by Olsen, Lisa
I screamed, and his lips covered mine, silencing me with a kiss. The last thing I wanted was a kiss at a time like that, but the instant my fang pierced his lip, I moaned beneath him in pure delight. If Bridget’s blood had been like a juicy burger, his was like the finest filet mignon, and I sucked at the wound, desperate for more. He groaned above me, instantly hard and digging into my hip as he ground against me.
But all too soon I began to shake uncontrollably from head to toe, my skin burning like it was on fire. I screamed against his mouth in agony as I grew increasingly sensitive, even the gentlest touch causing me unbearable pain. Bishop rolled off of me, gathering me into his arms with soft words of comfort. My eyes grew blurry and unfocused as I shivered weakly in his arms, my body trying desperately to create even more heat to fight off the infection of vampirism.
“Bathtub,” I managed to get out, but he must’ve already been on the way there, because in the next instant he lowered me into the cold water, clothes and all. I went limp with relief at the immediately soothing effects on my burning limbs.
Bishop spoke gentle words of comfort I couldn’t quite make out, blended together all soft and sweet as he held me in his arms, bringing water to my brow. My whole world was the cocoon of his arms and the blessedly cool water that bathed my fevered flesh. I whimpered in response to his gentle murmurings, no longer having the strength to struggle or scream. Through the haze of burning pain, I realized an important truth – I was dying. It wouldn’t be long now.
“Love you, Bishop,” I said, my voice little more than a whisper.
“Shh, bâobèi. Save your strength for later.”
“Always have... always will...”
His arms tightened around me. “No, you can’t leave me. Not now, not after I just found you again.”
I opened my eyes for the last time, wanting his face to be the final thing I saw. “Sorry. Didn’t want it to be this way. But you got to live, that’s the important thing.” I had no idea if the words left my lips, but those were my thoughts before I faded away.
The next thing I knew, I was lying in the cold tub, staring at a spot on the ceiling. Was it dirt? Mildew? It took me a long time to decide it didn’t matter, and for it to occur to me to move. I turned my head to see Bishop sitting on the bathroom floor with his head in his hands.
“Bishop?” I said, clearing my throat at how strange my voice sounded.
His head snapped up, cheeks wet with tears, but a desperate hope in his eyes. “Anja?”
“I think so,” I replied with a weak chuckle, pushing myself up higher in the tub. In a flash he was by my side, lifting me out of the tub and into his arms.
“You’re alive.”
“Technically no, but...” I couldn’t talk then as he hugged me so hard I couldn’t draw a breath.
Eventually, he let go to look me over, touching my face, my shoulder, my hip, as if assuring himself I was really there. “You made it. I knew you would,” he beamed, so heart-stoppingly beautiful, I couldn’t bear to voice the doubts running through my mind.
Yes, I’d made it – but for how long? One lifetime, a hundred? Had I satisfied the terms of the spell by dying in that tub? Or would I live for a single human lifetime as a vampire, now? In the end, it didn’t matter. Like Carter used to say, there is no forever, sunshine, there’s just today, and I’m glad to have seen you in it. I was with Bishop now and if it lasted a moment or forever, I’d take each day as it came.
God, what was Carter up to in this time? Off hunting vampires. Would we still be friends if we met now under different circumstances? If I kept him from hunting in Vetis, would that save Tommy’s life?
It was all new territory. I could decide to finish school or become Elder. I could pick and choose whose lives I collided with, knowing something about how it’d turn out. Serena? Compel her boney butt to leave me the frak alone and that would save Evan’s life. Lodinn? Avoid Jakob and I’d be able to keep him away from Hanna and Marcus. Volkov? Fat chance he’d be able to torture me with Sylvius remembering me from way back. That meant Gunnar, Lee, and Hanna would be safe again too. Jasper? Pack him off to a leper colony to leave Maggie to any life she chose.
“What is it?” Bishop asked when he noticed me smiling to myself.
