Page 54 of Land of Shadow

I jolt awake. Valen stands over me, his eyes catlike in the gloom. I kick, pushing myself to a sitting position and yanking the blanket up, as if that could protect me from him. “You’re still here.”

“Observant as always.” He doesn’t move.

“You’re a monster.”

“Yes.”

Wariness intrudes on my grief as I push my back against the headboard. “Why?”

“You may have noticed that Gregor is keenly interested in your research.” He grabs the napkin from the tray and lays it across my lap. “I’m here to ensure you succeed. I’m also here to ensure you manage the information you’ve been given.” He’s business-like, cold. His urgent whispers from earlier about saving my life are gone, like a lover’s promise evaporating in morning sun.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that the more humans you tell about us, the more blood I’ll have on my hands. The knowledge you’re privy to has been closely guarded by my people for centuries. You know more about us than any human ever has. To Gregor, that makes you dangerous. It also makes the people you share that information with highly expendable.”

I don’t have to read between the lines to understand his threat. It’s right out in the open. If I tell anyone about the vampires, I’ll be signing their death warrant.

“I haven’t told anyone anything.”

“I know.” He sighs as if disappointed. “Your labmates are still alive … For now.”

“You’d kill them? You’d take their lives like it was nothing?”

“Gregor would order it, and I would do it. Yes.”

“So, you’re his attack dog?”

He grins—are his canines longer now? “More like a guard dog.”

An idea surfaces. “I’ve seen you out in the sunlight.”

He plucks the tray up and places it on my lap, the cold soup untouched. “Eat.”

“I thought vampires couldn’t go in the sun.”

“You’ve thought about vampires much, have you?” His arrogant tone reignites my anger, but I tamp it down. I have to. If I’m going to get out of this, to save my sister and the others, I have to learn more. Valen is my only contact with them, the only way I can get information on whatever the hell they are. The only way I can figure out how to kill them.

“Why are you here?” I ask again. “I doubt it’s to make sure I’m fed and tucked in.” I study him, the way he stands—seemingly at ease, but only in the way a loaded gun is at ease. It just takes a pull of the trigger to be deadly.

“Quite right.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m here to make sure you find the cure and save your people.”

“You mean saveyourpeople.”

His nostrils flare slightly. “All is one. Now eat.”

“You let her die.” I stare up at him. “You let him kill her. You did nothing. She was innocent. An old woman. You could have helped. She?—”

“And?” He leans down, his gaze holding the force of a touch. “Do you truly believe I’ve never taken an innocent life?”

I swallow hard.

His voice carries a chill that I feel in my bones. “I’ve killed countless humans.Countless. And it wasn’t a problem until you chimpanzees decided to meddle in designer viruses and created the plague. Now it is. Now we must survive in spite of you, not because of you.” He glances at my throat.

I cringe back from him, the tray shifting in my lap.

He grabs it with a quickness I can’t track and returns it to the nightstand. “You will eat, and you will take care of yourself.”

“Or what?” I hate the way my chin trembles. “You’ll rip my throat out, too?”

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