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“Tell me.”
Her eyes snapped to his once more, with utter loathing at being forced to say the words aloud. “Because I didn’t want you to die, you ass.”
Hearing it struck him harder than he’d expected. The emotion laced along each of her clipped words was so raw it startled him. Niah had always been different. She and Sirus were like oil and water. His predecessor, Kane, had forced him to train her because of it—to break them both. It hadn’t worked.
Sirus sheathed his sword and reached down to help her up. She didn’t take his offered hand at first but ultimately accepted. He held her forearm after she rose to her feet. “We both drew blood,” he told her. “The challenge is satisfied.”
She narrowed her eyes. Niah had never witnessed a challenge of their clan, as they were quite rare, so he was not surprised that she was unschooled in all its particulars. “A challenge can be to the death or until both have drawn blood,” he explained. He knew she’d come into this fight prepared to die.
“Rath wouldn’t have relented if not for me,” Niah said again, to make sure he understood.
Sirus let out a deep breath through his nose and nodded. “We all made a choice that night,” he told her. “Including me. I am not sorry to be alive.” Her actions hadn’t cost him an honorable death or led to the end of the clan. Sirus had done that all on his own. The hypocrisy was not beyond him.
Niah eyed him skeptically. “Why did you agree to my challenge then?”
He cut her a look, and she recognized its meaning. Rath had been right; she’d needed to get this fight out of her system, and now that she had, she understood as well.
“You’ve improved,” he observed. In truth, he was quite impressed.
“Unlike Deckland, I have not been pissing away my time drinking and fucking,” she clipped with disdain.
Sirus hadn’t kept up with his brother since he left Volkov. He was disappointed to hear it, but not surprised. Deckland had left, making it fully clear he planned to enjoy what remained of his life, though Sirus doubted he was enjoying anything. Deckland did not like to be idle any more than the rest of them.
“And Sabien?” he pressed.
Niah’s face hardened. “I went to seek access to their archives. Sabien was not accommodating at first, but he came around. He wished to recruit me.”
Of course he had. Five of the remaining vampires belonged to the Clan of Serpents. Sabien had spent the last hundred years trying to pull under his leadership all who remained, to grow his ranks of assassins. He’d never had the gall to ask Sirus.
“I didn’t accept,” she pointed out for the sake of it, her own way of reminding him where her loyalties lay.
“And returning? How do you fare?” he asked.
She huffed. “It’s frustrating,” she admitted, as if getting the words out was painful. “To realize how much I missed this damned place.” Sirus watched her as she took in their surroundings. “How much I miss them.”
All their lost brothers and sisters.
“As do I,” he told her. Niah eyed him as if she wasn’t sure she believed him, but the fire in her pale green eyes seemed to calm the longer she held his gaze. “I am glad you are back,” he added. “It is good to have you home.”
Niah took in a sharp breath, her eyes widening a fraction at his words. Soon she let out the air from her lungs, and with it a weight he suspected she’d been carrying for a long time. “I’m glad to have returned,” she told him, the words clipped.
A silence fell, and an understanding seemed to be shared between them. A truce. A new beginning.
Niah walked over to his fallen sword, picked it up, and handed it to him. “Shall we commence training then? Tomorrow?”
It was her olive branch. Sirus nodded as he took the sword and sheathed it with the other. “You’re still too impulsive,” he critiqued, looking down at the cut across his stomach.
Niah cocked a brow. She only had one small cut at her neck, while his sweater was in tatters. “You’re still a nag,” she bit back, bending over to gather her karambit and several of her knives.
“That doesn’t make me wrong,” he pointed out.
She scowled as she stalked over to the rack that held the training weapons and fished out the lodged knife he’d deflected. Already he could sense her walls coming down. It was encouraging.
“You talked with Gwendolyn,” Niah threw out as she hunted the last few knives nearby. “How did it go?”
Sirus stiffened, not entirely sure how to answer. Not yet entirely comfortable speaking so candidly.
Niah turned to face him when he said nothing. “That well?” she prodded a bit too acutely.
