by Lynsay Sands
“I’ll lift the car. You’re going to have to pull her out.”
Wyatt glanced around with a start and found G.G. kneeling beside him. Obviously, he’d seen what had happened and come out of the club to help, Wyatt thought as the man got to his feet and bent to grab the back bumper.
“I won’t be able to hold it up long, so you have to be quick,” G.G. warned. “Are you ready?”
Shaking off his shock, Wyatt nodded and dropped onto his stomach on the pavement. He then reached for Elspeth’s hand. She was lying on her back with the car tire on her lower leg, but her arms were free and the one on this side was lying thrown out toward him, as if she were reaching for him. Her eyes, though, were closed, and her face . . .
Wyatt ground his teeth together, and turned his gaze determinedly away from her battered face. He didn’t know if it was road burn, or from the bottom of the car, but Elspeth would never be the same. Reaching for her hand, he clasped it firmly, and then glanced up at G.G. and said, “I’ve got her. Go ahead.”
Nodding, the huge man took a deep breath, bent to the job, and began to pull up with all his might. For a moment, Wyatt was afraid G.G. wouldn’t be able to manage it, but then the car began to rise. Still, he was relieved when a couple of passersby rushed to help hold the vehicle up. It made Wyatt a lot less nervous about the possibility of the car dropping on Elspeth while he worked to retrieve her, which he did now, pulling her toward him as far as he could, and then releasing her hand to catch her further up the arm, and then by the belt buckle to drag her out.
The moment she was clear, the men released the car. It slammed down with a crash and Wyatt was glad they’d waited until he had Elspeth completely out. He was quite sure the rear end had bounced off the pavement when it landed.
“Has someone called an ambulance?” he asked, peering over Elspeth’s bloodied body with concern. Dear God, he’d seen a lot while in the army, but he’d never seen anything like this. She looked like she’d been chewed up and spat out.
“I’m sure they have,” G.G. said, but didn’t sound happy at the thought.
“G.G.? What’s going on?”
Wyatt glanced up to see a young woman pushing her way through the surrounding crowd to reach them. She had long white hair that was scraped back into a ponytail, but her face was youthful, as was her figure in the jeans and T-shirt she wore.
“Sofia,” G.G. said with relief. “We need some help here.”
The woman’s gaze shifted speculatively to Elspeth. “Is she an imm—?”
“An Argeneau,” G.G. interrupted and stood up. Nodding to Wyatt, he added, “And he’s her LM. Can you deal with the crowd while we take care of her?”
“Of course,” she said at once.
“Thank you,” G.G. said and then turned back to Wyatt. “Can you carry her? Or do you want me to?”
Wyatt frowned. “Should we be moving her? I mean, we had to get her out from under the vehicle, but they say you shouldn’t move—Hey!” Wyatt protested when G.G. suddenly bent and scooped Elspeth out of his arms.
Leaping to his feet, Wyatt stepped in front of the big man, about to demand he put her back down until the EMTs arrived and could examine her. Elspeth might have a broken back or something else that movement could worsen.
“Sofia,” G.G. said, and Wyatt suddenly found himself stepping aside and letting the huge man by. He didn’t want to, or he hadn’t. Now he was a little muddled as to what he did want, but he was following G.G. through the gathered crowd to the entrance of The Night Club like a puppy following its owner. Again he was feeling like a passenger in his own body, as if it were under someone else’s control.
“Get the door,” G.G. ordered.
Wyatt didn’t hesitate. He opened the door for the larger man to carry Elspeth in and then continued to follow him. He expected G.G. to carry her to the nearest booth or table and lay her there so that they could see if there was anything they could do while they waited for the ambulance. Instead, he headed for the hallway at the back of the bar, and Wyatt followed silently.
“Door,” G.G. said a moment later as he paused in front of one that said Employees Only.
Wyatt moved around him to push through the door and then held it open for the big man to enter. They were in a midsized kitchen full of stainless steel. It wasn’t as large as he would have expected in an establishment of this size, but Wyatt supposed most people came for the power drinks. That thought was supported by the fact that the actual cooking area was small with a range, an oven, a microwave, and a long metal prep table. The rest of the room appeared to be taken up with huge industrial-size refrigerators.