“It’s all new. Don’t you see? I don’t have to make the same choices. I can do anything, I can be anything.”
“As long as you choose me, we can do anything. We can be anything,” he corrected, lacing his fingers through mine. “Together.”
“Together. Sounds shiny to me.”
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Read on for a special preview of Lisa Olsen’s novel, Angel of Mercy, available now!
Books by Lisa Olsen:
The Touch
Nine Steps to Sara
Moonsong
Scarlett Moon
Chase the Moon
Follow the Moon (announced)
Pretty Witches All in a Row
Kiss the Witch Goodbye
The Company Series:
The Company of Shadows
The Company of Darkness
The Company of Lies
The Company of Death
The Fallen Series:
Angel of Mercy
Mercy for the Wicked
Mercy for the Damned
Child of Mercy
Mercy for the Fallen
Forged Bloodlines Series:
Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down
Meet Me When the Sun Goes Down
Find Me When the Sun Goes Down
Miss Me When the Sun Goes Down
Follow Me When the Sun Goes Down
Hear Me When the Sun Goes Down
Release Me When the Sun Goes Down
Trust Me When the Sun Goes Down
Tempt Me When the Sun Goes Down
Kiss Me When the Sun Goes Down
Carter
Forget Me When the Sun Goes Down
Know Me When the Sun Goes Down
The Vampire Diaries:
Tabula Rasa
Dark Side of the Moon
For more information, visit the author’s website at http://www.lisaolsen.net
or her author page on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/lisaolsen
You can also visit her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lisaolsenrobotbrain
Preview - Angel of Mercy
Chapter One
Have you ever been in so much pain it ceases to have any meaning? So much pain you can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t even scream? Cast adrift on an ocean of pain, my body tossed and turned helplessly, buffeted by forces beyond my control. It sounds almost poetic, doesn’t it? But at the time I prayed for death, anything to ease that white hot agony.
I wish I could say there was a bright white light waiting for me at the end of a glowing tunnel. In reality, I was so focused on the misery, there could’ve been a three ring circus around me and I wouldn’t have noticed. How long I hovered there I never knew, time ceased to have all meaning.
But then something happened.
A soft golden light wrapped around my body, and a feeling of warmth and comfort descended over me. At first I thought that was finally it. I was going to die, and I’m not gonna lie, there was a measure of relief in that realization. Only instead of the pain fading away and being carried off into the great beyond it grew worse, something I hadn’t thought possible.
I was still reeling from that new torture when the pain faded and disappeared so suddenly, I could feel the echo of it for long heartbeats after it was gone. Drawing in my first unlabored breath, my eyelids fluttered open, vision blurry in the uncertain light as I tried to focus.
Dimly, my mind registered the fact that a man stood over me, his hands lightly pressed to my abdomen. Before I could open my mouth to ask who he was
and why exactly he was touching me, he looked up and our eyes locked. Neither one of us spoke, though I did feel his hands pull away swiftly. The man stared down at me with an expression of surprise mingled with fascination, as though I was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen before. I have to say, he was pretty captivating as well.
His eyes were the most vivid shade of blue – the kind you only see in magazine ads for contact lenses, or on movie stars. They practically glowed in the muted light, and a golden nimbus surrounded him, flickering and crackling like a bug zapper. I swear my eyes only closed for a second, and when I opened them again, he was gone. Puzzling over whether or not any of it was real, I sank back into sweet oblivion, my sleep restful and devoid of pain.
* * *
The next thing I became aware of was the horrible taste in my mouth, like I’d been giving my cat, Mimsy, a tongue bath (not something I’m into by the way, blecch). Speaking of tongues, mine felt thick and clumsy, and it was difficult to swallow. Automatically, my hand shot out for the water bottle I keep on the bedside table, but it came up empty, instead smacking against something hard and metallic. I tentatively cracked an eye open, brows knitting together as it sank into my mental fog – I wasn’t in my bedroom.
In fact, I wasn’t at home at all.
