“I noticed you’re still alive.”
Erik was silent as he thought about it. There had been several opportunities over the last couple of days when she could have killed him—or let him die—and she hadn’t.
“I’m catching the next flight home,” Gerard said into the silence. “I shouldn’t be away at a time like this.”
“Good. I think Kacie would like it if you were here. Call me when you get into Newcastle, we’ll come pick you up. It’ll be safer that way.”
Eight hours after he’d brought her home, Erik dragged himself into the bedroom to find Kacie lying awake in bed.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Like . . . run over . . . by train,” she croaked in a voice still raw from the trauma.
“Do you remember what happened?”
He saw her start to shake her head and then wince from the pain. She closed her eyes and lay that way for so long that he thought she might have fallen asleep. Then her eyes snapped open and from the strange expression on her face, he knew some of the details were coming back.
As if to prove him right, she lifted a hand to the side of her neck. “How bad?”
“Bad enough.”
“Vampire?”
“No, you’re not a vampire. However, you’ve got a lot of venom in your system.”
She listened to the pronouncement and then slowly exhaled. “Not exactly . . . how I . . . planned,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
Planned? “Are you telling me that you purposely went to the chupacabra colony?” He was instantly livid. He wasn’t sure what he’d thought—maybe that she’d been lured there—but to have gone there intentionally? “Are you fucking kidding me?” His yelling caused her to cringe, but he didn’t care. “I’ve done everything I can to protect you and then you go and pull a stunt like this? If I hadn’t been awakened by the chupacabras, you’d be dead, like me.” He stopped talking long enough to take a deep breath. He had come so close to losing her. “Maybe you don’t care what happens to you, but damn it, I do.”
She had the decency to look contrite. “I thought I could . . . help you . . . if I was . . . stronger . . . faster.”
“By becoming a prime?” He’d never heard of anything so crazy.
“No . . . changeling,” she said, defending herself. She swallowed, winced, and then struggled to go on. “Wanted to . . . inject myself . . . with venom.” She paused to catch her breath. “Still daytime . . . safe. Didn’t expect the tunnel . . . so long. Tide came . . . before . . . finished. Trapped.”
He stared at her in awe. She had gone into the chupacabra colony on purpose. He didn’t care how rational it might have sounded to her at the time. “You’re a damn fool,” he chastised her, rubbing his head in frustration. “If you were going to do something that asinine, you should have told me.”
“. . . talk me out of it.”
“Damn right, I would have.” He sighed. “I would have thought you’d at least be smart enough to use the other entrance.”
She shot him a piercing look. “Didn’t know . . . about other entrance . . . not in your journal.”
He couldn’t believe he’d heard her correctly. “You went through my private journals? In my office?”
She blushed. “Wanted to know . . . more about you. Curious.”
He hadn’t expected that answer and her interest in him helped mute his anger. “All you had to do was ask. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Promise?” She stared up at him with such intensity that he wasn’t sure how to react.
“I promise. Now, you should try to get some rest,” he told her, starting to feel sick. The blood he’d taken wasn’t setting well and for the last several minutes, his vision had been tunneling. He didn’t want Kacie to know, so he tried to keep his tone casual. “Next time you wake up, you’ll feel better. At least that’s one advantage to being a changeling—you heal quickly.”
“Changeling?” Her eyes got wide as she squeaked out the word.
“Yes. Changeling. You were injected with enough venom that the change is inevitable. I’ve only witnessed one change and that was with Angus, my brother. Obviously, that was a long time ago. Charles kept Gerard and me apprised of the two American changelings, though, and from what I recall, your appetite will change over the next couple of days. You’ll crave rare, bloodied meat, but don’t worry, that will go away once your fangs come in.”
“Fangs?” He could tell that the reality was finally hitting her.
Letting go of the last of his anger, Erik sat beside her on the bed and smoothed the hair from her face. It was a habit he couldn’t seem to break because it gave him an excuse to touch her and right now, it soothed him too. “It won’t be that bad,” he assured her. “Just sleep for now.”
As he continued to stroke her hair, her eyelids grew heavy. Several times they fluttered as she tried to keep them open.
“Michael?” she asked, barely above a whisper.
“Don’t worry about him. He’s not going to do anything to us here.”
“Erik”—her eyes drifted closed—“don’t leave me.”
“I won’t.” He smoothed her hair and she fell back asleep. “Not as long as I still draw breath.”
Kacie woke, feeling sore, tired, and weak. For several minutes she didn’t move, taking inventory of the various aches and pains. She was lucky to be alive and knew it was thanks to Erik that she was.
Thinking of him, she turned and saw that he was lying beside her on the bed. He was unusually still and she hated to wake him, so she let her gaze linger on him, studying the contours of his face, the strong line of his jaw—the pallor of his skin.
She looked again, noticing the scratches on his neck that hadn’t been there the night before. Had the chupacabras attacked him when he’d rescued her?
Feeling guilty that he’d suffered because of her, she laid her hand against his cheek in a gentle caress. He was burning up.
“Erik,” she whispered, not wanting to startle him. When he didn’t respond, she tried again. “Erik, it’s Kacie.”