G.G. carried Elspeth to the stainless steel prep table and laid her gently on it. The moment he moved away, Wyatt stepped up to look her over. His heart sank as he got a good view of her under the bright lights of the kitchen. Elspeth really did look as if she’d been chewed up by the car and the road. There didn’t appear to be a part of her that had got away unscathed. Her clothing was torn, as was the skin under it, nearly everywhere.
“Step aside.”
Wyatt glanced around at that order. G.G. was back and was carrying half a dozen bags of what looked like blood.
“What—?” Wyatt began with bewilderment as he was nudged out of the way.
G.G. set the bags on the table next to Elspeth, but then turned to peer at him solemnly. “What you’re about to see is going to freak you out. Do not panic. Everything is fine. You are in no danger. Elspeth’s a lovely woman, and I’ll explain everything, but I need to see to her first. All right?”
Wyatt’s eyebrows rose high on his forehead, but he nodded once.
G.G. hesitated briefly, his expression suggesting he wasn’t entirely convinced Wyatt would remain calm, but then he sighed and turned to Elspeth. Wyatt immediately moved closer to the table again and leaned over Elspeth’s legs to see what G.G. was doing.
At first the big man didn’t do anything but pick up one of the bags and hold it over her face. After a moment, he clucked with agitation and muttered, “She’s unconscious. I need to get her to—”
Leaving the comment unfinished, he set the bag back on the table, and then turned to retrieve the smallest knife from a collection in a holder on the wall.
“What are you going to do with that?” Wyatt asked when G.G. turned back with the wickedly sharp-looking paring knife.
G.G. didn’t respond. He simply held his hand over Elspeth’s face and sliced the end of one finger with the knife so the blood quickly bubbled to the surface.
While Wyatt gaped at him, G.G. set the knife aside, and then shifted the bleeding finger back and forth in front of Elspeth’s nose a couple times. After the third pass, her mouth opened slightly on a soft moan and they were able to see her upper canines shift and slide out of her jaw, looking remarkably like fangs.
Wyatt was still struggling to accept what he’d just seen when G.G. suddenly picked up one of the bags of blood he’d collected and slapped it to her mouth. The big man waited a moment and then sighed with relief when it stuck and turned to peer at Wyatt, his eyes narrowing warily.
“How are you doing?” he asked after a pause. “Feeling a little panicky, maybe? Ready to stab me and run screaming from the room?”
“Stab you?” Wyatt asked with surprise, shocked out of his silence at the suggestion.
“Well, you’re gripping that knife pretty tightly, and looking like you might want to stab someone,” he pointed out dryly.
Wyatt glanced down and stared with confusion at the paring knife in his hand. He must have picked it up after G.G. set it down, though he didn’t recall doing it. He was, however, gripping it like he was ready to use it, he noted. Wyatt raised his hand to set it on the table, but then hesitated, reluctant to release it. He’d been trained to respond automatically to combat situations, and the adrenaline shooting through his body was suggesting this was just such a situation.
“Hang on to the knife if it makes you feel better,” G.G. suggested. “Just d
on’t stab me with it. I don’t mean you any harm, and I am mortal. It would be a shame for you to go to jail. On top of that, I don’t particularly want to die.”
“You’re mortal?” Wyatt snatched at the words.
“Born and bred, just like you,” G.G. assured him solemnly, and then smiled wryly and added, “My piercings and tattoos should tell you that. The holes would seal up and the tattoos would slough off like a bad tan if I were immortal.”
“Immortal?” Wyatt glanced to Elspeth. “Is that what she is? Immortal, not a . . . vampire?” He winced even as he asked the question. What he was seeing now suggested vampire, but that was so ridiculous. There was no such thing as vampires. Right?
“Not a vampire,” G.G. assured him solemnly. “Vampires are dead and cursed. Elspeth is immortal born, an entirely different beast.”
“Immortal born,” Wyatt murmured, noting that the bag at her mouth was quickly shrinking as if the blood was being syphoned from it. When G.G. grunted in the affirmative, he asked, “So her mother’s one too? That’s why Martine looks so young?”
