Page 31 of Collected By the Crow

“What? What is it?” She shoved past him to look at the samples. “Oh, shit.”

“The original strain reacts perfectly.” He gestured to an all clear sample. “But the variant was wildly different than my calculations. It rejected the original and has fought off all of my other potions.”

“What about this?” She tapped on the chalkboard.

“No.”

“What if we . . .” She scribbled an equation. “Hmm?”

“No.” He gestured to a group of samples.

“Well, if you’ve thought of everything, then why am I here?”

Qadaire’s shoulder twitched back. She grumbled an apology and tossed the chalk harshly onto the ridge. The top of her mouth was suddenly itchy. She smacked her slick palms against both of her thighs in turn and paced back around the table to check each of the samples under the microscope.

Then it came to her.

“The wolves around here. Do they always eat your prey when you’re done?”

“Often. Why?”

“Your venom! The wolves are exposed to it, and they don’t catch X-3. Could we extract only the healing agent?”

Qadaire was in front of her in a blur of gray and black, the energy around him radiating with anger. His top hands were fisted and his bottom left gripped the table with white knuckles, pointing his right index finger on the tabletop so strenuously that it appeared bent at the knuckle.

“You would have me experiment on animals like the mad king?”

“Obviously not!” She scoffed. “We would study it. Synthesize it. Test it in a controlled environment!”

He released the table and took a few steps back, his bottom arms crossing, his top two running roughly through his head feathers to tangle in his hair.

She tried to be patient while he ruminated. Tried to keep her cool. She really, really tried not to press the matter. But he was taking forever to decide on something that was so fucking obvious. Zero coughed.

“It’s nothing like what he made you do. If you’ve done all that, you can definitely use your venom for good, right? I mean, come on!” She gestured to Zero, who’d coughed himself into a fit.

If she’d thought he was angry before, he was a thousand times angrier now. She stubbornly stood by her hurtful words. Warmth crept up her neck as she held her ground against the powerful vampirewith more fists than any human man she might’ve pissed off in the past.

He didn’t hurt her. He stomped his taloned feet out the door, somehow retaining all the grace of an ancient being.

“Coward,” she muttered to herself. In her periphery, she saw him hesitate. Then he was gone.

Chapter Eighteen

Qadaire

Coward.

Qadaire dug his heel into the dirt and launched into the air.

How dare she? How dare she ask for his venom? The darkness possessed by vampires and other dark species was not something one played around with willy-nilly. It was dangerous.

Besides, the only way to coax it out would require her smooth, dainty skin be punctured by his fangs, and what if he couldn’t stop? He hadn’t had human blood in centuries!

What’s worse, his cock still ached from his accidental peek. He’d been practicing with his new guitar and needed to check whether she was still deeply asleep, or if he should put the guitar away to allow his fingers to heal. The sight of her with his pillow between her legs, her breath coming in little pants he knew to be hot against his neck, her hand on the button of her nerves—it had taken every fucking fiber of his willpower to cease the connection in time for it not to be considered spying.

He beat the wind with his wings, each pump making his muscles tense and release, tense and release. His cheeks hurt from scowling by the time he reached the friendly couple’s nest, where both mother and father were watching over the sleeping hatchlings. They bristled and shushed him at his brash perch on the branch. He adjusted his grip.

Their nest had two little ones and an unhatched egg, which Qadaire knew was from an extramarital pairing. Crows mated for life, but if the male became injured or unfertile, it was not uncommon for females to copulate with another male, whom they likely never saw again. The mated pair would care for all the young as their own. A beautiful example of unconditional love, it usually brought him a smidgen of happiness. Now it conjured only anguish.

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