Tempt the Stars

asked, watching him spin open the cylinder like an old-fashioned revolver.
    “That’s good if your information was wrong,” he told me grimly, shoving some weird bullets from a leather case into place. They looked like tiny potion vials, with different-colored liquids sloshing against the transparent sides. I didn’t know how something that looked so delicate would survive being fired from a gun, but then, I guessed they weren’t actually made of glass. “How sure are you?”
    “Pretty sure.”
    “Then it’s not so good,” Pritkin said dryly.
    “Meaning?”
    “One of two things. Either there are no demons in there . . ”
    “Or?” I prompted, because he’d trailed off to scan the tree line again.
    “Or we’re dealing with something old enough and powerful enough to shield itself from detection—even in numbers.”
    I tried to fit my spine a little more snugly into the unyielding bark behind me. “So . . . that would be bad.”
    “Yes. Which is why you’re staying here.”
    I started to say something and then bit my lip, because that had been in his don’t-argue-with-me voice. Which I tended to pay attention to since it only got trotted out when the shit was already on its way to the fan. “You may need to leave fast,” I pointed out, after a second. “I can get you out of there quicker than any weapon.”
    He clicked the gun shut. “Not if you’re dead.”
    “If we stick together, I won’t be. I’m telling you—”
    I suddenly found myself jerked to within inches of a face with a tight jaw and hot green eyes. “No. You tell me nothing, not about this.
You do what I say
.”
    “Damn it, Pritkin!”
    The moonlight had washed all the color from his face, leaving it stark black and white. Uncompromising, like the hand on my arm, or the low timbre of his voice. “There are only two choices. You listen to me and we go forward; you refuse and we go back. You asked for my help; you do this my way. I haven’t spent more than a century battling these creatures not to know exactly how dangerous they can be. Do you understand?”
    Yeah, I understood fine. The problem was that he didn’t. He thought he was protecting me, but if he ended up dead because I wasn’t there to shift him away, we’d both be screwed. But I couldn’t explain that, without explaining more than was safe for him to know right now.
    “How much of a risk are you planning to take?” I whispered.
    “No more than need be. I will find and draw off whatever is in there. When you see my signal, run for the house. Shift back here when you’re done and I’ll be waiting. But only move
when I signal you
. If I do not, you stay put.”
    “And if you don’t come back?” I asked angrily.
    “Then get out of here. Go back to your time—”
    “The hell I will! I won’t just leave—”
    “Then I won’t go.”
    And the infuriating man crossed his arms, leaned against the tree, and looked at me. Calmly. Pleasantly. Like he had all freaking night.
    I glared back. “And here I thought you’d been getting better lately!”
    “I’ve been indulging you.”
    “Indulg—” I tightened my lips on a torrent of words, none of which I could say. And not just because we needed to be quiet. Because for a second there I was actually rendered speechless.
    Indulging me didn’t involve treating me like a Parris Island recruit. It didn’t involve questioning every order I ever gave. And it damned sure didn’t involve trading his life for mine without even asking what I thought of the idea.
    Or how I’d feel afterward.
    Somehow, in all the crying I’d done over the man in the last week, I’d forgotten what an absolute
bastard
he could be.
    Like when he calmly started to pick at a fingernail.
    “Stop that!” I knocked his hand away.
    He looked up, bemused.
    “You . . . you’ll get a hangnail,” I snapped, because I couldn’t say anything else.
    “And that would ruin my evening.”
    I stood there for a moment, seriously considering just starting for the trees. He’d have to come along or watch me possibly get eaten by whatever was in there. Only, no. Any
other
man would have to.
    Pritkin would knock me out with something in his arsenal, throw me over his shoulder, and cart me off God knew where. And that would be that. Except that I’d wake up tomorrow no closer to a solution than I was right now.
    And I was getting damned tired of dead ends.
    I crossed my own arms. “Fine.”
    “
Fine
what?”
    “Fine, we’ll