Page 79

“She is half Infernarus, half human.”

It took the hunter a second to react. His nostrils flared. “That ... can happen?” He looked repulsed by the notion.

“Yes,” I said, trying not to be offended. The Infernari I lived with found the idea almost equally disturbing. But other clans believed it natural, especially now that our numbers had been decimated.

“She’s not bound by the same oaths that we are,” I added. “And she does not carry the same grudges we do.”

Asher stewed... and stewed.

He eyed me. “If thisfriendof yours doesn’t deliver on her end, I want my blood back.”

“Agreed.”

He lightly thumped the wheel with his palm as he deliberated, that strong jaw clenching and unclenching. He knew my own word was as good as law.

Eventually, muttering to himself, he turned off the car and threw his door open. I tensed, not knowing what he was doing. A moment later he opened the door behind his driver’s seat. Leaning in, he began to rummage through a black canvas bag. I heard a clinking sound, and then he was zipping up the bag and returning to his seat.

Gruffly, he handed me a wicked-looking hunting knife and a small glass vial. “Get it over with before I change my mind.”

I stared down at the items in shock. A large part of me hadn’t believed he would go for this.

I didn’t want to think too hard about why a man like Asher carried around small, empty vials. It seemed to me more malicious than the knife.

And the knife, oh, the knife. I wanted to run my fingers along the sharp edge until I felt the bite of pain and the burn of magic in my veins.

“Your arm,” I said, setting the vial aside for the moment.

Grimacing, he laid his forearm over the center console.

I grasped his wrist. He jolted at the touch, then before my eyes the straining muscles of his forearm relaxed.

A forbidden warmth spread through my stomach when I saw our skin pressed together. I hadn’t touched a human man like this.

I traced Asher’s veins with my fingers. They stood out starkly against his tan skin, the thick, corded bans of muscle in his arms pressing them close to the surface.

“Faster, Lana,” he said, impatience lacing his voice.

“The location of the cut is important,” I said.

“Important for what?”

Potency. But I didn’t dare tell him that. Humans had choice cuts of meat. Infernari had choice cuts of blood. Of course, we rarely got to be picky these days.

My fingers stopped at a location where Asher’s veins made a diamond shape.

Here.

My hair was beginning to lift.

I began to murmur, thanking the Mother in the Old Tongue for the lifeblood as I pressed the edge of the hunting knife to Asher’s skin, the contact so light it raised his gooseflesh.

My eyes rose to Asher’s and there they stayed locked. His deep brown eyes bore down on me, his striking face unhappy. I could’ve sworn I saw fear at the back of his gaze.

With a swift flick of my wrist, I slashed the knife across his flesh. The vial was in my hand before the first bead of blood trickled down his forearm. Asher’s mouth was a hard tight line as I touched the glass to his skin and collected the liquid.

I captured almost all of the blood in the vial, then corked it.

Asher ripped off the sleeve of his shirt and used it to staunch the blood flow. Taking the knife from me, he wiped it too off on the material.