Page 117 of Kingdoms of Night

“The drinking kind are a bit easier. You’re a good fighter. And apparently devourer of wyrms. Are you feeling all right today?”

His gaze dropped to his stomach momentarily. “Not like I’m going to die. So that’s good.”

“It is.” She adjusted one of her earrings and then fixed the strap of her bag. “This is all much easier if you aren’t dead.”

“Werewolves are hard to kill. Most can’t die even if they really want to.” He squinted as he studied her. “You didn’t seem afraid that I was a werewolf. Most people are.”

“Not sure why I would be. Wolves are susceptible to poison like anyone else.”

“Werewolves are immune to most poisons.”

“Hmmm.” She weighed this. There were of course many poisons out there as well as venoms and neurotoxins. Who knew what all lay within this world? There was so much yet to discover. “Well, even so, I’ve got other tricks. As long as we don’t try to arm wrestle, I’ll figure something out. People can be dangerous on their own in lots of different ways. Best to assume everyone can kill you or hurt you or make your life hard.” She shifted the bag’s strap on her shoulder.

“Do you want me to carry that?” He gestured toward it.

“I’m good. But thank you. It’s kind of you to offer.” She offered a smile, her hand still clutching the worn leather strap. If she didn’t know better, she could have sworn that he blushed again.

“If you change your mind, tell me. Do you have werewolves in your world?”

“Shifters who become wolves like yours but also other things. Most of them are much bigger than humans or Unatos. I’ve heard that there may be some humans and some magic out there who can change what they are with different venoms and such, but I’ve never met anyone who could. That’s part of the Forbidden Arts because it always involves harming someone. I don’t know if yours is the same.”

His face went slack, and he stared into space for a while. “I don’t know about others, but for my part, I didn’t ask to be bitten. Up until then, it was only a myth to me, like the fever that sets in after a bite, and kills nearly everyone. Everyone but me, I guess.”

The way he said it sounded like that had almost been preferable. “Why were you bitten?”

He exhaled lengthily, his eyes pensive. “Who knows. I don’t think much about it, because it won’t change anything. It doesn’t change the beast inside of me now.”

“I don’t think those who can change are bad just because they can change or become beastly. If they’re bad, they’re bad because they are bad. Or they lost their minds, in which case, they aren’t bad but sick.” Oh, very articulate. She pressed her lips in a tight line. Maybe if she didn’t look into his eyes, it would be easier.

He glanced at her sidelong, his eyes dancing. “And you aren’t afraid I’m a bad man? I could be. Secretly.”

“You may be grumpy, Kopo. But you aren’t a bad man. I’d stake my life on it.” She laughed then. “I guess in a real sense, I have.”

A bit of a smile curled over his mouth, turning up his lips handsomely. “So you can tell bad men on sight?”

“When you work with venom, you develop a sense about these sorts of things. And people can be prickly and grouchy without being bad. Same goes for wanting to be alone. I know I get that way often enough. So, not always. But I can sometimes tell if someone isn’t a bad person. And you definitely aren’t a bad person.”

“I have to ask...” The pause grew awkward, as if he struggled to find the words. “Youcancount, can’t you?”

Laughing, she shook her head. “Of course I can. Last night—”

She adjusted her braids and smoothed the pins back in. “When I was little, sometimes my family would go on long walks for certain rituals and events. They were very long. And one time we got off the main trail. I was with my uncles and some of my cousins. It felt as if we had been walking for forever. So to distract us, one of my uncles had us count our steps, but he kept interrupting us and miscounting and pretending he didn’t understand.

“Of course he knew how to count. He was an adult. We kept trying to prove he was wrong, but he just kept teasing us and messing up the numbers. Then, somehow, it was all over. We’d gotten so carried away trying to prove we were right and he was wrong and that we could count, that we forgot how tired our feet were and how long we had to go. Granted, you were a far friendlier participant than we were. We all became incensed at just the suggestion we didn’t know how to count.”

He laughed, the sound warm and pleasant, making her stomach tighten again. “It is a little alarming. I don’t know what scared me more, the fact that I thought you might not be able to count or that I couldn’t.”

“I’d say we can both count.” She gave him a coy smile, then turned her face back to the path ahead of them.

“You can probably count higher than me.”

The way he said it—a sort of sadness underpinned the words. As if maybe it embarrassed him.

“You fight much better than me. And turn into a wolf better.”

That earned another laugh. “You bring up more plants than me. I just plant them and hope they come up in a few weeks. Can you do rye? Or flax?”

“Sometimes. It isn’t as easy as some of the others.”

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