“Yes,” G.G. agreed. “They don’t age past about twenty-five or thirty. That’s when a human is at their peak condition. Fully grown and fully developed. After that it’s all downhill. For mortals anyway.”
“Is she human?” he asked at once.
“Oh, yes,” G.G. assured him as he removed the now empty blood bag from Elspeth’s mouth.
“How is she doing?”
Both men glanced toward the door at that question. It was the woman who had approached them outside. G.G. had called her Sofia.
“Good, I think,” G.G. said, tossing aside the empty bag of blood he’d just removed and reaching for a fresh one. “Did you take care of everything out front?”
“Yes. The ambulance arrived just as I finished with the driver and witnesses. It’s all handled,” she announced and joined them at the table, but frowned when she saw Elspeth. “Why haven’t you tied her down?”
“Tied her down?” G.G. and Wyatt asked together.
“Yes. Once she starts to heal, she’ll—Shit!” They all jumped back in surprise when Elspeth suddenly sucked in a sharp breath and sat up on the prep table, her arms pinwheeling, and then she released a long, drawn-out, pain-filled shriek and started to claw at her mutilated face. It was like she was trying to tear away the abraded and cut skin, Wyatt thought as Sofia leapt forward to catch at Elspeth’s hands and try to prevent her harming herself further.
“Help me!” Sofia snapped as she struggled with Elspeth.
Wyatt and G.G. hurried forward, but Elspeth was incredibly strong. She was also writhing and thrashing violently about, arms and legs flailing, body twisting. Even with the three of them, they couldn’t hold her down or stop her struggles. They were all three just half lying on her, doing their best to hold her still, and then Sofia, who had been trying to restrain Elspeth’s hands, suddenly went flying. Wyatt had just registered that when the giant man followed Sofia, soaring through the air to crash against the front of one of the refrigerators with a thud before dropping to the ground with a groan. The next thing Wyatt knew, Elspeth had launched herself at him.
Shouting in surprise, he fell back. She rode him to the floor, where Wyatt landed hard on his back. The wind was knocked out of him, but it could have been worse if she hadn’t grabbed his head in both hands. Elspeth had saved him from what would no doubt have been a concussion, but it was just blind good luck for him. That hadn’t been her intention. At least, Wyatt didn’t think it was when she used her hold to turn his head to the side and bent to sink her teeth into his neck. This explained the earlier bit he’d heard about biting, he supposed as he felt her sharp fangs scrape against his throat. Unable to free himself, Wyatt closed his eyes, bracing against the coming pain as they started to pierce his skin, and then her weight and teeth were suddenly gone.
Blinking his eyes open in surprise, Wyatt glanced around to see two men dressed in black leather dragging Elspeth away from him. One was a tall, dark-haired man with golden-brown eyes. The other was blond, with piercing silver-blue eyes like Elspeth’s. Both were straining to hold the woman between them and not succeeding very well. They were barely managing to hold on to her arms. She was jerking them about like they were a couple of toddlers.
“Thank Christ.”
Wyatt glanced around at that relieved growl to see G.G. dragging himself to his feet with help from Sofia. The man was holding his ribs with one hand as he straightened.
“We need chains,” the dark-haired man snapped, struggling to hold onto a thrashing Elspeth.
“This is a nightclub, not a bondage shop,” G.G. growled.
“There are some in our SUV. Key’s in my pocket,” the blond said urgently. “There are padlocks there too. We’ll need a couple of them.”
Leaving G.G. leaning against the wall, Sofia rushed to the men, reached into the blond man’s pocket, and retrieved his keys and disappeared. She moved so fast, Wyatt couldn’t even track her. One minute she was there and then she became a blur of motion and was gone.
Giving his head a shake, Wyatt got to his feet. He briefly watched Elspeth struggle and writhe in the arms of the two newcomers, and then moved over to G.G.
“You okay?” he asked, looking him over quickly. He didn’t see blood anywhere, but judging by the way G.G. was holding his ribs, he’d guess one or two were broken.
“Fine,” G.G. sighed.
Wyatt didn’t believe him, but didn’t argue. Instead, he asked, “Who are these guys?”
“The blond one is Valerian. The other is Tybo,” he answered through gritted teeth. “They’re good guys. They work with Elspeth. They’ll take care of her.”
