Daysider (Nightsiders) by Susan Krinard Page A

a potential enemy run loose in the city.
    What if the woman had been a prisoner? If Alexia had found her while she was in the middle of an escape...
    Alexia shook her head in disbelief. It couldn’t be. Under the Treaty, all prisoners were supposed to have been released. Never, in sixteen years with Aegis, had she ever heard so much as a rumor that the Nightsider captives might still be in Enclave custody.
    Either way, spy or prisoner, the woman had returned Alexia and gone with the “serious people.” Examiners, agents, security...it didn’t matter. She’d given herself up. She could have used Alexia as a hostage, but she hadn’t. She had cared more about Alexia than her own freedom.
    What price had she paid for that compassion? How had Alexia’s time with Aegis so completely erased the memory that even Daysiders were capable of kindness and self-sacrifice?
    Because that was not what she’d been taught from the day, at the age of ten, when she had begun the intense schooling that would eventually transform her into the perfect operative. Every day the same lesson had been drummed into her head: Daysiders and Nightsiders were monsters without empathy, morality or anything resembling human emotion.
    Evil.
    The jay screamed a querying note, tipping its dark head to examine Alexia with one bright, dark-rimmed eye.
    What did they do with her? Alexia asked the bird silently. Did they set her free?
    It would have been difficult to keep the woman’s presence secret all these years. But if they had killed her, there would be no need for secrets.
    Battling her body’s weakness, Alexia struggled to her feet and made her way carefully toward the oak, hands outstretched to catch her weight. She spread her palms on the knotted bark and pressed her cheek against it, breathing in the scent of its indomitable life.
    The unknown Daysider woman had sacrificed her freedom, possibly her life, for Alexia. Just as Damon, who could have killed both her and Michael anytime if he chose, had saved her life and fought to keep her alive.
    And Damon had said he wanted to keep the peace. If he was telling the truth, whoever had attacked them was working as much against him as her. Whoever had stolen her patch hadn’t cared what might happen to her as a result.
    But Damon did. She had very personally experienced his capability for loyalty, courage...commitment. How was he any different from the Daysider woman with her gentle voice and willingness to sacrifice herself for a child she had just met and would probably never see again?
    Alexia laughed mirthlessly and bumped her forehead against the trunk. There was one major difference: Damon had most definitely been willing to extend their alliance to a more intimately physical plane. But he hadn’t tried to force her, not in any way. He had treated her body like something worth savoring, receiving as well as giving pleasure. It almost seemed as if he genuinely cared about her.
    No, he wasn’t evil. Not even close. In her heart, she’d known it all along, even though she’d fought every minute to remind herself what his kind had done to her mother. To Garret.
    But he wasn’t a Nightsider, either . He hadn’t made the rules that condemned human convicts to eternal slavery. Nothing could change what had happened to the people she loved. Damon was not to blame for the sins of those who could never fully accept him. Even if he was capable of becoming something savage and unpredictable for reasons she didn’t understand, she knew she could never go back to hating him.
    Michael hadn’t experienced what she had. He still loathed Damon with every fiber of his being. If he did try to kill Damon—if he provoked the Daysider far enough—maybe he could provoke the shadow inside Damon, as well. She’d been a fool to think Damon could speak for that other side of himself. If it came to a fight, one of them would surely die.
    However, she would do everything in her power to prevent that from happening.