Chapter 4

Nightmares seep into my mind. Each scene acts like its own hand of darkness, spindly fingers curling around my thoughts and pushing them to a pit of quicksand. Since the war began, they've become a constant companion, holding me in their clutches until I find the courage to fight myself awake.

My eyes pop open. My heart pounds against my chest, a wild bird against its metal cage. Every breath comes out in a puff of frozen air. It dances above my mouth and floats towards the ceiling of the tent. No hints of sunlight have broken through the darkness, and I force myself into a sitting position.

Bogdan's red gaze immediately meet mine from the other side of the tent. Instead of lying beside me while I sleep, he's taken it upon himself to keep watch over Leo. My history professor's light snores ricochet through the silence of the small tent. For some reason, the sound is soothing. Normal. My muscles relax enough for my shoulders to sag with relief.

"Another nightmare, human?" Bogdan whispers.

I nod. "Worst one I've had in a while."

The cadence of Leo's snores become interrupted at the sound of my voice. Bogdan's brow creases into a frown until their rhythm normalizes once again.

"Will you be needing more sleep?" Bogdan asks after stretch of silence.

I shake my head a single time. He silently gets to his feet and walks over to me. The blow-up mattress dips to his weight as he takes a seat beside me. His scent fills the air around me, and the remaining angst knotted up my stomach quickly unravels.

"Traveling at night is better anyway," Bogdan murmurs.

"I'm ready when you are."

His red eyes flicker over to Leo and his jaw visibly tightens. "I've been paying close attention to his emotions, human. He is holding in a lot of anger."

I shrug. "He came from a place with a lot of anger. Besides, swallowing his pride and having to take orders from the vampire of his ex-lover doesn't exactly help things."

Bogdan cocks a brow. "The vampire of his ex-lover? Have you claimed me as your vampire, human?"

Despite the lack of emotion in his voice, I can see just a hint of amusement sparking to life in his blood-red eyes. I swallow hard. Bogdan knows how I feel about him. I've told him as much twice before. He doesn't feel the way I do, though. He's can't feel the way I do; yet another difference between the humans and the vampire species.

My emotions used to confuse him. Sometimes I think they still do. Now, however, I feel like what was once confusion is now morphing into amused curiosity. I gesture around the nearly-empty tent and give him a deadpan stare.

"As of right now, yes" I say. "But you don't exactly have much competition standing in your way considering we're in the middle of nowhere."

The edge of Bogdan's mouth twitches up into the beginning stages of a grin. An exceptionally loud snore slices through our moment of flirtation, and any semblance of happiness vanishes. Bogdan narrows his eyes on Leo. I've said it before, but if looks could kill, Leo would be long gone by now.

"Even if he's been honest up until this point," Bogdan mutters. "He has too much anger and bitterness inside him to be trusted. I've studied humans for decades. Emotions that strong are dangerous. Volatile."

"What are you suggesting?"

Bogdan keeps his eyes on Leo, and ever so gently picks up the map still splayed out across the floor of the tent. He noiselessly brings it closer to his face and studies the notes made by Leo just hours ago. His eyes stop on the area where Leo wrote his secret note to me about Kelly. The red blaze of his focus seems to burn holes through the thin material of the map, and I expect him to bring up the smudge of eraser around the middle.

But he doesn't.

I swallow hard and look away, almost ashamed by something that isn't my fault.

"We're leaving him here," Bogdan insists. "He's a loose cannon."

"If he gets out of hand, we can leave him somewhere else," I argue. "We can't leave him here. It's just...cruel. He'd never survive."

"Not my issue."

I sigh and run a hand through my disheveled hair. My fingers get caught at the knotted ends, and my eyes burn as I tug them free. We can't leave him behind. Even if he is a loose cannon, there's something Leo knows about Kelly that he didn't feel he could share with Bogdan around. Even if it's not a big deal to Bogdan, it's a big deal to me.

"There's nothing he can do to hurt you," I say.

The redness in Bogdan's eyes swirls with an abyss of black. It's the look he gets whenever he desires my blood, but I've noticed lately it also happens whenever he feels I'm in danger.

"It's not about me," he bites coldly in response.

I shudder at his tone. He's not worried about himself; he's worried about me. There's only been one other time where I was in danger and Bogdan wasn't around to save me. It's the first and only time I saw true emotion from him.

I remember Leo telling me that once a vampire tastes a Nirv's blood, it's the closest they can get to falling in love. They become dependent on it.

"I promise you, if he does anything that even gives me the slightest impression that he's out to hurt us, I'll tell you. Besides, you can sense his emotions around me," I counter.

"That doesn't help his case," Bogdan mutters.

