by J. K. Coi
He knew immediately who had followed him.
Gray.
Fate certainly had a way of making these things interesting. Adrenaline surged and his fury mounted as he watched Gray’s eyes glowing silver in the darkness.
He could feel the Immortal’s heavy gaze on him, assessing him. Rhys kept his feet planted shoulder-width apart, prepared to strike.
“You must be Rhys,” Gray said pleasantly, casually. “A formidable warrior, aren’t you? I feel like we know each other intimately, seeing as how you so nobly took my place in the Guardian’s grand army.”
“Gray,” Rhys said. “You know, you’re just the asshole I was hoping to meet up with tonight.”
“Well then, it looks like we have something in common to break the ice with,” Gray replied sarcastically.
“You picked the wrong town to cause trouble in and now I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”
“I’d surely like to oblige, but I feel certain that it will be I who is picking your bones, Immortal.”
Rhys pulled his blade at the same time Gray rushed him. He swung low and then up, making a clean slice through Gray’s leather vest and simple white tee. Blood bloomed through the torn material but Gray didn’t even slow down. He barreled one shoulder into Rhys’ abdomen, driving him back into the wall of the building.
Rhys’ breath came out in a whoof as his shoulders hit the wall and Gray slammed him with a right across the jaw.
He ducked the next blow and delivered a hard left of his own, pushing Gray back far enough to raise his weapon between them. Rhys brought his dagger down in a sharp slice across Gray’s right bicep but the guy barely flinched.
Fuck this. He dropped the short sword and starting slamming Gray relentlessly with his fists.
Gray grunted with the force of the powerful jabs and moved from side to side, trying to avoid the next shot while at the same time get in one of his own, but Rhys was fast and persistent.
“You’re good,” Gray said between harsh, labored breaths, “I really didn’t want it to have to be this way, but—”
“Fuck you,” Rhys replied with a snarl. “I don’t know what the hell you’re hoping to accomplish by killing your own kind. If you wanted revenge against the Guardian, this surely wasn’t the brightest idea you could have come up with. The Immortals don’t mean squat to the Guardian. There’ll always be another to take our place, so you’ve wasted your time killing Doyle.”
Gray stumbled back, pulling a nine millimeter from his shoulder holster and leveling it at Rhys. “Ah yes, the little woman.” Gray laughed acidly as Rhys realized the guy must have been spying on them.
He deftly pulled the trigger. Rhys was quick—he managed to avoid getting hit in the heart—but the bullet still grazed the muscle of his right forearm.
He roared, lunging at Gray, delivering a solid left that forced him backward. Just as Rhys started in for another, Gray brought his weapon up again, taking him down with a shot to Rhys’ shoulder. The force of the bullet drove him to one knee on the hard asphalt. The next shot came quickly, hitting him in the chest just left of his heart.
Lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood, Rhys watched as Gray came toward him, his palm pointed outward, serpentine scars glowing violently.
“Your error will cost you, friend,” Gray said to him. “I don’t want revenge on the Guardian. Although in this case, two birds, one stone…you know the expression. No, sentiments as meaningless as revenge were beaten, burned and cut out of me within the first hundred years or so that I spent in Hell.”
Gray’s weapon was leveled and ready, while his scarred red hand paused in mid-air, like a cobra readying itself, humming and hypnotizing its victim before the deadly strike.
“The Guardian is simply a means to an end,” he continued. “You have no concept of what it’s like, of the horrors… All I want is for it to be over. And there are powerful forces who can make it happen for me. All that is required in return is delivery of the Guardian.”
“It’ll never happen.” Rhys pushed his pain aside and lunged upward. He dove for Gray’s gun, knocking it out of his hand. It clattered to the ground, skidding under a nearby dumpster. Gray wasted no time drawing a long-handled blade from a sheath at his back. He jabbed and caught Rhys in the side, then again.
