Free The Night by Felicity Heaton Page B

found a tear slipping down her cheek.
    Zane reached out on instinct, only thinking to check his claws as the tear reached his fingertip. They were gone now, his fingernails returned to normal. The tear rolled onto the pad of his finger and he brought it to him, balanced carefully, a tiny glistening orb that clung to his skin as though it didn’t want to fall.
    “I need that.”
    Her voice was soft and he heard the clink of glass as she stepped towards him, so close that he could feel her warmth.
    He looked at the tear, raising it, and then glanced at her. “This?”
    She nodded and held a small phial out to him. It was filled with a rich red liquid that looked like blood. Taking her silent instruction, he carefully brought his finger over to the neck of the delicate bottle and let the tear fall. The liquid darkened to purple.
    As she moved over to her desk, he went to the window and opened the curtains. Darkness had fallen and he could see the first of the stars.
    “It will be a still night tonight,” she said without looking at him.
    “It is always a still night around here,” he replied and his eyes moved back to her. “And there is always a beautiful view of Syrinia from the front porch where the forest drops away into the valley. Why do you not go there? Why remain up here in the woods when the first kingdom is so close by?”
    She didn’t answer. She never did. He had tried so many times to get her to go to Syrinia, where she would be safer and surrounded by other magic users. Each time she had given him a solemn look and then continued with whatever she had been doing. The Waning Woods was no place for her. Couldn’t she see that? How many had he killed now to keep her safe? At least a dozen men had died by his hand, all of them bent on capturing her or murdering her because she was a witch. She needed the protection that the seal of the Tri-Kingdom could give her, and to get that, all she had to do was become a witch of Syrinia. He raised his right hand and looked at the mark on his palm, an intricate swirling pattern surrounded by an eternal circle made by a dragon eating its tail. Valunthier. The third kingdom. His home. This mark had meant so much to him when he had attained it. It still meant so much to him.
    As she held the phial in front of the light of the oil lamp and swirled it around, he lowered his hand and looked at her profile. The warmth of the light did nothing to colour her skin. She was still as white as milk, her icy blue eyes intent on their work and a small frown wrinkling her dark eyebrows.
    His own eyebrows knit together as she turned to face him, holding the phial out for him to take.
    “It will not work,” Zane said and wished those words hadn’t caused the new tears he could see welling up in her eyes. She looked so lost, as though what tattered threads of hope she’d been holding onto this last month were finally slipping through her fingers, as though everything rested on this potion.
    “I know,” she said in a small voice and glanced at the curtains. She extended her hand a little more towards him. “But try.”
    Not wanting to disappoint her, he took the phial and wished it would work, if only for her sake. He couldn’t bear seeing how much it upset her when it didn’t. It was most of the reason he went out each night.
    He looked at the liquid. He couldn’t remember the last time she had served him up a purple potion. Last night’s had been black, and the night before that a strange opalescent colour. How many of these concoctions had he drunk since he met her? How many had he made himself before that?
    Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and then swallowed the contents of the phial down in one go.
    She took the empty bottle from his hand and he knew she was holding her breath as she waited to see if it would work.
    He opened his eyes and looked straight into hers.
    “I am sorry, Celene.”
    Celene covered her eyes as Zane flung his head back and screamed out his