I think about earlier and bite my lip to keep from smiling. "If he truly wanted to hurt me, or us, his emotions would stay on that course."

"Perhaps. Unless he's trained his mind enough to keep from showing his true emotions. It's hard to do, but I have no doubt it's possible."

I mull over Bogdan's words, but shake my head after a few minutes of deliberation.

"It might be possible," I say, "but there's really no way to master something like that so quickly. Even if that's what he was trying to do, he would slip soon enough."

"And if he does – "

"You have my permission to step in," I rush out. "No question."

Bogdan gives a final, fleeting glance towards Leo. As if on cue, Leo rolls onto his back and his snoring intensifies. The black in Bogdan's gaze swirls darker before subsiding altogether. What's left is red orbs even more menacing than they were just minutes ago.

"Wake him," Bogdan says. "And be ready to leave in an hour."

____________________________________________

I clutch the duffle bag to my chest as Bogdan races through the endless, frigid terrain. Cold wind slaps against my face, its fingernails of ice scraping against the soft flesh of my cheeks. Everything burns. I try to cover myself more with my jacket, but it just as quickly falls again.

My eyes water when I try to spot Leo behind us. He's keeping up – barely – with his electronic motorcycle. He must have done work on it before he started using it in the war, though. What was once a soft purr has now dissipated to silence. No wonder Bogdan never heard him approaching.

I close my eyes and lean into Bogdan's chest. This is the fastest we've ever traveled. Granted, he has a slightly smaller load since Leo offered to take the tent on the back of his bike, but to me it feels like we're moving way too fast.

Hours pass. The cool shadows of the evening give way to morning...and eventually the soft hues of morning change into the deep, rich tones of the evening. My stomach grumbles. I swallow down a dry mouthful of saliva and gently tug on Bogdan's arm.

He immediately comes to a stop and glances down at me with bright, red eyes.

"Mind if we stop for food?" I ask.

Bogdan nods and gently sets me on my feet. My arms feel stiff from holding onto the bag so tightly, and they ache with protest as I retract them away from my body. Because the two of us travel as much as we do, we came up with our own system. Instead of Bogdan wasting time stopping every hour to see if I need any breaks, I told him any time I needed to stop I'd just tell him.

It's worked out well so far, but today I went well past my hunger marker. But I did it for Bogdan. After hearing that Mark's group was following behind us yesterday, I knew that Bogdan would want to create as much space as possible between us and them.

So I let him.

I groan slightly as I take the first few steps. To my surprise, the stinging cold I expect to feel is gone. Completely. In its place, a gentle breeze softly moves along the contours of my face, urging me out of my thick winter coat.

"It's warm," I say, turning to Bogdan with a grin. "How far did we get?"

Leo's silent motorcycle sidles up beside the two of us. He pushes the kickstand into place and yanks his riding goggles away from his face. A red line has formed around the edges of his eyes, and he grimaces with pain as he hoists himself off the bike and into a standing position.

A few strands of his blonde hair fall in his eyes, and he pushes them away while slowly walking towards us.

"We done for the day?" he calls out to Bogdan.

Bogdan walks alongside me. He retrieves the map from his breast pocket and tosses it to Leo.

"We're in Criston," Bogdan states coldly, ignoring Leo's question. "Locate the nearest place where we might find food."

Leo catches the map and cocks a brow in surprise. Bogdan's tone is commanding and even. There's no room for argument. I suck my bottom lip into my mouth, hoping that Leo doesn't try to argue. My history professor narrows his eyes.

His gaze shifts over to me, and I know there's a pleading look in my eyes. If he says anything to push Bogdan, it will be reason enough for a fight to ensue. I know Bogdan doesn't trust Leo yet. I'm not sure I do, either. But fighting isn't the answer...especially when Bogdan and I need all the help we can get.

Leo works his jaw tighter as he slowly unfolds the map. He holds it up to the light, tilting his head to study the various notes he left for himself the night before.

"If we just travel about twenty more minutes east, we'll hit – "

"Drop it and put your hands in the air. Now."

The unfamiliar voice comes from behind us. Bogdan twirls around before the either of us get the chance. A woman standing a good fifty yards away has a gun cocked and ready to shoot.

Directly at me.

My heart slams against my chest. Obediently I raise my hand, and everything else around me becomes lost. She's going to shoot me. Blood pounds against my ears, and I swallow down tears of trepidation as they burn my throat.

How did she approach us without Bogdan hearing? How did she approach us without Bogdan smelling her scent?

But as the woman grins slowly, I notice the tips of fangs pushing past her lips. Her brown eyes show no remorse as she takes a step towards us. She's not a fully a vampire, but she's not a human either.

She's a Secondary.