Rhys burned with the pain, and he was glad of it. He used it, channeled it into his rage until he was running on nothing but pure instinct and adrenaline. He felt it coursing through his veins, giving him strength. It was all he needed to push him forward. His hand shot out, gripping Gray’s sword arm and twisting, while at the same time he leveled a hard kick to Gray’s stomach.
Rhys reached down for his own dagger. It had fallen not far from his feet in a rank puddle. He drove it through his opponent’s rib cage, angled up and into the heart. Gray dropped his sword and fell back.
At that moment, a black SUV squealed into the alleyway, clipping Gray in the side and stopping between them.
“Rhys! Get in the car!” Baron called from within as he levered the passenger side door open.
Rhys’ blood was draining steadily. It was either get in the car or die. He spotted Gray’s dagger in a puddle on the ground and grabbed it, then quickly slid into the front seat of the car.
Once Rhys was safely inside the car, Baron squealed out just as Gray fired a round. The slug crashed into the windshield as the car reversed down the street, but didn’t hit either of them.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Baron roared at him, taking a sharp turn onto the ramp and barreling down the freeway. “You are one crazy shithead. That was the same lunatic that took out Doyle, wasn’t it? He was out there waiting for you and you just walked right up to him. Alone. Without any freakin’ backup.”
Rhys didn’t bother answering. Baron didn’t seem to need an answer anyway—he was building himself into a fine rant with no help at all from Rhys. Which was just as well because he was starting to feel lightheaded and nauseated and hadn’t really been following the conversation anyway.
Baron took a breath after calling Rhys a crazy motherfucker with a kamikaze death wish.
“Hang in there. Don’t bleed out on me, man.”
Amy jumped to her feet as soon as Baron came into the room with Rhys practically draped over his shoulder.
Oh no.
There was so much blood.
Amy immediately went into hospital mode, calling for Gideon then yelling for him to find some medical supplies while Baron dumped Rhys on the bed.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Baron said to her. “You’re a doctor, right?”
“Yes, but I don’t know anything about Immortal physiology. He could be very different from humans.”
“You have to try, or he’s going to die.”
“I know,” she said. “We have to move him…lay him out on a table somewhere with lots of light so I can work.”
“Sure thing. Down the hall there’s a long boardroom table. Will that do?”
“Yes. Hurry.”
Baron lifted Rhys back into his arms and they made their way down the hall.
“Is there anyone else here who would know what to do for him?”
“Uh…Roland, I guess. He’s researched our genes and DNA and shit for the last couple hundred years, so he would know best about what makes an Immortal tick.” Baron carefully laid Rhys on the long slab of oak that was the boardroom table. “Although I seriously doubt that qualifies him as an emergency room doctor.”
“Get Roland in here anyway,” Amy said as she gently worked Rhys’ leather jacket over his shoulders and down his arms. She looked up at Baron, who was still standing there staring.
“Now, Baron,” Amy said firmly. “Go!”
He snapped out of his stupor and rushed out the door.
Amy worked quickly and efficiently, all the while murmuring small sounds of encouragement to Rhys even though he’d passed out. By the time Gideon showed up with a load of dressings and bandages, she had Rhys bared to the waist.
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Roland came in a moment later, moving to the other side of the table to have a look at the damage.
“You know more about Immortal physiology than I do. This is bad, isn’t it?” she asked him as she opened the medical kit that Gideon handed over and prepared to clean the wounds so she could see what needed stitching.
With her attention fully on Rhys, Amy catalogued his injuries aloud, not only for Roland’s benefit but to ground herself to the job at hand. She needed the professional detachment she’d never had a problem calling on until now. “He’s got a black eye and numerous cuts, scrapes and dark bruises, all of which are pretty minor. But he’s also been shot in the chest and shoulder and stabbed twice in the abdomen.” She paused, looking up at the other Immortal. “We have to get the bullets out of his chest and shoulder and repair the damage from the knife wounds. Are there any anomalies that I have to consider before I cut into him? Anything about his Immortal DNA that I should know?”