“They’re with the police?” he asked with surprise. Dressed all in black as both men were, he’d been thinking mafia or motorcycle gang, not cops.
“Police,” G.G. echoed and smiled wryly. “Yeah, the immortal version. They’re Enforcers, or rogue hunters. They hunt rogue immortals. Criminals mortal police wouldn’t be able to handle.”
“Oh,” Wyatt said blankly. He supposed that was a special division as Elspeth had told him. Probably one the mortal police didn’t know about, but she hadn’t exactly lied.
“What happened to her?” Tybo asked.
Wyatt glanced toward the men, and frowned when he saw that Elspeth appeared to have passed out. She was sagging in their hold as they carried her to the stainless steel table she’d escaped just moments ago.
“She was run over by a car,” Wyatt said, helping G.G. when the big man started to limp toward the immortal police.
“Out front,” Tybo said with a nod. “Mortimer heard about an accident on the police frequency, recognized the address, and suggested we stop in and check that it had nothing to do with The Night Club.”
“She’d just left here,” G.G. muttered. “I’d just finished locking the door behind them and was watching from the window when some guy pushed her in front of a car.”
“Someone pushed her?” Wyatt turned on the man with surprise. He hadn’t realized. One minute they’d been talking, and then she’d flown out into the road and—
“Yeah,” G.G. said, his expression grim. Turning back to the men then he continued, “By the time I got the door unlocked and got out, he was gone and the car was stopped on top of Elspeth. I figured it was more important to get her inside before the ambulance came than to chase after the guy.”
“You did right,” Valerian assured him as they lifted Elspeth onto the stainless steel table.
The clank of chains announced Sofia’s return as she hurried to join the men around Elspeth.
“Why did she go crazy like that?” Wyatt asked as Tybo took the chains and the two men began to wrap them around Elspeth and the table.
“The healing,” Sofia explained quietly. “She should have been chained down before you gave her blood. The minute it hit her system the nanos would have started the healing and . . .” She grimaced. “It’s painful. The worse the inju
ry, the more painful the healing is, and she was hurt pretty bad.”
Wyatt thought that was one hell of an understatement. Elspeth was a mangled mess, basically hamburger in torn clothes. If she were human, she’d be dead for sure. Or if she were mortal, he supposed, since G.G. claimed she was still human. Hard to believe, though, after seeing her fangs and how strong she was. But Sofia had said once the blood hit her system the nanos would have started the healing. What the hell were nanos?
Before he could ask, G.G. said quietly, “Sorry. I didn’t know she needed to be chained. This is my first time dealing with an injured immortal.”
“Not your fault,” Tybo assured him, sliding a padlock through the ends of the chain and snapping it closed. Tugging on the chain to test their handiwork, he added, “Someone should have thought to tell you things like that. With immortals for customers, we should have figured you’d run into something like this eventually. Truthfully, it’s lucky you haven’t encountered it before this.”
“Yeah, maybe,” G.G. said wryly as they watched Tybo grab a bag and slap it to Elspeth’s mouth.
Turning away from Elspeth, Valerian eyed G.G. with concern. “You need a hospital.”
“Nah,” G.G. said with a grimace. “It’s just a couple of cracked ribs. I’ve had them before. I’ll survive. Just tape me up. It’s all they’d do.”
Valerian and Tybo exchanged a glance, and then Tybo pulled out a phone and turned to walk to the other end of the kitchen, punching in numbers as he went.
“What are nanos?” Wyatt asked finally and found all four people looking at him. Even Tybo paused and turned, the phone pressed to his ear.
“Mortal,” Valerian grunted, his gaze narrowed on Wyatt.
Wyatt eyed him warily back, vaguely aware of a small ruffling sensation in his head.
“Yes, he’s mortal. He’s Elspeth’s friend,” G.G. said, and then added solemnly, “She couldn’t read or control him.”
Valerian’s head went back slightly and his eyebrows rose. “Well, hell, that makes things more complicated.”
“Why?” Wyatt asked sharply, and then glanced to G.G. and asked, “And what do you mean she couldn’t read or control me? They can read and control us?”