He didn’t finish the sentence. Then again, as candles flared in a broad circle around a natural spring, he didn’t have to.
“Oh . . . my God,” she whispered.
From somewhere in the ceiling, a natural flow of water dropped into a ten-foot-wide pool, some kind of heat vent down in the natural basin bubbling the clear water and causing steam to rise up.
“I thought you might like it here.” He put the bundle down. “So, yes. At any rate.”
He sat on the smooth back of an enormous boulder, unpacking bread and what looked like cheese. There was also an old-fashioned milk bottle filled with something the color of a red poker chip.
“This is not fancy,” he said, “but you can have it all.”
Nyx approached him and lowered herself onto the granite “sofa.” “What about you?”
“I can find more for me. It’s more important for you to be strong.”
He leaned to the side and took something out of a hip pocket. Flipping the cloth free of its folds, he made a little table and then laid out the picnic.
“I wish I had something better to offer.” He opened the glass bottle. “This tastes wretched, but it has singlehandedly kept me from getting scurvy.”
He took a deep drink and swallowed. As he closed his eyes, she thought it was a little odd that he was savoring the stuff as if it were wine—
His lids flipped up. “It’s safe.”
“Safe?”
“Untampered with.” He offered the drink to her. “I didn’t make it, so I have to be sure it’s okay for you.”
Nyx took the glass container, her fingers brushing his. “Thank you.”
He nodded and then tore off a piece from the loaf. As he chewed, he closed his eyes again. Then he did the same with the cheese.
“This is all safe as well.”
Putting her lips to the open neck of the container, she had a thought that his mouth had been where hers was now—and that really shouldn’t have mattered.
As she took a test taste, she frowned and looked at the red liquid. “This is Kool-Aid. Or at least that’s what it tastes like.”
“What is that?”
“I’m not sure whether this has any vitamins in it.” She drank some more. “But it’s good.”
Funny how everything was relative. Back home, she would have given the swill a solid pass. Down here? It was strangely comforting.
“I haven’t had this since back in the seventies,” she murmured. “I used to make it for Posie before her transition.”
“Another sister?”
“Yes, the youngest in the family. Do you want some more of this?”
“No, it’s all for you.”
“I’m willing to share.”
When he just leaned back on the rock wall and extended his long legs, she shrugged and finished what was there. Then she hit the bread, which had been baked fresh and tasted pretty damn good, and the cheese, which had almost no taste but was definitely not spoiled. She ate fast, her hunger much sharper than she’d thought.
Then again, the sense of imminent danger made her feel like she could be interrupted, in a bad way, at any second.
And then the food was gone.
Nyx shifted her eyes to the swirling water because things got too intense when she was looking at him. But as the silence went on, she had to glance over at the male.
His eyes were closed, his breathing even. But he wasn’t asleep.
“Finished?” he said softly.
“Yes.”
His lids opened, but not very far, that vivid blue stare glowing.
“How many people know about this place?” she heard herself ask.
Why does that matter, she thought. Even though she knew exactly why she was making the inquiry.
“Kane and Lucan. Two others. But they won’t come here. I told them to stay out.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Why do you think.”
The female—Nyx—looked to the falling water again, and as the Jackal recognized where her eyes were, he also knew where her thoughts had gone. She didn’t want to speak them out loud, and he respected that, but her scent was giving her away.
“No one will come here. You’re safe,” he said.
“I don’t feel safe.”
“You have your weapons.” He thought of Lucan. “And I’ve seen you use them.”
“I didn’t cut that male.”
“You would have if he’d moved.”
“True.” Her eyes returned to his own. “What is he?”
The Jackal debated playing dumb, but just shook his head instead. “That’s his story to tell, not mine.”
“So he’s not just a vampire.”
“Not my story.” He let his stare drift down to her lips. “Do you want to get into the water?”
“Are you going to stay here?”
“I’ll give you my back. If you want it.”
As he waited for her response, he reminded himself what this was all about. They were using each other, and it was a relief to set those boundaries. Meanwhile, inside his body, down to his very marrow, things stirred, things he had not felt in so long that he had come to believe and accept that they had been killed, casualties of his prison experience. This female had proved otherwise, and he was not losing the opportunity. But more than that, there was the satisfaction that in laying with her, he would hurt another, hurt the one who had done such damage to him. Even if he was the only one who knew it—and he was going to have to keep it that way—the rebalance of power, the reclamation of his autonomy, was nourishment to his blackened soul.