Roland shook his head. “No. Not as it relates to something like this. Just stitch him up the best you can. Then we wait to see if his Immortal strength will heal him fast enough to keep him from dying.”
Amy looked at Gideon. His expression was steady and reassuring as he handed her a pair of latex gloves. “All right.” She snapped the plastic to her wrists and looked to Roland. “I want you to assist. Hand me the scalpel.”
Roland put it in her hand and she tested the heavy weight of the metal, balanced it familiarly between her fingers. Then she paused, her gaze taking in Rhys’ drawn and pale features.
“Do it, Amy. You have to get the bullet, or he’ll bleed out,” Roland said to her softly but firmly. Amy nodded, her gaze focused and calm as she prepared herself.
Baron and Roland each took hold of Rhys, trying to keep him still. But as soon as the two men put their hands on him in restraint, Rhys instinctively began to thrash and fight them off. Amy couldn’t safely go near him with the scalpel—the bullet was so close to his heart that she was afraid to nick an artery if he jerked beneath her hands, making things monumentally worse.
“Please, guys. You’ve got to hold him still or I won’t be able to do this,” she said.
Gideon watched from the foot of the table.
“Amy, I think you should go to Rhys. Talk to him while Roland takes the bullet out. He calms slightly at the sound of your voice and maybe if you hold him this will go easier.”
“That’s fine,” Roland said, understanding. Amy looked up at him questioningly. “I can do that. Let’s try it.”
Amy released the scalpel and moved to the head of the makeshift operating table. She cradled Rhys’ head in her arms. Baron moved to hold him still but Amy shook her head at him.
“Don’t. I think the restraint is what made him agitated. He won’t move now.”
Amy began to whisper softly in Rhys’ ear as Roland carefully made a deep incision across the bullet’s entry wound. He tensed but did not fight.
When Roland was finished with the bullet wounds in Rhys’ chest and shoulder, Amy took over again to repair the damage from the knife wounds. When Rhys had been stitched up and dressed, he seemed to visibly relax, and Amy could tell that he was no longer unconscious but had drifted into a healing sleep.
“Is there anything we can give him for pain?” Amy asked.
Roland shook his head. “There are no drugs that will work on an Immortal. But as long the bleeding stops and he doesn’t come down with a fever, he’ll probably live.”
Amy sighed in relief. She knew Rhys would be okay. He was too tough and stubborn to die on her.
Chapter Fourteen
Stubborn proved to be an understatement over the next forty-eight hours. As Rhys’ body healed, his temper got worse.
It was a good thing that Immortals were quick healers, Amy thought, because even her nurturing feminine nature and background in medicine hadn’t given her enough patience to care for the surly two hundred fifty pounds of Immortal male.
Rhys was a model patient…as long as he remained unconscious. When he awoke, he turned into a bear. In her years at the hospital, Amy had come to learn that men were invariably all the same when it came to injuries and sickness. Rhys was no exception to the rule. He was impossible.
At first he grumbled because he didn’t want Amy fussing, as he called it. She’d only been trying to check his bandage and make him stay in bed. God forbid he should listen to her, a doctor. No, the big bad Immortal had survived the last nine hundred years without the aid of a mere woman, and apparently a few pesky little stab wounds and bullet holes were nothing to him.
How silly of her to forget. He was the impenetrable Immortal. What was she, all of two minutes old compared to him?
Still, all peevishness aside, his grumbling was mostly for the benefit of the other men. She had a feeling it had been a long time since anyone had worried about him or taken care of him, and while he was unused to it she thought he kind of enjoyed her fussing. Especially when she’d bent over to pick up a T-shirt from the floor and caught him staring at her ass. Or when she had brought another pillow and leaned over him to put it under his head.
She smiled and admitted it had been just a little bit deliberate. He had lifted an arm to snake around her waist, intending to pull her in for a kiss, but she’d laughed, dancing out of reach, and admonished him to get some rest as she sauntered away.