“Kacie?” Her name came on a raspy whisper.
“Erik—you’re running a fever. What’s wrong?”
“Don’t feel well,” he managed to say. “Sick.”
Kacie hadn’t realized vampires could get sick. And if it was because the chupacabras were infected, why wasn’t she ill? Questions tumbled around in her head, making her feel helpless, not knowing what to do for him. “Do you need blood? Medicine?”
He mumbled something incoherent, leaving her to draw her own conclusions. The first thing she needed to do was get his fever down.
Hurrying to the bathroom, she wet a cloth with cold water, wringing out the excess. She carried it back to Erik and laid the folded cloth across his forehead while she undid the buttons of his shirt. She laid her hands flat on his chest and pushed the shirt aside, noticing the male perfection of his chest. The dark hair covering it was soft and not so thick it obstructed her view of the muscled contours.
It was with an effort that she tore her attention away and rolled him to the side in order to pull the shirt completely off. As soon as his arms were bared, she caught her breath. Both arms bore puncture wounds and scratches. He’d obviously cleaned them sometime while she was unconscious, but they were hot to the touch and seemed to her to be the source of his illness.
For the next several minutes, she ran a cool cloth over his heated skin. Afterward, he seemed to rest more quietly, but she could tell he was still weak.
Covering him with a sheet, she went into his kitchen to look for blood. She saw the spent bags in the trash, along with bloodstained IV tubing. Glancing at the inside of her arm, she saw the faint mark where an IV needle had been inserted and realized he’d infused her with blood—and probably saved her life in doing so.
Her resolve to help him increased and she searched the refrigerator for other bags. All she found was a single pint of pig’s blood. That would work to hel
p restore his health but she knew it wasn’t as good as human blood would have been.
She took it out and placed it in the microwave to heat. As soon as it was warm enough, she took it out. About to carry it in to him, a memory surfaced. The mythos around the energizing powers of blood freely given was well-known in the Winslow family. Typically, the story was told in reference to blood given to changelings, but hadn’t Jess told her that she and John had given Harris blood once when he was ill? It had helped save his life.
It was worth trying.
She looked around the kitchen, wondering how much blood she would need—and how she was going to extract it. She grabbed the medical kit and searched the contents for a syringe. There wasn’t one.
With the sense that time was running out, she looked around. Her eyes fell on the cutlery block. She looked from it to her open palm. The cut didn’t have to be deep, just enough to bleed. And now that she was a changeling, it would heal quickly.
She pulled a knife from the block and tried to think of a better solution, but couldn’t. Then, before she could change her mind, she dragged the knife across her palm.
The sting of the cut made her suck in her breath. Blood began pooling in her hand and she quickly grabbed a cup from the cupboard. Then she held her hand above it and let the blood flow into it.
“I give this blood freely,” she said aloud. “I give this blood freely and pray it helps.” Because it hurts like a son of a bitch.
A minute later, the pain started to fade and she noticed the bleeding had slowed considerably. Looking at her palm, she saw that the wound was already beginning to clot and close. She raised the cup and saw that there was enough blood for a swallow or two. It would have to do.
Running her hand under the water to clean away the last of the blood, she dried it and wrapped it with gauze from the medical kit. Then she carried both containers of blood in to Erik.
He was still lying with his eyes closed.
“Erik, I need you to wake up,” she said, setting the containers on the bedside table. She needed to prop him up so he could drink.
With one hand beneath his head for support and the other on his shoulder, she pulled him into a sitting position. It was obvious he wasn’t awake enough to hold himself like that, so she made a snap decision. Snaking a leg around him, she sat on the bed behind him. Then she let him fall back against her.
“Erik. You need to drink.” With his head resting at the crook of her neck, she angled the cup with her blood to his lips. “I give you this blood freely. Drink.” She tipped the cup until blood touched his lips. “Drink it, Erik, please,” she said in his ear. His mouth opened and she tipped the cup a little more, pouring a small amount of blood past his lips. She wanted to shout with joy when she saw his throat work to swallow. “That’s it, Erik. Drink. I give you my blood freely. Please let it help.”
It took about fifteen minutes before he finished off the blood in both cups. After that, Kacie was exhausted. She decided she’d done too much too soon after her own injuries. She didn’t even have the energy to try to get out from behind Erik, so she rested against the headboard and let him rest against her. That’s how she fell asleep.
Chapter 11
Kacie woke when she felt Erik stirring. “Hey there,” she said softly, not wanting to startle him. His head still rested in the crook of her neck and she laid a hand across his forehead. “I think your fever is gone. How are you feeling?”
“I should be asking you that,” he said, sounding tired. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. When I woke up, you were sick. I found some blood in your refrigerator and gave it to you. Then I sort of fell asleep.”
“Have you been holding me like this all day?” His voice sounded husky, intoxicating.
“Yes,” she said, unable to stop herself from running her hands across his chest, savoring the feel of him.
She felt his intake of breath right before he pushed himself up off the bed and headed for the door. “Where are you going?” she asked, feeling suddenly abandoned.
He wouldn’t even look at her. “Back to my room.”
