Damn.
The guy was a one-man wrecking crew. Shit, what did he need me for? To make him more dangerous than he already was? It was a damn good thing he was on the side of the angels, that was for sure.
I glanced behind the bar, saw the bartender standing there with a gun. He looked worried and pissed and I couldn’t blame him. Then I saw the phone in his other hand. Hell. Cops. He’d called the cops.
Sighing, I bent down and grabbed one of the cue sticks. They were lying scattered all over the place and a quick look at the back of the bar revealed why. The pool table lay on its side. Took some strength for that—somehow I suspected Jack was involved.
Three brave souls decided the best way to get at Jack was to rush him as one.
Smart plan.
Bad timing.
I took one of them out with the cue stick, using just enough force to make sure he went down and would wake up with a headache. Jack dealt with one of them and the third was as easy as tripping when he stumbled and glanced around to look for his buddy.
There weren’t many people left willing to give Jack a go.
I could see why.
As he turned around and caught sight of me, that one look was enough to make my heart do a crazed little dance in my chest. If I’d still been mortal, if I’d still been that blushing maiden who had fallen in love with Luc, I think I might have fainted dead away at the sight of him.
He looked like hell on earth…like a warrior bent on destruction.
He also looked so damned hot, even smeared with blood, I just wanted to jump him.
Man. I was sick. Twisted and sick.
Hoping none of it showed, I jerked my head to the back door. “We need to be gone. Now. The cops are coming.”
He curled his lip. “Figures.”
“Did you drive?”
“Yeah.” He started toward me and then winced and pressed a hand to his side. I knew that look, felt the echo of pain whisper through him. Grimly, I lowered my shields and that whisper of pain became a scream as I read the injuries on his body.
Oh, a lot of injuries. The worst were the ribs. Nothing fatal, but it was hurting him like a bitch. Somebody had busted a rib or two. I’d have to deal with that later.
I just hoped he’d prove as tough as he looked. Right now, we needed to move.
I reached into my hip pocket and pulled out the cash. As I counted off some bills, I said, “I sure hope you didn’t start this.”
“Yeah, princess. That’s my idea of fun—picking a fight with a bunch of drunk morons.”
On my way out the door, I threw the bills at the bartender. “For the damage. If you can avoid giving too clear a description of my friend here, I’ll even see to it that more money is delivered within the next few weeks.”
The bartender glanced at the cash, then at me. “He didn’t start it. No reason to get too detailed, I reckon.”
The money was tucked away before we even made the door.
We’d just pulled out of the parking lot in his beat-up old truck when the first of the flashing lights appeared in the rearview mirror. A little too close for comfort.
Shooting Jack a narrow look, I muttered, “You’re going to be trouble.”
“I’ve always been trouble.” A ghost of a smile danced around his lips. But his eyes were closed, lines of pain fanning out from the corners.
We hit a bump and he grimaced. “We might need to find an ED. I’ve got some ribs busted—need to make sure they aren’t poking into anything.”
“They aren’t.” I’d feel it if they were. It would be a different pain.
He shot me a sidelong glance. “You got X-ray vision?”
“Something like that.” As I drove, I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. I needed a drink. It was going to be a long, long night. And a painful one. For both of us. But I didn’t think about what was coming. I was better off not doing that. If I thought about it too much, it was going to put me in a bad, bad place.
The illness within him was enough to make Persinette’s belly clench, even from here.
She could not risk going near him.
She already knew he could not be saved.
Looking at Jacques, she said, “I cannot help him. Would you please…”
She had no need to say another word to him. He gestured to several of her men. As they escorted her away, he went to speak to her mother-in-law, Cosette.
She had come to Persinette, begging, pleading. “I cannot bury another man I love…I cannot.”
Persinette’s heart broke for her, truly. She was not Luc’s mother, although she had raised him, loved him as a mother would. Luc’s mother had died shortly after she had given birth to him and just a few months later, Cosette had come into his life.
Sadly Luc had lost his father when he was but ten, and Cosette was all he had. She had remarried but her husband had taken ill, and now he lay dying.
Cosette had looked to Persinette.
Many people looked to Persinette. They did not understand why she was able to help so many, and Persinette would not enlighten them. Let them think it was the teas and the tonics—they need not know the truth. But Cosette was one of the few who did know. Persinette could heal. She couldn’t heal all ills, though.
Cosette’s husband would not be healed, and if Persinette tried it would kill her. It would kill her and the baby she carried. Pressing a hand to the swell of her stomach, she glanced back over her shoulder as Cosette started to sob. One of her ladies wrapped an arm around her and gave Persinette a censuring look. Persinette closed her eyes. There was nothing she could do for the man. She had to live with that.
As Jacques strode toward her, she carefully wiped the grief from her features. This brooding, protective man saw too much, read her too easily, and she wouldn’t have him see this pain.
But he saw it, nonetheless.
He rested a big hand on her shoulder. “There is nothing you can do for him, milady. If you tried, you would endanger yourself and the child you carry.”
“I know.” She sighed and looked back once more at Cosette. “She has never asked anything of me though. I only wish to help—”
“She should not have asked this—not now. Not of a woman with child.” A grim look crossed his face. “Your husband wouldn’t be pleased to know his mother has asked this of you.”
