Page 49 of Never Run from an Immortal

Rae took a step closer, and her heart stuttered. The mother was dead. She sucked in a breath and the little rutok’s eyes shot open wide, huge ears darting up in alarm before slamming over his eyes as if he could make himself disappear.

“It’s okay,” Rae murmured softly. “I won’t hurt you.”

She opened the cage and let the door swing open. The cub lifted an ear, a round black eye looking up at her, then the other. “It’s okay,” she said again. She rested a hand at the edge of thecage but didn’t reach out for it. This young, they looked like cute little fox cubs, but they had a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, and Rae wasn’t looking to lose any fingers. The sound of metal on metal pulled her attention, and she glanced over her shoulder to see some of the litter trays emptying in the cages opposite as a wet nose pressed against her thumb.

She turned back to the rutok, barely bigger than her hand, its five tails spiralling around each other almost larger than the rest of its body. It rolled onto its back, paws in the air, and made a small sound, then turned back, gently nudging its lifeless mother and whimpering.

“I know,” Rae told it. “I’m sorry she’s gone.” She had nothing to offer it other than Aidan’s manor, which was a great deal better than a cage, if only a larger one. “Want to get out of here?” she asked, taking a step back, but the rutok merely settled in against its mother once more, black eyes never leaving Rae.

Light glinted off the corner of the cage, and again Rae looked over a shoulder, taking in the way the sun shone through the high windows.Sunlight.Aidan. She made to leave, but the rutok huffed at her, not quite a bark, but something close. “I’ve got to go. Last chance,” she told it. And with that, the rutok bounded over, scrambled up her arm, and settled into the crook of her neck.

Rae huffed a laugh as she reached for it, racing back out into the corridor and bursting into the break room only to find Aidan in the same position she’d left him, a slice of sunlight on his cheek and across his perfectly sculpted chest, causing him no harm whatsoever. “What the fuck?”

“Hello, Witch,” Aidan murmured, eyes fluttering open, unperturbed.

“Imagine my panic,” Rae said, her heart a heavy drum in her chest, the rutok’s five tails winding through her fingers where she cradled it in her hands, “when I realised the sun hadrounded the building as it sets. Only to find you sunbathing like you’ve done it every fucking day of your life.”

Aidan raised a hand until it caught the light from the window opposite, turned his palm as if it was a surprise, and clicked his tongue. Then his eyes narrowed. “Is that ball of fluff supposed to be a rutok?”

“Don’t deflect, Vale. I want an answer.” There would be riots if this was made public, yet something told Rae he wouldn’t have let her see this,knowthis, by mistake.

Aidan merely shrugged. “I’m a half-breed.”

A choked laugh escaped Rae, the rutok clambering up her arm to the crook of her neck again as she rested against the counter, folding her arms across her chest. The Vampire Lord, a half-breed. Impurities in Vampire lines were not tolerated. Half-breeds were unheard of. But a Vampire that could walk in daylight... impossible. Not to mention the power he was giving her by handing over this information.

“Witch?” she asked, because it was the only question she could think of.

“Fae.” She hadn’t expected an answer, let alone an honest one.

He was watching her closely, but he wasn’t trying to get into her thoughts. Rae knew she was giving enough away—her surprise, her confusion; he must have been able to taste her shock in the air. “Who else knows? Baelin?”

“No one knows.”

Rae had to look away at that. Suddenly his gaze felt too heavy, too close. “Why are you telling me this?”

He stretched, muscles pulling taught before he uncurled to his feet, mirroring her stance on the wall opposite and fastening his hair into a knot. “To earn your trust. I’ve been trying to control the Vampires because I want to bring control to Demesia. Not because I want to controlit.” It’s as if everyone has forgottenthat there’s life outside of fighting, he’d said that first night in his manor.

“Something better,” Rae murmured.

He nodded.

“And because you want your magic back.”

Another nod. She’d get him back his magic. If she could time it right, she’d afford him one last night with it before she collapsed Demesia’s ley lines and nullified magic across the city. She owed him that much.

“Who did that to you?” Aidan asked, jerking his chin at the scars along her arm where the rutok played, tails spiralling around her wrist.

A male, she realised as he rolled and twisted, happy little noises escaping him now and then. “You first.” She held Aidan’s stare and made sure he saw the challenge in them. It would take more than one secret to earn her trust.

Aidan didn’t seem concerned. “I was too difficult a secret to conceal. My father was killed by the Fae for what he’d done, and my mother was forced to give me to my uncle for protection.”

There was so much wrong with that simple statement. “And instead he did that,” Rae said, jerking her chin as he had.

Aidan nodded. “Lessons, he called them,” taking in the scars along one arm. “Some took longer to learn than others, but as I got older, I understood he did it because he was afraid.”

“That you would be more powerful than him?”

“That I already was. He thought if he ruined me, I’d never realise my potential.” He dragged a hand through his hair, though it did little to tame it. “His poor judgement worked in my favour.” The thin beam of sunlight had slowly moved across his chest since their conversation began, and Rae realised he probably didn’t get much opportunity to enjoy it.

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