“Not talking about that kind of food, lady.”
“Then wh—” Marley trailed off, as the man used his thumb and forefinger to open one of Ian’s eyes. One of his glowing, silver eyes. Her mind flashed to another set of luminous eyes, a set of sharp teeth, gone in a blink. Daddy. Not a dream. Reality.
She felt the floor beneath her tilt and grabbed for the nearest piece of furniture to keep from toppling. “He’s not human,” she mumbled, numb.
The commander shot her a surprised glance. “Well, I can see you two have bypassed some of the necessities in the get-to-know-you portion of being fugitives. If you’re going to scream or faint, then get on with it. Otherwise, I need your help.”
Marley’s spine stiffened. She was no weak-willed female unable to handle a shock. “What does he need?”
Please don’t say blood. Please don’t say blood.
“Emotion.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“He’s a wraith. He feeds on human emotion.”
“What is that? Some kind of psychic vampire?”
“He can explain the technicalities to you when he’s awake, if he so chooses. Are you going to help or not?”
Marley willed her legs into motion. “How? It’s not lik
e I can bottle what I feel and dump it down his throat.”
“Touch him. Wraiths feed through skin to skin contact.”
She thought of all those times her touch seemed to calm him. If he was somehow starving himself, that would explain a lot.
The commander backed up so she could perch on the sofa beside Ian. When he kept backing away, she asked, “Where are you going?”
“It isn’t safe for me to be here. I’m supposed to be on the other side of the world.”
“But I don’t know what I’m doing!”
“You’ll figure it out. When he wakes, tell Ian he is riven. This is no longer a matter of a single Hunter. There will be a squad sent after him. I’ll do what I can to slow them, to buy you both some time. But your mutual survival depends on him.”
“Wait!” called Marley. “Why are you doing this? Why help us?”
The commander edged back into the shadow of the staircase. “I’m repaying a debt. Now listen carefully. As soon as he’s conscious, you must make your way to the following coordinates.” He reeled off a series of numbers, made her repeat them.
“Why should I believe any of this? What’s there?”
“The truth about who you are.”
“I don’t understand. What do you—” But her words met an empty room. The commander was simply gone.
What kind of world had she fallen into?
Shifting her focus back to Ian, she wrapped a hand around his and laid her free hand over his heart. It beat slow and sluggish beneath her palm. His skin felt feverish to the touch. Feverish for a human anyway. The hand in hers was lax and unresponsive. Marley had no idea how to tell whether this was working at all or not. She gripped his fingers tighter.
“Ian, you’ve got to wake up. You’ve come with me this far. You can’t go dying on me now.”
Marley tried to imagine her emotions as some kind of life force, a river she could direct, like chi. She gathered every ounce of gratitude she had for what he’d done for her and tried to push it into him.
No response.
Maybe it wasn’t working because she wasn’t fully human. There was no time to think about or react to that. A little desperate, she pushed his shirt aside, wrapping her arm around his bare torso and pressing her cheek against his heart.