She reached out and caught his arm. “You will not tell him. When he returns, it will be hard enough to learn that his mother has been forced to bury another husband. He will be dead in days. He cannot be saved. There is no reason to trouble Luc with this.”
“He is your husband. He would want to know—he should know.” Jacques studied her face, his gray eyes dark and unreadable.
“You cannot tell him…”
She would have tried to make him promise, but just then, a harsh, brutal pain gripped her belly and she cried out. Darkness swamped her. The last thing she knew was his hands catching her.
Something had her pissed off, Jack decided.
Or upset her…something. The drive to his place was made in complete silence. And considering it was a good forty-minute drive, that was a lot of silence. He didn’t mind it, but he rather liked listening to her talk, even if she was a smart-ass guardian angel. Even if he didn’t know why she was here…or why she wouldn’t take him to the damn ED, because shit, he was hurting.
Well, she’d dump him on his ass and then he’d just haul himself to the local county ED, make sure nothing was broken. He had some Vicodin in the medicine cabinet and if he popped a few of those, he’d get some sleep. He healed fast, and in a few days he’d be feeling okay.
Still, he wished she’d say something.
But she didn’t. She just stared straight ahead as she drove. She barely blinked, hardly even seemed to breathe.
When she pulled up in front of his place, he stayed where he was as she slid out.
“You coming?” she asked, lifting a red-gold brow at him.
“I’ll wait here a few.”
He kept his eyes closed, tried not to breathe too deep. No way in hell was he climbing out of the truck, then back in once she disappeared.
Perci sighed. “Would you get out of the damn truck so I can take a look at you?”
“Unless you’re a doctor, you taking a look at me isn’t going to do much good.” He cracked one eye open and slanted a look at her. “I need to go get an X-Ray, and I’d rather do it now because I’m already hurting like a bitch.”
“Get the fuck out of the truck or I’ll haul you out.” She gave him a sharp-edged smile and added, “And somehow, I think you know I can.”
“Damn it.” He glared at her and started to shift, only to freeze as pain lanced through him. Sweat broke out all over him and he gritted his teeth, fought to breathe through it. After the wave passed, he gritted out, “Look, unlike you, I get hurt, and I don’t heal the way you do.”
“You know, I’m really curious just how you know these things.” Then she came over and touched a finger to his lower lip. Pain flared and he remembered somebody had punched him in the mouth. That pain had seemed minor compared to his ribs though. He’d forgotten about it until she’d touched him. “Look at me. Don’t blink. Don’t close your eyes, not even for a second, Jack.”
Then she pressed down. He grimaced and he might have knocked her hand away, but before he could, he saw it happen. He watched as her mouth—her perfect, bow-shaped mouth bloomed with an ugly bruise, a cut splitting her lower lip.
Although he hadn’t looked in the mirror, he suspected that was a lot how his mouth looked. As the bruising on her face spread, the pain in his own faded.
He was still gaping at her as she reached up and touched her fingers to his blackened eye.
And as she took that injury away, took it onto herself, the injury on her lower lip was knitting together, fading away bit by bit.
“You don’t need a doctor,” she said. “I can take care of your side. But I’m not doing it out here.”
“No.”
I narrowed my eyes at him as he refused to get out of the truck.
He was in so much pain, I was almost ill with it. I wouldn’t block it out though, because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell if the pain was anything serious. I didn’t think it was, but he had quite a few injuries on him.
I sighed and pushed my hand through my hair, debated on my choices.
I really did not want to do this out here. Once I took the injuries on his ribs, I was going to be in much worse shape than him. I’d heal quicker, but the price of that was I’d be damn near incapacitated for a short period of time and I’d rather not collapse out here.
Not that he’d leave me unconscious on the ground though…
Well, hell.
“Are you going to haul your butt inside or not?” I asked him, folding my arms across my chest.
“No.” He glared at me, his face unmarked, his eyes furious and glinting at me. Oh, he was pissed. This was lovely. He was mad because I had healed him. This was just plain lovely.
Fine. He was going to be even more pissed off in a minute.
Sidling closer, careful not to let him see what I was up to, I said, “So what are you going to do? Just deal with the busted ribs and the pain?”
“I’ve had worse.”
Yeah, I suspected he had. He watched me warily. Like he knew I was up to something.
Smart guy. Just as he went to shift away from me, I moved, flowing into the front seat of the truck and curling up on the small space in the floorboard. I slammed my hands onto either side of him so he couldn’t evade me that way. “Sorry. I can’t let you suffer,” I said.
He started cussing and jerked away.
As I laid my hands on him, I did the same thing—cussing in English, then switching to French when I ran out of creative ways to swear. I kept right on cursing until the pain stole my breath away.
Vicious and brutal…that was the only way to describe this kind of pain. It sucks the breath right out of you and every single microsecond is agonizing. I tasted blood in the back of my throat, and even though his broken ribs hadn’t pierced his lungs, I suspected I wouldn’t be so lucky. Black dots danced in front of my eyes and I knew consciousness wasn’t going to hold out much longer. I pressed the flats of my hands against his sides, searched for the pain inside. But it was gone.
