Those blood-red eyes rolled at my palpable horror. “Relax. It’s not human, just a stray deer.”

“You might have brought the deer back with you,” I groused. I scavenged what I could of plants when we walked, but I wasn’t confident I could tell nightshade berries from blueberries after all these years of rat soup, so my pickings were conservative. I’d never spent much time in the forest, and I didn’t have any cards imbued with healing magic. I was used to eating little. It didn’t stop my stomach from rumbling at the realization he’d had a deer, fresh meat, in his hands and just… left it wherever.

“Catch one yourself if you’re hungry,” was all he said.

But the next day, a rabbit, drained of blood, was by my head when I awoke.

I couldn’t force the words, Thank you, out of my mouth. Not even when he said nothing as I took the time to dress and cook the rabbit, eating my first real warm meal in years. I had no utensils, so I ate with my hands, crouched over the small fire I’d made to cook it on.

It was delicious. Tender and juicy. I gripped the food closer to my mouth. My mother would’ve been horrified. My stomach could scarcely believe it was properly eating and threatened to cramp, but I refused to stop.

Only when I was nearly done with the rabbit did I catch the vampire watching me. He leaned back against a tree, arms crossed over his bare chest. His white hair fell forward over his eyes, but I felt them acutely.

“You’d be a wonder with fangs,” he mused.

Was he mocking me? From a vampire, that was probably a compliment.

The thought of being turned into one of his kind made me lose the last remnants of my appetite. I buried the bones and covered the fire. The forest was colder at night, so it was good to move. We had no spare clothing, no layers. We were lucky we’d avoided any bad weather.

The food in my stomach put a spring in my step, even if the sensation of being full was disorienting. I wasn’t exactly sure how far away Apante was. I hadn’t seen so much as a map since I was a small child. The only thing I was confident in was that we were going north since Phrygia and Lagina were at our back.

The night we’d escaped had been a fever dream. The next few nights were, too, as if things were half-happening to another person while I watched. Now, the haze seemed to settle. I had escaped Greymere. I was traveling with a vampire. I had betrayed my country, resisted my sentence, and set free one of our mortal enemies. Even if I helped the vampire and then escaped to the farthest corner of the kingdom, I’d still be a criminal.

“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 impossibly painful. 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 up to 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.

I despised the shaking in my arm as I took the ointment back. The vampire turned wordlessly, point made. I settled behind him on the log. It was almost like the night I’d met him. Except this time, instead of obeying an order to deal with him while he was bound and powerless, I was choosing to heal him. And he was choosing to just… let me.

The copper cuffs I’d snagged sat heavy on my thigh. My one possible defense if he attacked me, though I was probably deluding myself in thinking I’d get a chance to use them. Maybe when he slept, if I needed to get away. But again, I was here by choice. I thought I’d fallen far when I was sentenced to serve at Greymere. Now, I was teamed up with the mortal enemy of all witchkind.

The antiseptic smell of the ointment tickled my nose as I opened the jar and dipped two fingers in. Once again, I started from the shoulder.

“Will we keep walking after I do this?” I was still anxious about the thought of the guards catching us. All it would take is one well-aimed arrow and I’d be dead. I didn’t have so much as a fortifying card, let alone any proper defensive ones.

“You can rest easy. If they find me, I’ll take care of them.”

Then more people would die because of me. Because I’d traded their lives for my freedom. An immoral choice, but it was impossible for me to pick anything other than survival.