“Wha…?” The trappings of a hospital room were unmistakable, even without the equipment. The automatic bed was a dead giveaway, let alone the IV sticking out of my arm. The nurse call button was nowhere in sight, nor was there any sign of activity in the darkened room. I was in the hospital, I just had no idea why or how I’d gotten there.
Automatically my mind started to go over what I did know. My name is Merceline Renault, though everybody calls me Mercy (except for my mother). I worked at a nightclub named Eden in Seattle as a bartender. Not the most glamorous job, but I liked having my days free. Plus, it was fast paced, the club played great music, and the tips were fantastic on the weekends. Satisfied that I seemed to remember my phone number, my ABC’s and the lyrics to every musical ever made, I turned my attention back to my surroundings.
“Hello?” I called out, but it made little more than a croak from my parched throat. The monitor by my side beeped softly and I squinted at the display, noting the steady climb in my pulse. 110, 119, 127, 134… That couldn’t be good.
A harried nurse came in, eyes on the equipment and completely ignoring me, frowning as she caught sight of the display.
“Hey…” My voice was stronger, but I still sounded like the crypt keeper version of my normal speaking voice.
“Sweet Jesus!” The nurse jumped, clearly not expecting me to be awake even though the monitors were going crazy. “When did you wake up?” she blinked. Her hair was the bright ginger of a natural redhead. A color I had tried and failed to duplicate over the years before deciding to accept my own deep, chestnut tresses. She looked even paler than me, which was hard to do. My devotion to sunscreen was legendary, even in the overcast Seattle weather.
I jumped because she jumped, and the monitor beeped its annoyance over the corresponding rise in my pulse. My hand rose instinctively to my chest, pulling at the IV sticking out of my wrist, and the air sucked through my teeth at the sting. “Have some water?” I gave her a pleading look, unable to phrase the request any more eloquently with the burning in my throat.
“Oh… yes, I’ll be right back.” Right back turned out to be a relative term as it was easily a few minutes before she returned, a small plastic cup of ice chips in hand. “I can give you one teaspoon of ice chips right now, but you’ll have to wait for the doctor before anything else.”
I savored the cooling relief as the ice rapidly melted, swallowing easier. “Thank you,” I smiled, grateful to hear my voice sound a little stronger, more like myself.
“You’re welcome.” The nurse smiled back, picking up her touchpad, fingers flying over the surface to enter my vital statistics. “I’m sorry if I scared you before. We weren’t expecting you to wake up for quite some time.”
“S’okay.” I waved off her concern. “I wasn’t expecting to wake up here at all,” I admitted.
“I’ve put in a request to let Dr. Michaelson know you’re awake though, and she should be in fairly soon to check up on you. In the meantime, how are you feeling? Any dizziness or nausea?”
She said that like I was supposed to know who Dr. Michaelson was, but I decided to nod and smile, not wanting to admit that bit of ignorance. Instead, I gave a longing look toward the plastic cup of ice chips.
“Um, no, not dizziness exactly, just a little out of it I guess.” A bit of an understatement – I felt like I’d been woken up after a double shift at the club with only a few hours of sleep.
“Good, that’s good.” The nurse nodded absently, setting down the pad to take my blood pressure next. “Try to be still and breathe regularly.”
Did I look like I’d been about to jump up and do the Macarena? Lying there obediently, I noticed a pale, dusky rose aura surrounding her, standing out in the dim lighting. At least, it’s what I always thought an aura would look like, I’d never seen one before. At first I chalked it up to tired eyes, but after a surreptitious rub I wasn’t so sure.
“Your blood pressure looks good, what about your pain level? How would you rate it on a scale of one to ten?” she asked.
It took me a minute to realize she’d asked a question. I was too distracted by the pretty color, trying to see if it looked any different if I closed one eye or the other, or if blinking had any effect. Even then it took some thought to process what she said. Should I be in pain? Shifting in the bed, I felt tired and sore, but nothing horrible. “It’s not too bad, maybe a one or two. Where am I?” It was time for some questions of my own.
