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“Stop thinking so much. It’s distracting.”

I stumbled behind the vampire. I always walked two steps behind him. How could he tell what I was thinking?

“Can you read minds?” I asked.

He huffed. “I don’t need to read your mind to feel the cogs turning between your ears. Spit it out.”

I wasn’t about to confide in the vampire. Instead, I asked the other question on my mind. “Why isn’t your back healing?”

The skin was still ripped several days later. Scabs had started to form. There were blisters along his broad shoulders. Blood was caked around. It looked impossiblypainful. And since it didn’t feel right to walk side-by-side with the vampire, that had been my view for the past few days.

He turned back, an arched brow raised as if surprised this was my question.

“A few reasons. First, we’ve been walking during daylight hours to make up for the fact you’re so slow. If we limited ourselves to the cover of darkness, the guards would catch up in a heartbeat—if they’re foolish enough to pursue us, that is. It would take some horses soon to put proper distance between us and them. Even you must know the sun is no friend to vampires.”

So the sun did do more than just make him irritable. Good to know.

“Then there’s the animal blood.” He grimaced. “It’s not what we’re meant to eat. It’ll keep me alive, but little more.”

Meant to eat. Like it was natural to feed on people.

Why didn’t he try to bite me, then? There was nothing I could do to stop him.

That question, though, I kept to myself. I didn’t need to be giving the vampire any ideas.

“Would the salve help?”

He paused in his step, just slightly. So slightly that anyone watching less closely would have missed the moment of hesitation. For once, I’d truly surprised him instead of the other way around. “The salve… of course the salve would help. I’m healing like a cursed mortal at the moment. But unless you know how to make more…” He stopped and turned to me, his lips thinned in annoyance. “You took some with you?”

He read the answer on my face.

“By the blood, why didn’t you say something?”

I hadn’t said anything because I’d planned to keep it for myself, either to use or barter with when I reached a nearby town. But seeing him suffer like that, knowing it was due to my slow speed that he had to face the sun, made me feel guilty. “Does it matter? The point is, I do.”

“You should have told me,” he snarled, his fangs catching the glint of the moonlight. “I can’t protect you if I’m weak.”

Did he really expect me to believe my safety was his biggest concern? Besides, I’d seen how he’d dealt with the guards—saw it every night when I closed my eyes. Even weakened, he was a monster.

“We’ll stop here,” he announced.

It was early, for our standards anyway. Dawn was nearly an hour off. “Shouldn’t we keep going? You’re the one who keeps mentioning how slow we’re traveling. They’ll have horses.”

“Don’t pretend like you aren’t exhausted.”

“I’d rather be tired than dead,” I snapped. “Let’s keep going.”

The vampire sat on a fallen tree trunk, stretching his legs. From this angle, he was below me, tilting his head upto meet my gaze. Yet it still felt like he was looking down on a lowly human.

“I’m not going any farther until you put that salve on my back. And since you’re so twitchy, it’ll probably take you until dawn to work up the courage to do so, even though it’s in your best interest.”

Twitchy? Was that what he called having an extremely rational fear of creatures that could tear me limb from limb in a matter of seconds? I took the jar from my pocket and threw it right at his torso. He caught it instantly, not so much as flinching.

“Do it yourself.” Let him tend to his own wounds.

“Or,” he drawled, tossing the jar up and down as he considered me with those awful red eyes, “I could drink some of your blood and heal in an instant. Your choice.”

Since I’d rather turn myself over to the Crown than let the vampire feed on me, I chose the other option.