Broken Dawn (Immortal Guardians Book 10)

by Dianne Duvall

  No bulky cast graced her leg, just blue scrub pants.

  Fear rose. Her leg had been broken. She had not imagined that. And broken bones usually took at least four weeks to heal. Didn’t they?

  Her hands began to tremble. Drawing her blue scrub shirt away from her chest, she peered down through the V-shaped neckline.

  Ice trickled down her spine. No wound marred her chest. Just pale skin and freckles.

  Releasing her shirt, she stared at Nick in horror. “Have I been in a coma?” She must have been. There was no sign at all of the chest wound. There wasn’t even a scar!

  “No.”

  She shook her head, not understanding. “Why am I here?” Instead of in a hospital or a hospice or wherever coma victims were cared for. And if her other wounds had healed, why did she still wear a cast on her arm? She must have been out for months! “Where’s Becca?”

  “She’s fine. She’s on her way. But I need to explain some things to you before she gets here.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m asking you to trust me that everything is okay and to please bear with me while I try to muddle my way through this.”

  His calm demeanor helped soothe her nerves. A little.

  Though Kayla wanted to continue peppering him with questions, she drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and nodded. “I trust you.” But her heart continued to race.

  He squeezed her hand. “Thank you.” Nick hesitated so long she nearly went back on her word and started blurting out questions. Then he seemed to brace himself and began to speak. “I heard your dentist call and knew you had missed your appointment.”

  She frowned. “You were in my house?”

  “No.” A crinkle formed on his brow and he suddenly seemed nervous. Nick was so strong and confident. She didn’t think she had ever seen him ill at ease. “I’ll explain that in a moment,” he said finally. “When I heard the message your dentist’s office left, I got worried. I’ve lived next door to you and known you long enough to understand that punctuality is important to you. I’ve even heard you tell Becca that being on time was part of being a responsible adult. So I turned on the local news to see if you’d run into traffic along the way. They were covering an accident on a street I knew you’d probably taken and—”

  “You know where my dentist is?”

  He paused. “Yes. I heard you mention her to Becca.”

  “Oh.”

  “They showed what was left of a silver car that had been totaled. I wasn’t sure it was yours until Becca called me in a panic. The hospital had phoned her to let her know you had been in an accident and said you were in critical condition.”

  “Shit.”

  “I admit I panicked, too. I was worried you wouldn’t survive, so I called a friend.”

  “Is your friend a doctor or something?” she asked in confusion.

  “Or something,” he responded, his expression turning grim.

  Frustration rose. “I don’t know what that means.”

  He drew in a deep breath, then let it out in what seemed a resigned sigh. “I’m different, Kayla. It’s why I’ve kept my distance all these years despite being incredibly attracted to you.”

  Her heart gave a surprised leap. Nick was attracted to her? Incredibly attracted?

  “I wasn’t sure how you’d react and…” He dragged his free hand through hair. “Hell, it’s complicated. But my friend is different, too. Even more different than I am.”

  “Different how? What does this have to do with my accident?”

  “My friend can…” Frustration darkened his features. “Shit, there’s just no way to tell you this without sounding like I’m completely off my nut, but my friend and I were both born with advanced DNA. Eliana was, too. And we’re different in other ways. Seth—”

  “Seth is your friend?” she asked, trying to figure out what the hell he meant about the DNA and where he was going with this.

  “Yes. Seth is my friend. And he’s far more powerful than I am. He can teleport and—once I told him what happened—he teleported us to the hospital before your surgery began.”

  Oh crap. It did sound like he was off his nut. Damn it. He was such a nice guy, too.

  “Seth can also heal with his hands,” he went on. “Your injuries were extensive. Head trauma. Vision loss in your left eye. That jagged fucking piece of metal sticking out of your chest. A broken arm. A broken leg. And I don’t know what else. There might have been some organ damage, too, I guess. But Seth healed it all—your leg, your arm, your chest, your eye. Everything.”

  She glanced at her cast.

  “That’s just for appearances. Your arm is completely healed beneath it. And he left some bruising and a few scratches on your face to hide the fact that you had miraculously recovered from all but the most trivial of your wounds.” He shook his head. “An overwhelming majority of the population doesn’t know we exist, Kayla, and we need to keep it that way. Fortunately, we have mortal friends at the hospital who altered your medical records and helped us smooth things over.”

  Her attention snagged on one word. “Mortal friends?”

  He winced and shifted again. “Yeah. I’m, uh… I’m sort of immortal.”

  She stared at him.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in. I’m not supposed to interfere or risk discovery because more often than not, people who find out about us either try to kill us or capture us and turn us into lab rats. But you scared the hell out of me, Kayla.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I was terrified you’d die. I didn’t want to lose you. And I wanted to take away your pain and… honestly, I just couldn’t think beyond that.”

  She could find no response.

  “And now I’m terrified you won’t believe me.”

  A full minute ticked past while she tried to decide what to address first. “When was my accident?”

  “Earlier today.” Picking up a remote on the bedside table, he aimed it at the television on the far wall. He punched in a three-digit number and the channel changed to a news program. The date and time appeared in the lower right corner.