All gone.
Thank God.
I collapsed in a heap and he caught me. I glimpsed his rigid, angry face through my lashes and my last clear thought was… Have we done this before?
She weighed nothing.
Jack carried her into his house and tried not to think about how fragile she felt, how delicate.
As he lay her on his bed, he sat down beside her and touched the pulse in her neck, although he wasn’t sure why.
It wasn’t like she could die, right?
But she’d coughed up blood. She’d collapsed. She was unconscious, and damn it, why the hell had she done that? It wasn’t like he hadn’t dealt with busted ribs before.
The pulse under his touch was strong, steady, although slower than he would have expected. He sighed and shifted around, buried his face in his hands, and even as he did it, he marveled that he could do it without pain. Not even ten minutes ago, he’d been all but ready to beg for her to just leave him the hell alone just so he could do something about his fucking ribs, and now he was fine.
Driven by curiosity, he stood and moved to the mirror over his bureau, staring at his face. He should have looked like a human punching bag.
But there wasn’t even a damn mark on him.
He grabbed the hem of his bloodied and stained T-shirt and pulled it off. His ribs should have been black and blue, but there was nothing.
In the mirror, he looked at Perci’s reflection, watched as she shifted, watched her face tighten with pain. He clenched his jaw and turned around, strode across the floor.
She’d taken his injuries, his fucking busted ribs. Sitting down on the side of the bed, he caught her shirt and eased it up. And felt like he’d been sucker-punched all over again. Because her ribs looked easily twice as bad as his should have looked.
“It’s…passing.”
Shifting his gaze up, he realized she’d woken up and was staring at him, her brown eyes clouded with pain.
“If you hadn’t fucking done that, there wouldn’t be anything to pass.”
“I still would have been hurting, as long as I was anywhere near you.” She grimaced. “I heal. I can’t be around somebody in physical pain without feeling something, and it’s worse with somebody I know, somebody I’ve…ah…well…”
“Fucked?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I was thinking connected with. If there’s some sort of connection, it’s a lot worse.”
“Then you should have just gotten the hell away from me.” He stared at the bruises, willing them to fade. But it didn’t seem like they were. Impatient, he grabbed the knife from his boot and sliced her shirt open.
Perci glared at him. “Damn it, what are you doing?”
“You said you heal fast. You should heal fast and I’m not seeing it happen.”
“It’s only been a few minutes.” Then she closed her eyes and took a slow, clearly cautious breath. “I can breathe easier, and it’s not hurting as much. The bruises will be the last thing to go. But it’s getting better.”
Gently, he touched one finger to a bruise. It was an ugly stain on her pale, pale skin and just the sight of it was like an obscenity. “You shouldn’t have done this,” he muttered. “It was my fight, my fault. You shouldn’t have had to deal with the pain.”
“I was given a gift to use it.” She stared at him with unconcerned eyes, liked she wasn’t bothered by the fact that her entire torso was a dark rainbow. “And hey, I’ve had worse.”
“You honestly feel the pain of everybody around you?”
She shrugged. “Not all the time. I can shield against it and I don’t help everybody. I can’t. Even my energy isn’t endless. I’ve fig
ured that out.” She closed her eyes. “And the gift has…changed over time. But this was easy.”
“You call this easy?”
“Compared to some of the people I’ve had to heal? Yes.”
He was staring so hard at the bruises it took him a few moments to realize they were actually lessening. Fading away.
It was a slow, gradual thing, and he counted the minutes away as he watched her body slowly absorb the bruises she’d taken from him.
Fifteen minutes after she’d opened her eyes, she squinted at him and demanded, “Are you going to sit there until every last bruise is gone?”
“Yes.” He curled his hand over her hip, rubbed one bruise with his thumb. “They never should have gone to you to begin with.”
“Oh, for crying out loud…” She went to sit up, but then she froze.
Her brown eyes were only inches away from him, her mouth so very, very close.
“I don’t like seeing marks on you,” Jack muttered.
Perci’s lashes lowered over her eyes. “Unfortunately, I get marked up a lot. But I heal fast. Deal with it.”
“Hmmm.” He dipped his head and skimmed his lips down her neck. “Why did you leave so fast?”
“I…” She shuddered. “I needed to think.”
“Thinking can be very overrated.”
“Yeah. But it needed to be done.”
“Okay.” He brushed the ruin of her shirt aside and nipped the soft curve of her shoulder. “Did it help you figure anything out?”
“No. Not a damn thing.” She tilted her head to the side, baring her neck.
Jack took the hint and nuzzled her neck again, scraping the flesh with his teeth and smiling as she shivered. “I like the feel of you, Perci. I like the taste of you.”
“Hmmm. The feeling is mutual.” She stroked a hand up his side and then whispered, “Jack, can I ask you something?”
“Anything.” Damn, he’d give her anything…
“I could use a shower.”
Hell. Not quite what he’d been hoping for.
Dipping his head, he caught her lower lip between his teeth and tugged. Then he stood up and caught her in his arms. She snorted. “I can walk.”
Tarnished Knight: Grimm's Circle, Book 4 Page 6