Given the searing looks he was throwing her way now as she moved around the room, tidying up here and there, Rhys might be healing even faster than he let on. But the wounds were still ugly and red, and she remembered the scare he‘d given her when Baron had dragged him in unconscious and dripping blood. She hadn’t ever felt such a horrible, gut-wrenching fear. At least not since her aunt had come to tell her that her parents had been killed.
Amy remembered lying in her bed waiting for them to come home that night.
Aunt Marjorie had come to baby-sit, which was great because she always treated them to an evening of movies and popcorn. Amy’s father had put on his best suit and a colorful tie, her mother one of her many pretty, feminine dresses. Amy always watched them while they were going through all the little rituals of getting ready. She loved it when her father asked her to tighten his tie for him and then her mother would do a dancing twirl, her skirts flaring over stockinged legs.
Amy would try to stay awake and wait for her parents to get home, and when they did her father always came to check on her. He would pretend to scold her for not sleeping but that was all part of the tradition. Amy would reply by saying that since she was already awake, he might as well tell her how their date went. Her dad would smile and come sit on the edge of the bed with her. His story always started with how beautiful Amy’s mother had looked, then he’d regale her with tidbits about their evening.
That particular night Amy had been waiting as always, but when her parents hadn’t come home she’d eventually fallen asleep. Her aunt woke her early the next morning.
Amy hated that Rhys had been able to make her feel the same way as she had that morning long ago. It was precisely the reason why she’d tried to protect herself from attachments and relationships. The tight, panicky feeling in her chest was unbearable. This gut-wrenching anxiety would be the death of her.
Baron’s incessant teasing hadn’t helped Rhys’ mood. He’d been the first to visit—intrude rather—and had started kicking up a stink about Rhys trying to get himself killed, claiming it was only because he knew Amy would have been upset that he’d dragged Rhys’ sorry ass home instead of leaving him bleeding like a stuck pig on the pavement. Rhys had shot Amy a pleading look, but she’d only crossed her arms and given him a dirty look of her own.
“I should have just left you to die,” Baron said. “Which would have been exactly what you deserved for being so stupid.”
That’s when Roland and Kane had shown up, and Rhys had nearly lunged out of the bed at Roland when the other Immortal had dared to put his hand briefly on Amy’s arm. She’d had to warn h
im then that if he ripped out all her stitches, she would make Gideon come in and sit with him.
Finally, with a glance at Rhys’ persecuted expression, Amy, laughing, had pushed them all toward the door. “That’s it. Everyone out and don’t come back until I say so.”
Rhys was smiling when she turned back to him and spent twenty minutes trying to talk her into a down and dirty make-out session. Finally she took pity on him, pulling back the blanket and crawling up on the bed to straddle him. She kissed him and writhed on top of him until he was hard and ready for her. She ground her pelvis against his groin.
He reached for her hips and pulled her closer. “Take off your shirt.”
She bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder to the door before doing as he wanted. He watched as she reached behind her to unclasp the strap of her silky pink bra and dropped it to the floor. To his surprise, she also slipped off her pants and a pair of matching pink panties.
“Oh God, yes.”
He cupped her breasts in his hands as she helped free his cock from his boxers. He started to lift her, but she stopped him. “You have to let me do all the work, or this isn’t going to happen.”
He chuckled. A dream come true. “My pleasure,” he said.
She scooted back and leaned over him, his cock in her hands. When she opened her mouth and took him in deep he sank his hands into her hair. “Fuck, yeah. That’s amazing.”
She sucked his dick until he couldn’t take any more, and then she crawled back up and positioned him at her slick opening. She rubbed the head in small circles over her clit. He ached to push inside her, but her breathing was getting short and fast. He loved the little sounds she made as she teased herself with his cock.
When she was ready, Amy sank down on him, taking him in slowly but surely until her ass rested on his thighs. She moved in long, slow lifts and plunges until both of them were straining for release.