Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
I balance on one leg within the safety of the café’s open back door and try to keep my injured leg as still as I can while I wait impatiently for the vampire to wake up. Blood trickles down my leg and into my sock.
I’ve not stemmed the bleeding because I don’t know what to do. I know a tourniquet is an obvious choice, but I don’t want to disturb the knife, and the silver blade is doing a good enough job, for now, of plugging the hole in my leg.
Sweat trickles down the back of my neck, and I grind my teeth as I do my best to ignore the pain. My leg is burning hot, and my hands are freezing.
A very nasty potion ball—once owned by the downed vampire—rolls in my palm, ready in case the vampire tries anything stupid. In my other hand is my mobile. My thumb hovers over Xander’s number, ready to call in the cavalry.
It doesn’t take long for the bitten vampire—he must be quite old—to recover from his broken neck.
Bitten vampires get stronger with age until they don’t, and then they fall apart.
When consciousness hits him, he automatically springs to his feet; he stumbles, and he has to hold the wall to regain his balance.
He rubs the back of his neck. I see it… the moment when he catches the scent of my blood.
His nostrils flare, and his head whips around to look at me.
Our eyes meet, and I can’t help my smirk as I creepily whisper, “An angel is coming to get you. If I were you, I’d run.” I press Xander’s number on my phone. I also wiggle the potion ball between my thumb and forefinger. The liquid inside the potion catches the light.
The angel answers on the second ring.
“Are you okay?” he immediately demands. He knows I wouldn’t ring him if it wasn’t important.
“No, not really. I have a bloody great knife in my leg from an assassin attack.” I hear the small intake of his breath at my words.
“I’m on my way… stay on the phone. Where is your assailant now?”
The vampire runs.
I smile.
Looks like my walking message has gone to report to his master.
“He’s gone,” I can now say truthfully. I stuff the potion ball in my pocket and use the wall behind me as a guide to the floor; I bend the knee of my good leg and carefully squat as I lower myself. My jacket scrapes, and my top raises a little. I groan.
“Where are you?”
“At the café’s back door.”
“Where are your bodyguards?” In the background, I hear a door slam and a car engine roar to life.
“I presume they are at the front door.”
“Stay on the line.” The phone beeps as he places me on hold. I roll my eyes and end the call. I keep my injured leg bent and slump so the wound is higher than my heart.
Dark grey clouds float above the café, and an old spiderweb attached to the gutter flutters in the chilly breeze. I waited to call for help because I knew that if they’d caught him, he’d be dead. That wouldn’t do. I wanted to send the vampire back as a message, a warning.
My grandad always said there’s honour in a warrior’s death.
Assassins are a prideful, gossipy lot, so getting beaten by a teenage girl and then being humiliated in front of a client ’cause you didn’t notice said girl had drawn all over your face, and to top it all off you get ridiculed by your peers when the photos appear online?
It will sure make other assassins think twice about coming after me.
The risk of losing their life is part of the job description, but failure and losing your reputation because you’re a laughingstock? It will make them twitchy as hell. Yep, reputation is everything.
I don’t have proof, but I’m sure the vampire council is behind this attempt.
Within a minute, a harassed, freaked-out wolf shifter bodyguard comes through the back door.
“I’m with her now. Yes, there is a silver knife in her leg… No sir, she hasn’t removed it. Yes sir, there’s a lot of blood.”
This is why I need to learn to shift. ’Cause if I could just shift there would be no need to pull the knife out. I’d shift, and the blade would drop to the floor. Apart from the hole and blood on my pants, no one would be any the wiser, that’s much better than all this drama.
Story freaks out and then jabbers in my ear about how she knew I’d snuck out and that I’m an idiot.
Tilly is manning the café. I told her not to come outside.
The poor dryad would lose all the blossoms in her hair if she saw me with a knife sticking out of my leg and bleeding everywhere.
I told her it was just a scratch, and I’d see her tomorrow.
I ignore Story’s reprimanding lecture and instead open my photo app, and she almost falls off my shoulder with her raucous giggles when I show her the photos of my artwork on the vampire’s face.
The two bodyguards look more alert than they have in days and slightly green. I feel a little guilty. Story is right. If I hadn’t snuck out, they wouldn’t be in trouble, but I keep my mouth shut.