The nurse nodded again and entered the data into her pad. “The ICU of Northwest Hospital,” she answered readily.
My brows climbed at the mention of the Intensive Care Unit. Just how bad off was I? “How long have I been here?”
“A few days. You were brought in on Saturday night and went into emergency surgery.” The nurse’s face grew sympathetic as if she pitied me for the gaps in my memory.
“A few days? What day is it now? Wait, what kind of surgery?” All at once a dozen questions leapt to mind, each clamoring to be answered.
The nurse’s expression grew shuttered, teeth worrying at her bottom lip. “You know… I should really let the doctor come and talk to you.” She took a step back toward the door.
“Wait…” Desperately my eyes scanned the nurse’s scrubs for a nametag and spied the badge hanging around her neck. “Rachel…” I tried a friendly smile. “I can appreciate you’re not supposed to discuss my medical condition, but you’ve got to cut me a break here, okay? The last thing I remember, I was at work Saturday night and the next thing I know I’m in the ICU with tubes hanging out of my arm and up my nose.”
Indecision warred on Rachel’s features, and she hovered indecisively at the bedside. “That’s really all you remember?”
Now I felt bad for making it sound like I was an amnesia case. “I remember who I am and all that good stuff,” I admitted readily. “I remember stepping out into the alley behind the club. It was my turn to take out the garbage and there was…” My focus shifted as it started to come back to me, eyes staring off into space as I pictured it. I remembered the scuffle between the two men, one of them had a knife.
“He stabbed him…” I murmured, my face twisting with empathy as I saw it again in my mind. “And I screamed… I threw the garbage can at him to make him stop, but he batted it aside. He…” I swallowed as I remembered him stalking toward me, the bloodied knife glinting in the poor light. He must have attacked me then, though I didn’t remember it specifically or any of the pain. “I’m a little fuzzy on the details after that. Who brought me in, do you know?”
Rachel picked up the datapad, paging through the records. “Let’s see, you came in via ambulance, transported from… Second Avenue and South Washington Street, is
that where you work?”
I nodded, trying to cast my mind back again but the fog was still firmly in place, making it difficult to wade though. The image came unbidden of the man in the long coat, the same man I’d seen in my hospital room with crystalline blue eyes. Staring down at me, his expression a mixture of sadness and awe, and something I couldn’t quite define. “Have I had any visitors?” I asked suddenly, wondering if she had a record of who he was.
“No, we don’t allow visitors in the ICU. Though I think you had a couple of people waiting around when you were first brought in. I didn’t talk to them.”
“There wasn’t a guy in here earlier?” Had it all been a dream? With the way my day was shaping up, I wouldn’t have been too surprised.
“No, I don’t think so. Unless you mean during the dayshift? I think Bryan was working.”
A nurse. He hadn’t looked like a nurse. I decided it wasn’t important in the end, my mind already switching tacks. “Can I call my brother? Let him know I’m alright?”
“Sorry, there aren’t any phones in here, but I can call him for you if you like. You’ll probably be moved to a regular room soon though, if that’s any consolation.”
“Yes, could you? I’d really appreciate it.” I gave Matty’s phone number to the helpful nurse, hoping he remembered to pay his cell phone bill that month or I’d have to call my mom. And I really didn’t want to call my mom.
Hating hospitals on general principle, I couldn’t wait to be moved. The sooner they gave me the green light to get out of intensive care, the closer I’d be to getting out of the hospital altogether. As it was, I’d probably end up seriously in debt if I’d already been there for a few days and had emergency surgery. The health insurance offered by the club wasn’t exactly comprehensive, but it was better than nothing. Besides, they couldn’t squeeze blood from a stone. I had few assets they could try to seize as collateral. Hell, they were welcome to try and take my sometimes running car, it was probably cheaper to take the bus than foot the repair bills anyway.