  She released his hand and extended hers. “May I?”

  “Of course.” He placed the remote on her palm.

  Kayla aimed it at the television and switched to another twenty-four-hour news channel, then another. Same date. Same time.

  She handed the remote back. Her mind whirled as she watched Nick return it to the bedside table. “Heal me how?”

  “With his hands. Seth can heal wounds with a touch.”

  Another minute passed. “So you’re saying this Seth just… laid hands on me and my wounds healed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because he’s different.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re different, too.”

  “Yes. But I’m not nearly as powerful as he is and can’t heal with my hands, otherwise I would’ve done it myself.”

  She stared at him. “How different are you?”

  Again he hesitated.

  “Nick?”

  “I’m stronger than mortal men.”

  There was that term again—mortal.

  She studied the muscles outlined by his shirt. “I imagine you’re quite strong. You obviously work out.”

  He shook his head. “I’m a lot stronger.” Rising, he rubbed his palms on his pants as though nervousness made them sweat. “Don’t be afraid, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Leaning down, he slipped his arms beneath the enormous bed and lifted it as easily as he would a freaking pillow.

  Kayla let out a squawk of surprise and gripped the covers as he raised the bed until the headboard nearly touched the high ceiling. Then he lowered it with as little effort.

  She stared up at him. Okay. That was a lot of strength. She had been gardening in her front yard when this bedroom suite had been delivered a few years ago. The deliverymen had both been big, burly guys with even more muscle than Nick. And sh
e’d watched them struggle to carry the heavy bed frame and headboard in before it had even been assembled. She’d seen how they’d huffed to get the huge mattress inside, then the box spring. And Nick had just lifted the whole lot of it with her on top as if he were lifting a frying pan. He wasn’t even sweating or winded!

  He shifted uneasily. “I’d prove it by taking you downstairs and lifting my car over my head, but Eliana took it to pick up Becca, and Oliver’s is gone.”

  “You can lift a car? Not just the trunk, but the whole thing?”

  “Yes. Easily.”

  She didn’t think even steroids could account for that. “How else are you different?”

  He scrunched his face up in a way she ordinarily would’ve found cute. “I’m fast.”

  “How fast?”

  “The Flash kind of fast.”

  Her heart sank. Nick thought he was a superhero?

  She opened her mouth to reply and gasped instead when Nick suddenly disappeared.

  “Hi.”

  Yelping, she spun around and found him standing on the opposite side of the bed. Kayla gawked at him.

  He disappeared again, but this time she caught a blur of motion.

  She swung around again and found him standing where he had started.

  Her heart began to pound.

  “I’m going to ask you to do something,” he said softly.

  Her eyes began to burn with the need to blink as she wondered if maybe her head injury had made something in her brain go haywire, something that might result in her shorting out on occasion and losing time so it would appear as though Nick had moved as fast as the Flash when he really hadn’t.

  “I want you to go to the window and look outside,” he instructed. When she hesitated, he added, “Please.”

  All the questions and concerns clamoring in her brain made it so difficult to think that Kayla went into autopilot. Slipping out of bed, she backed away until she reached one of the windows.

  “What do you see?”

  Prying her gaze away from him, she glanced outside. “My house.”

  “What else?”

  She glanced down. “A little bit of your yard, the fence that separates it from mine, and most of my yard.” Solar floodlights illuminated much of the latter.

  “Keep your eyes on your yard.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m going to count to three.”

  Why? What exactly did he want her to see?

  “One. Two. Three.”

  A thud sounded downstairs. A blur swept over the fence. Then Nick stood in the middle of her yard, staring up at her.

  Kayla swung around to look behind her. Upon finding the room empty, she faced the window. Nick slipped his hands into his pockets. Kayla gripped the windowsill until her knuckles whitened. Her pulse raced as madly as it did when she worked out on her MaxiClimber.

  That was impossible. What Nick had just done… It was impossible! No more than a second had passed! One second. And he had run downstairs, unlocked and opened his door, crossed his yard, jumped the fence, and landed in the middle of hers in that one second? It would take her longer than that just to race down the stairs!

  “What the hell?” she whispered.

  Nick removed his hand from his pocket and held up three fingers, then two, then one.

  He disappeared in a blur. A thud sounded downstairs.

  Kayla whipped around and found Nick standing a few feet behind her as if he had never left.

  Gasping, she backed away without any thought and ended up tucked in a corner of the room.

  Pain flashed across his handsome features. Then a stoic mask dropped over his face. Those beautiful dark brown eyes of his began to glow with amber light as though someone had lit a candle behind his irises.

  Her heartbeat pounded like a drum in her ears. “Y-Your eyes are glowing.”

  Swearing, he closed his eyes and reached up to rub them. “I’m sorry. It’s another way I’m different. Immortals’ eyes tend to glow anytime we experience strong emotion. It’s involuntary. And…” He released a resigned sigh and lowered his hand.

  “And?” she asked hesitantly.

  One broad shoulder lifted in a miserable shrug. “And the fear I see in your eyes cuts like a knife.”