I stuff my phone in my pocket as Xander’s fancy car screeches to a stop. The door flies open and an angry, worried angel liquid prowls towards me.
“Why did you hang up? I told you to stay on the line,” are the first words out of his mouth. I shrug. His honey eyes are everywhere at once, checking me from head to toe. His attention homes in on my leg.
He grunts, and I squeak as his enormous arms sweep me up off the floor into his arms bridal-style. It’s as if I am made of feathers. He cradles me gently to his chest.
Story flutters above us, her hands in a praying position underneath her chin. She sighs. The bloody pixie is loving this.
“I will speak to you two later,” Xander growls at the bodyguards as he heads towards the car.
Without missing a beat, he pops open the back door, and without jostling my leg, which is an impressive achievement, he slides into the roomy back, keeping me on his lap with my injured leg across the seats.
The door snicks shut. The car has tinted windows, and it leaves us in an intimate cocoon.
If my leg wasn’t throbbing like a motherfucker, I’d be blushing, but as my blood is currently congealing on the street and stuck to my pants, my sock, and sloshing in my boot…
I haven’t got enough left to produce a decent blush.
“I’ll get blood on your seats,” I say belatedly.
“I don’t care about the seats.” Xander gently pulls me back against his bumpy chest. His fingers brush the bloody skin around the knife.
I flinch. “Shush, you’re okay. Don’t move.
I just need to…” Xander grips the fabric of my black work trousers with his thumbs and then rips the material, exposing most of my upper thigh.
God, that was hot… Shut up, Tru. You are such a weirdo.
“Why are you here on Earth? Surely it isn’t to run a nightclub,” I blurt out.
Xander looks up from my leg and frowns. Yeah, maybe now isn’t the time to ask nosy questions. But in for a penny… I stick my bottom lip out and comically widen my eyes.
“Night-Shift is an excellent investment,” he grunts.
“But what else do you do”—my lip quivers—“please I need a second, a distraction.”
“I am the liaison between our worlds. I assess security threats.”
“Shit, am I a threat?”
“You?” Xander’s honey eyes dance with poorly veiled amusement and his mouth twitches. “You are a pain in the arse.” His fingers gently brush the underside of my jaw, and he tilts my face up. Then his big naked forearm heads towards my face. I grip it with my hands before he knocks my teeth out.
“Whoa, warn a girl first.”
“My shadow, you need to drink. While you do, I’m going to pull the knife out of your leg, remove the silver from your system, and heal you.
It’s going to hurt like hell, but I’ve got to do it now before your skin around the knife wound dies.
Silver causes shifters rapid necrosis. I do not know how you’re still conscious. ”
Should I tell him silver doesn’t seem to affect me? I don’t know… If I’m wrong, I don’t want to look like an idiot.
I nod. I definitely won’t say no to a snack, and the knife has to come out. “Thank you for looking after me,” I whisper.
“Drink,” he rumbles softly in my ear. His whispered word causes goosebumps to rise on my arms. I tug his forearm closer to my mouth.
My fingers dig into his skin. I close my eyes and breathe him in.
My tongue darts out, and I lick along the crease of his elbow and lave over my favourite vein.
I pause for one second as the taste of his skin floods my mouth and his sunlight and metal scent fills my nose.
I bite down.
His incredible blood fills my mouth, and I get two big mouthfuls before Xander goes to touch the blade. Damn, it must be lodged deep into the bone. As the throwing knife was in the brick wall. I cringe. God, that’s an awful thought.
“Okay, on three. One”—I take another gulp of blood—“two”—I remove my teeth from his arm and press my leg flat to the seat—“three.”
A scream leaves my lips as the pain makes my head explode. I bury my face into his chest as his golden magic floods my wound.
Within moments the pain is gone, but I pant with its residual echo, and my heart hammers in my chest. My hands shake, so I hide them between us. The knife thuds to the floor, and Xander rocks me. “You’re healed, my shadow,” he murmurs.
I snuggle into his chest.
I’d love nothing more than to stay in his arms, but I can’t. Once I feel able to, I pull away. Xander’s hand grips my chin, and his thumb absentmindedly rubs my bottom lip. His eyes narrow. “Now, tell me what happened.”
Ah, shit.
“Well, I urm, picked a piece of cardboard up…”