Warsinger by James Baldwin (most important books of all time txt) 📕

back to her troops, reassuring them as she patted Karalti on the back like a baby. The dragon wrapped her legs around Suri’s thighs and burrowed her face into her shoulder, cheeping like an overgrown chick.

“Achha? Kharōkhara?” the woman at the front of the gang of prisoners asked.

“Hōya, sarva kathi tiki ahe.” Suri wagged her head, the Indian-style nod that meant nothing and everything at the same time. “Sorry, Hector. Just letting her know everything’s alright.”

“Suri. Thank god. Are you okay?” I stopped just in front of her, and took a moment to hover my hands just over her arms. Suri’s eyes reddened. She bit her lip and nodded, and I pulled her into a fierce embrace. For several long delirious seconds, we clung onto each other, barely daring to breathe in case the other pulled away.

“You always do that,” she said thickly. “Wait for me to give you the nod.”

I had to clear my throat to speak, and when I did, my voice was husky. “I know it means a lot to you.”

“Yeah. It does.” She was trying to keep it together, but now and then, a shiver passed through her body and into my hands. Her back felt like a washboard, it was so tight. “I wasn't sure you'd ever be able to find me.”

“Of course I found you, babe. I'm basically human herpes.” I pressed my lips to her forehead and breathed in deeply. She smelled like someone who'd been crawling around in a muddy shithole for two weeks, but under that was just her. Her skin, her hair, her perfume. Other than Karalti, it was the best smell in the world. “You'd have to die, like, fifty more times to throw us off the scent.”

She laughed, tried to stifle it, and failed. It came out as a giggle-snort. Her dark skin blushed a deep coppery red as she covered her mouth. “Oh jeez, this is just what you want to hear after searching for me for weeks. I'm, uh, not exactly the picture of grace and charm right now.”

“Of the two of us, I'm the one who should apologize for existing,” I replied. “Dick cheese and all.”

“Bloody hell.” She made a face and groaned, shoving me playfully. Suri was a min-maxer who trained her Strength and Stamina to obscene levels. A playful shove from her was kind of like a friendly nudge from a T. Rex. “Well, it's definitely you. No mistaking that sense of humor.”

“The Army trained me well.” I grinned without thinking. The expression froze on my face when Suri sucked in a sharp breath, staring at my new fangs. Oops. Shit.

“Hector… what happened to your teeth?” Her brow furrowed, and it was my turn to cover my mouth. I tried to take a step back, but Suri held onto my waist. She seemed to see me properly for the first time, lifting her hand to gently stroke the edges of my cheekbones, then down to my neck. She felt for my pulse, and pressed her lips in a thin line when she couldn't find it. “You’re cold. Were you...?”

My heart finally kicked, my pulse beating rapidly under her fingers. I averaged about one beat a minute now, so ‘rapid’ was about one thump every ten seconds. “Vampirized? Kind of. He tried, but the Mark of Matir fucked up the vampening process. I'm only half-dead. The technical term is 'Dampyr', but I have some PTSD around that word from bad online roleplaying, so I'm going to stick with ‘vampire half-blood’.”

The expression on her face was unnerving and unreadable. I hadn't felt this awkward since trying to ask a girl out to prom, and that was during the worst of my acne days.

“It's no big deal,” I laughed into the uncomfortable silence. “I just have to stay out of the sun, sleep in a big litterbox, drink a little blood now and then. Not your blood. Karalti has to donate to me anyway, because of the Dragon Bond requirements, so I just... uhh... take a little extra now. Like a chaser.”

Her brows furrowed. “Are you still alive?”

“Technically.”

“And we did defeat the Demon, right?”

“Yeah. I mean, we didn’t kill him but... yeah, we beat him.” I winked. “You got your arms wrapped around the Voivode of Myszno, baby.”

Before I could react, Suri pressed her body to mine and kissed me long and deep. It was the first time I'd kissed anyone since growing in the fangs, and I was conscious of them as her tongue danced over mine and found the razor-sharp point of a tooth.

“Mm!” She made a sound of surprise and pulled back, leaving a sweet iron tang in my mouth.

I tried to ignore the way my abnormally slow heartrate sped up to near-human levels at the taste of her blood. “Yeah, that's going to happen. Sorry. You okay?”

“I've had worse than a scratch before, lover boy.” Suri regarded me wryly. “Can’t fault you on your timing, though. Got a couple of rats to dig out of this hell-hole. You up for it?”

“I don’t want to shit on your parade, but we’ve got a big quest on a timer,” I said softly. “You and me both have to be in Taltos in seven hours.”

“Seven hours?” She squinted at me. “How the fuck are we going to get to Taltos in seven hours?”

“Karalti,” I said. “She can teleport now.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good.” Her lovely face hardened into a hawkish mask. “This place is gonna come down ‘round our ears in about twenty minutes, according to my quest timer here, but I’m not leaving this place until I get my hands on those motherfucking Wardens and pop their heads like a couple of pimples. How do you feel about running down about fifty gun-toting automatons and breaking into an Architect’s survival bunker to kidnap or kill 'em before we jump to Taltos?”

“Well, I got an erection while you were describing the mission parameters, so I guess that’s a…” I paused for effect. “Hard yes.”

“I hate you.”