifle. “What is it?”
“It was not my idea to join forces,” he said. “I was instructed to contact and work with any Aegis agents I encountered in the area of the colony.”
Her hand remained on the strap. “The Council ordered it?” she asked, frowning.
“Why?”
“For the same reasons I gave you when we met. I would not be surprised if your own agency had some part in it.”
Her frown deepened. “We were given no such instructions.”
Damon had never thought they had, but he had succeeded in planting the idea in her mind.
“Would it shock you to learn that Aegis and the Council were already in contact regarding the colony?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “As much as it would shock me if you defected to our side.”
A palpable tension vibrated between them, in some ways not unlike what Damon had felt when she had lain in his arms. Her words were a challenge, one she didn’t expect him to take up, and yet there was an undercurrent beneath the flatness of her voice that hinted of a strange, almost wistful regret.
As if, secretly, she wished he would shock her by saying yes.
“You’re right,” he said, setting off again with a long, ground-eating stride. “It’s impossible.”
She caught up with him, matching his pace in spite of her smaller frame and shorter legs. “What gave you the idea they might be working together?” she demanded.
“It was only speculation,” he said. “And perhaps a little hope.”
“Hope? That your Council would want to work with my people beyond the bare minimum necessary to keep the Armistice? Why would that matter to you?”
He glanced down at her. “We should be quiet now, Agent Fox, unless we wish to tell our shooter we’re coming.”
Alexia offered no further conversation, but Damon sensed that she was thinking through what he’d told her. She would be wondering if her own government was, in fact, secretly conferring with his own without the knowledge of their citizens, their operatives, or those who would gladly revert to a state of war.
It might even be true. Damon was too far from the circles of Opir power to know for certain, and the Council had no earthly reason to confide such matters to a Darketan.
Their business concerned him only so far as it affected his work. And his promise to Eirene.
But he didn’t think it was impossible. And if there was some new rapprochement over the illegal colony, the Council would never allow the Enclave government to learn any secrets that would endanger Erebus.
The humans would know that. Just as Alexia did.
Listening intently, Damon slowed his pace as the sun sank behind the hills to the west.
Alexia took the lead again. The landscape darkened, the details blurring in Damon’s sight. Alexia moved with assurance, certain of her path as they descended into a narrow hollow between two low hills.
But it was Damon who sensed the attack. The snap of a single twig beneath a booted foot warned him an instant before the bullets began flying.
He was just a second too late to push Alexia out of the way. Several bullets tore into her shoulder in rapid succession, spinning her to the ground. She went limp, curled on her side with her red hair fanned around her head.
Swallowing a howl of protest, Damon knelt beside her, broke the strap of her rifle between his hands and brought the weapon into position, spraying the hillside above them.
A drift of unfamiliar scent behind him sent him skidding around on his knees to take aim at the second shooter, but he got off only a dozen shots before a single large projectile struck him full in the chest. He continued to fire, ignoring the black burst of pain that filled his lungs with blood and flame. He heard a faint grunt that told him one of his bullets had found a mark, and then the gunfire ceased.
Gasping for air, Damon crouched over Alexia and pivoted on his feet, doing his best to cover every possible angle of attack. None came. He and Alexia would have made easy prey, but their enemies were leaving them alone.
It would have made perfect sense, all part of the plan, if the ones he’d expected hadn’t tried to kill both him and the dhampir agent he was supposed to keep by his side.
Something was very, very wrong. And Damon’s ability to grasp what had happened was rapidly fading. One of his lungs was collapsed, and there was blood filling his chest cavity. He could recover in healing stasis, but it would take time, and once he was unconscious he would be unable to protect Alexia.
And he had to protect her. He couldn’t risk being held responsible for an Aegis agent’s death when the situation was so precarious. At another time, he might have let her die.
So he told himself.
With the last of his energy, he shrugged out of his pack, bent over Alexia and tried to assess the damage. She was rapidly losing blood, and her eyelids fluttered in semiconsciousness. Fighting off waves of nausea, Damon removed her pack, worked her jacket off and fumbled inside his pack for the field dressing every Darketan carried in the Zone. He tore open the waterproof packet and applied the treated bandage to her wound, fixing it in place with the attached strip of fabric.
He was forced to lift her body to remove her bandage, and it soon became apparent that the dressing wouldn’t be sufficient to stop the bleeding. There were still bullets inside her, and though they would eventually be pushed out by her healing flesh, she couldn’t afford to lose too much blood or she wouldn’t be able to heal. He rooted inside her pack, found her med kit and unwrapped her field dressing.
Hardly able to catch his breath, Damon applied the second dressing. Alexia’s blood soaked through it almost before he had finished. He yanked the tail of his shirt from the waistband of his pants, tore the bottom half of the shirt into wide strips and folded them together, pressing the makeshift bandage over the soaked field dressings. He knew he wouldn’t be able to maintain the pressure once he was out, so he lay across Alexia’s slender body, using his own weight to hold the bandages in place.
“Hold on, Alexia,” he whispered. “Hold on.”
Then the last of his air ran out.
Alexia woke to throbbing agony that centered in her right shoulder and numbed her arm all the way down to her fingertips. In a flash she remembered the attack, and the bullets that had slammed into her flesh. She knew she had fallen, shocked by the blinding pain and the impact, and then there had been some kind of movement, a voice.