  Guilt trickled in. Nick had always been kind to her, had always been warm and friendly and funny. He’d never done anything to make her fear him in the past. “I’m sorry. I’m just…” She told her heart to settle down. “It just caught me off guard. With the accident and… waking up here and…” She shook her head, trying to force her tight muscles to relax. “This is sort of a lot to process all at once.”

  “I know. But I needed you to understand what happened before Becca arrives.”

  He and his friend had healed her and saved her life. That’s what had happened. They had saved her vision. Had probably saved her career since vision loss would have interfered with her editing. They had saved her weeks, if not months, of recovery time, of painful physical therapy, not to mention enormous medical bills.

  This time she was the one who nervously rubbed her hands on her pants. “You said you’re sort of immortal. What does that mean exactly?”

  “I heal very quickly.”

  “How quickly?”

  He turned and strode through a nearby doorway. A light came on, revealing a very nice bathroom. Far nicer than her own, which hadn’t been remodeled since the house was built in the eighties. The light flicked off as Nick returned.

  Her gaze dropped to the items he now carried. His left hand clutched a towel. The other held a straight razor.

  Fear made a quick comeback.

  He stopped on the other side of the bed, his eyes still bearing an amber glow. “As I said, I heal incredibly fast. Don’t panic, okay?”

  Trepidation rose. “Why? What are you going to do?”

  In answer, he bent his left arm up as if he were doing a partial bicep curl so the hand clutching the towel faced the ceiling. Then he pierced the skin near his wrist with the razor and dragged the blade up his muscled forearm, carving a deep gash that must be a good seven or eight inches long.

  “Are you fucking crazy?” Kayla shouted.

  Nick tossed the crimson-stained razor onto the bedside table. Blood pooled in the gash he’d carved and slithered out like lava from a volcano.

  Hurrying around the bed, she yanked the towel from his hand and pressed it to the ghastly wound. What the hell?

  “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’ll heal.”

  Why was he so fucking calm? He could’ve hit an artery. Wouldn’t he bleed out if he severed an artery?

  “Sit down,” she ordered, panic riding her hard.

  Nick obediently sat on the edge of the bed.

  She braced a foot on the big bed frame’s side rail, stepped up, and sat beside him, careful to place her body between Nick and the razor blade. Her hip pressed against his as she cradled his injured arm in her lap and applied pressure to the wound. “Do you think you hit an artery? Should I call 911?”

  “No.” Why was his voice so relaxed and quiet when anxiety made hers overly loud and tight?

  “Do you have butterfly closures or a pressure bandage or something I can use on it?”

  “There’s no need.” He covered one of her hands with his. “Stop applying pressure and look at the wound.”

  Brow furrowing, she glanced up and found his face close to hers. She swallowed hard. “What?”

  “Check the wound.” He withdrew his touch.

  Kayla dropped her gaze to the arm she’d wrapped the towel around. Carefully, she peeled the heavy cotton cloth away. The gush of blood had already reduced to a trickle that ceased even as she watched.

  Impossible. A wound that bad would not stop bleeding so quickly. She had suffered much shallower cuts that had bled far longer.

  Beneath her fascinated gaze, the smooth edges of the wound drew together at each end. The rest sealed as though an invisible zipper were being pulled. A long sc
ar formed, dark pink at first. But as she watched, it faded as the thick ridge shrank, flattened, and transformed into new, unblemished skin.

  Kayla wiped Nick’s arm clean with the towel.

  It was gone. The gash was completely gone.

  She drew the trembling fingers of one hand along the smooth tanned skin of his muscled forearm. When she reached his palm, his fingers curled around hers and clung.

  She glanced up and admitted in a hoarse whisper, “I feel like I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.”

  “I know,” he said, his voice equally soft. “This is a lot to lay on you all at once.” The amber light in his eyes now fascinated her more than it scared her. “But I’m still Nick, Kayla.”

  Swallowing, she nodded. “And you’re immortal.”

  “Mostly,” he qualified. “Decapitation will kill me, but little else will.”

  She scrambled for some explanation. “Are you like Thor or Superman? Are you an alien?”

  His lips turned up slightly. “No. I was born here on Earth. I was just born with more advanced DNA than ordinary humans.”

  He had mentioned advanced DNA earlier.

  Her mind raced. “Were you created in a lab or something? Did someone conduct genetic experiments on you when you were in the womb?” She knew science had already developed methods of editing human genomes, altering DNA, and modifying gene function. Had they done that to Nick? He said he had been born this way. She’d thought scientists were still holding off on altering the DNA of a fetus because any such alterations they performed would be passed down to that fetus’s children and grandchildren and they worried over the repercussions.

  “No.”

  “Then why is your DNA more advanced?”

  He combed his fingers through his hair, ruffling it a bit. “The short answer is: there have been men and women with advanced DNA on Earth for thousands of years. They’re just far fewer in number. And the more they mingled with and married ordinary humans over the millennia, the more that advanced DNA was diluted until today most gifted ones don’t even realize they’re different.”

  “Gifted ones?”

  “That’s what we call those of us who possess the advanced DNA, because it gives us special gifts that ordinary humans lack.”