She's afraid of the spiders more than she's afraid of me.

Insulting. Also a relief. He wasn't going to examine which one felt stronger.

The venom was a living thing inside his shoulder — burning, spreading, tightening around his muscles like a fist made of acid. Phase spider venom wasn't designed to kill vampires, but it didn't need to. It just needed to incapacitate, to paralyze, to turn a lethal predator into something helpless and pinned while the pack came back to finish the job.

He watched her through half-lidded eyes. She was edging closer. Slowly. The log between them like a negotiating table.

She stopped five feet away and leaned over the wood, her eyes dropping to his shoulder.

"That looks bad," she whispered.

"Astute observation, darling. Phase spider venom." He tried for a sardonic smile and got a grimace. "Burns like hell and does terrible things to one's complexion."

Stop talking about your complexion. You are DYING.

He was not dying. Probably. Vampire constitution was a resilient thing. But the venom was slowing his regeneration to a crawl, and the necrotic bruising was spreading faster than his body could fight it. Without intervention, he'd be paralyzed within the hour and at the mercy of whatever scuttled out of the Ethereal Plane next.

She looked down at her ruined pajama dress, then back at his wound. Something shifted in her face. She reached down, grabbed a seam of her skirt, and tore a long strip of fabric away with a sharp rip.

"What on earth are you doing?" He genuinely didn't understand.

"Stopping the bleeding." She moved closer, her hands shaking violently, and hovered over the wound. Every muscle in her body was visibly coiled to spring backward at the first wrong move. "Can I...?"

He stared at her. This woman — barefoot, shivering, in a torn nightdress — who he had chased through a forest not twenty minutes ago. Asking permission to bandage his wound.

She should be running.

"Go on, then," he heard himself say. "But do be gentle. I'm a delicate creature."

Her fingers were warm. Warm against his dead skin, and the contact sent a shock through him that had nothing to do with pain. She pressed the makeshift bandage against the bite with surprising firmness, wrapping the cloth tight around his shoulder while her eyes stayed locked on the wound, not on his face, not on his teeth.

He hissed through his fangs as she tied the knot. She flinched but didn't pull away.

"You have something," she said, her voice steadier now — steadier than it had any right to be. "In the pouch on your belt. Left side. There's a vial."

He blinked. "How did you—"

"You kept touching it. When the venom first hit. Your hand went to the pouch before it went to the wound."

He'd underestimated her. Annoying.

She reached around his waist, keeping her face as far from his mouth as physically possible, which was both insulting and entirely reasonable, and fumbled the leather pouch open. Her fingers scraped through loose gold pieces and lockpicks until they closed around the small glass vial of thick, charcoal-black liquid.

"Antitoxin?" she asked, holding it up.

"Standard-issue. Every good rogue carries one." He tried to reach for it and his arm refused to cooperate. The venom had locked his shoulder into a rigid, burning knot. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to—"

She popped the cork and knelt beside him. Her hand was trembling, but her grip on the vial was steady. She tilted it carefully against his lips, and the thick, bitter liquid hit his tongue like charcoal and old magic.

He swallowed. The potion hit his system like a controlled explosion — magic warring with venom, burning through his veins in a way that was almost worse than the poison itself. His body spasmed, his hand shooting out in a reflexive, agonized grab, and his fingers clamped around her wrist.

She gasped — a sharp, panicked intake of breath — and pulled back hard.

He let go immediately. The moment his brain registered what his hand had done, he released her like she was made of fire, pressing his palm flat against the dirt.

"Sorry — I'm sorry, that wasn't—" He was panting, the potion searing through him, the venom retreating in a slow, burning tide. "Reflex. Not — not intentional."

She stared at him, wide-eyed, rubbing her wrist. Then, slowly, she held the vial back up.

"There's more. Drink all of it."

He did.