“You don’t have to go,” she told him.
“Kacie, I . . . Christ. Yes, I do. You don’t have any clothes on and right now, I’m feeling a little too alive.” He disappeared out the door.
Pulling the sheet up to cover her, she felt her face heat. She’d been too worried about him earlier to notice her clothes, or the lack thereof. Now she wasn’t sure if she was more embarrassed or disappointed that he’d run off.
Hoping a shower would wash away both emotions, she got out of bed. The clothes she’d worn into the chupacabra cave were missing. She imagined they had been covered with blood and Erik had probably thrown them away. That was fine, but it left her with nothing to wear. She’d deal with it after her shower. For now, she wrapped the sheet around her and headed for the bathroom.
Once there, she turned to close the door behind her and found herself staring through a hole. She remembered the crashing noise she’d heard—how long ago had that been? Now she knew what had caused it.
Hanging her sheet over the hole, she went to start the water. When it was hot enough, she stepped beneath the spray. As the water washed over her, it relaxed both her muscles and the mental restraint she’d kept around her thoughts. Her mind started replaying the entire attack sequence in slow motion—with all the horror and all the fear. She remembered the way the chupacabras had crowded her and felt the terror all over again.
She tried to force her thoughts to something more pleasant, but couldn’t escape reliving that moment. Afraid the images wouldn’t go away unless she got out, she picked up the soap and bathed so fast that she was done before the steam from the shower could build. Turning off the water, she pushed aside the shower curtain and reached for a towel. Her gaze fell on the mirror hanging across from her and she found herself looking straight into a vampire’s red crimson eyes.
Adrenaline shot through her as she stumbled back, crying out in alarm. She lost her footing and fell, grabbing at the shower curtain for support. It came crashing down on top of her, making a huge noise—almost as loud as the sound of the bathroom door slamming open moments later.
Erik stood there, eyes blazing. Clutching a sword, he looked ready to do battle. He scanned the entire bathroom before letting his gaze settle on her. “Everything all right?” he asked cautiously. “Are you hurt?”
“Just my pride,” she said, sitting sprawled in the tub with one leg hanging over the side. “I saw something in the mirror that startled me.”
“What?”
“Me.” She expected him to make fun of her, but he didn’t. “I saw my eyes in the mirror,” she explained. “They were glowing, like a—”
“Vampire’s?”
She nodded.
“You’ll get used to it,” he told her.
“I don’t want to get used to it,” she told him, sharing some of her fears. “I look like they do.”
“Oh, you mean, like me?” There was a bite to his tone.
“I don’t mean you,” she told him. “I know you’d never hurt anyone. No, I look like the ones who killed my family.”
“No, you don’t.” He paused. “And you’re wrong, you know. About me. Sometimes I hurt people without even meaning to.” He lowered his sword and walked over to her. “And sometimes I do it on purpose, in order to protect the ones I care about. I’m not evil incarnate, but I’m no saint either.” He offered her a hand, which she pointedly ignored. “So you want up?”
“I’m . . . I’m not wearing anything.”
“I hate to break it to you, but it’s a little late for modesty.”
He was right. Reluctantly, she clasped the shower curtain to her with one hand and placed her other in his so he could help her to stand. Then he grabbed a towel out of the cabinet and held it out to her.
She took it and waited until he’d turned his back to drop the shower curtain back into the tub. “How hard was it for
you to adjust?” she asked, wrapping the towel around herself.
“It was hard, but there are advantages.”
“Like . . . ?”
“Well, for starters, those glowing red eyes you’re so scared of? They’ll let you see at night better than a cat.”
She considered it and decided that could be a positive. “Go on.”
“Then there’s the speed and strength. Next time you pick up a sword to fight a vampire, I think you’re going to be very happy with your reflexes and how well you fight.”
Yes, she thought. Both of those were good.
“There are other things—better hearing and sense of smell.”
“But on the downside, there’s how tired I’ll be during the day.”
“Granted, but at least you won’t turn to stone if the sunlight touches you, so count your blessings.”
That was true, she thought.
“The bottom line here,” he went on, “is that there’s not a damn thing you can do about it, so you might as well make the best of it. Now, how about some clothes and then I’ll fix you something to eat. Are you hungry?”
“A little,” she admitted. “What about the shower? I think I might have broken the curtain rod.” She stared at the damage, feeling bad about it.
He glanced at it, then at the door, which now hung at an angle from one hinge, and shrugged. “Forget it. I was thinking of remodeling anyway.”
Smiling, he walked her back to her room, then left her while he continued on to his. He came back a few minutes later and handed her some clothes.
He glanced at his bare wrist like he was checking the time and then dropped it back to his side with a sigh. “I don’t know what time it is, but it feels late. The butcher should have delivered the order I placed last night. I’ll go get it and while you change, I’ll start cooking you something to eat.”
Leaving her in the bedroom, he headed for the door. So much had happened lately, he was having trouble absorbing it all. It didn’t help that he wasn’t quite feeling his old self yet. It wasn’t that he was tired or sick, necessarily. He actually felt pretty good, but that probably had more to do with the time of night it was—and other things.
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