pdf - Saving Jenna.PDF (16 page)

“Oh God, Oh God, Oh God,” she chanted as she skidded to her knees beside him.

“Don’t you dare die,” she growled, knotting her hand in his hair.

There was so much blood pouring from around the stakes, pooling under him. And it was so dark, almost scorched looking.

She stared at his chest, willing it to move, to give some sign that he was still breathing, still alive. Finally she detected movement, a slight, shallow breath. Pause.

Another, shallower breath.

Jenna, Beloved
, she could almost hear him.
Go to Bas; let him take care of you.

“To
hell
with that, Nic Alero!” She ripped off her sweatshirt and wadded it around the stakes, trying to staunch the blood flow. “Nobody’s taking care of me except for you!

If you don’t want me to spend the rest of my life alone and miserable, then you’d better not give up on me, dammit.”

The sweatshirt was already wet under her hand, soaking up each drop of life that flowed from Nic.

“Sebastian,” she screamed, praying he could find her through the din of bullets and choking smoke.

She crouched over Nic, feeling his life seep between her fingers, and searched the haze for Bas. When he appeared, he looked like an avenging angel, his long leather trench coat rippling behind him. He was a dark warrior coming to their rescue.

“Oh, Christ,” he bent down and examined Nic’s wounds, then looked up at Jenna.

“This is really bad, pretty One. We need to get him the hell out of here.”

“He’s going to be all right, Bas. Please tell me he’s going to be all right.” Bas grappled with Nic’s limp body, hoisting it over his shoulder in a reverse fireman’s carry.

“He will if I have anything to say about it.”

*

“Man down, let’s roll,” Bas yelled into the grey haze. There was a fury of gunfire behind them and one of the Wolves ran past Bas and Jenna, taking up the lead position.

Handing her his gun, Bas pulled Jenna along by the arm and they ran up the stairs.

They rounded the corner and almost flattened Jordan, who was once again standing in the hallway.

The Wolf, Abel, growled viciously, raising his gun, and Jenna cried out, “No, don’t shoot him!”

Bas couldn’t tear his eyes away from Jordan as the doctor grabbed her hand.

Shooting a quick glance at the soldiers who’d escaped, Jordan muttered, “Follow me,” and ran down the hallway, pulling Jenna along with him. Shifting Nic on his shoulder, Bas followed.

Jordan ran back the way they’d come, making a sharp right turn into a camouflaged doorway. Jenna was panting, fighting gamely to keep up.

“Where are we?” she gasped when Jordan paused to work a combination lock on a heavy steel door.

“Your father has done a lot of construction down here. New and improved lab space and cells. Secret tunnels and escape routes.” The lock clicked, and Jordan leaned into the door, forcing it open just enough for the fugitives to squeeze through. “This tunnel lets out just inside the front gate. I’ll set the alarm from inside, give you about five minutes to get off the property.”

“Why the fuck should we trust one of Stone’s men?” Abel growled.

“You shouldn’t,” Jordan answered. “But I’ve never betrayed Jenna or Rowan, and I’m not betraying you now.”

“Enough,” Bas said shortly when the Wolf would have argued. “Nic doesn’t have time for this debate. Let’s move.” He pushed past Abel, and began herding Jenna through the door with his body. Before they passed through the opening, Jordan reached out and touched her cheek.

“You didn’t get to Rowan, did you?” The grief in his eyes showed he knew full well what that meant. Jenna shook her head, unable to speak.

“I’ll do what I can for her,” he promised, and some of the suicidal fury subsided in his eyes.

“Let’s move, pretty One,” Bas broke in. He couldn’t tolerate Jordan’s hand on her cheek, the obvious affection between the two of them. Once Jenna was in the passageway, he stopped and met the doctor’s eyes one last time.

“Come with us.” The words burst out without his permission. He ached to touch the doctor’s face the way the man had touched Jenna’s. The sad tilt of Jordan’s smile and the bleak light in his eyes told Bas that the doctor knew. Maybe even felt it, too.

“I can’t go,” he replied softly. “Even if it had been a possibility before, I can’t leave Rowan here without any allies.”

“You aren’t safe here,” Bas tried one more time. “Don’t make me leave you behind.” He was oblivious to everything but Nic’s weight on his shoulder and the burning depths of Jordan’s eyes, so he didn’t see the significant look that flashed between the Wolves, or Jenna’s slowly dawning comprehension.

“I’m a dead man already, no matter where I am,” Jordan answered in that same quiet voice. He reached out, tapped a series of keys on the alarm pad, and shook his head.

“You’ve got five minutes to get off the property.” He looked at Jenna, standing pale and mute in the tunnel. “Take care of her,” he said, and with a last, lingering look he turned and ran.

The Wolves slipped into the tunnel, Kane taking the lead and Abel bringing up the rear. He pulled the door closed behind them with a soft clunk, and they began their race through the dark, never slowing until they made their way up the steps and into the clear night air.

Chapter Eleven

The ride back to the penthouse passed in a blur of trees streaking the dark outside the windows, Bas yelling into his phone, calling for as many blood donors as could be rounded up and for Elena to meet them. At some point one of the Wolves had pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around Jenna’s blood-streaked body. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized she was clad only in her jeans, her bra, and her lover’s blood.

They entered the penthouse at a dead run. Jenna found herself weaving through a crowd of people, twenty or more, as Bas rushed Nic into the bedroom, where Elena had already set up her work area.

Elena ignored Bas and Jenna entirely, running her hands along Nic’s body while four very young women, each dressed in a flowing white muslin robe, moved in and began removing his ruined clothing.

Jenna lunged toward the bed, desperate to do something to help her lover, but found herself wrapped in a pair of warm, irresistible arms.

“Let me go,” she gritted out as Bas held her tight. “I promised not to leave him.”

“Shhh, pretty One.” She struggled for all she was worth, but Bas’s arms were like living steel, and there was no escape. “Let the Healer do her work.” His voice was meant to be soothing, but Jenna heard the tension and worry underneath.

Somehow his vulnerability broke through her frantic rage, and she shifted in his hold, wrapping her arms around his waist to comfort them both.

“She’ll save him, won’t she?” Jenna hated the doubt in her voice. Now wasn’t the time to lose faith. Nic needed her to be strong.

“If anyone can, it’s Elena,” Bas replied. “She saved you when I was sure it was a lost cause, and Nic is much stronger…” He trailed off as the girls attending Elena formed a circle around Nic, fingertips touching his body as they harmonized in a low, soothing chant. The healer skimmed her glowing hands down the length of Nic’s body. When she reached the two stakes, still embedded in his chest, sparks shot from her palms.

Without opening her eyes, the healer tilted her head toward Bas. “Have we enough donors? He will need much blood.”

“Twenty here,” he answered, “and more on call if they are needed.” The healer nodded. “Call them.”

* * * *

Though Bas still held her back from the bed, Jenna was grateful that he’d stopped trying to pull her from the room. Elena and her apprentices had labored over Nic for hours, their bell-like voices raised in healing songs as Elena passed burning sweet grass and other healing herbs over Nic’s still body.

At long last Elena turned her peaceful gaze to Jenna.

“You have been very brave, child,” the healer began, but Jenna shook her head in denial.

“It’s not bravery. I simply will not allow him to die.” Elena smiled.

“Come, sit behind him.” The apprentices lifted Nic’s upper body gently, and Jenna slid behind him, wrapping his too-cool form in a supporting embrace. Elena met her eyes seriously. “We must transfuse him,” she explained. “Your father’s weapons have filled his body with silver, and it is like an acid, eating him from the inside out.” Jenna flinched at the description, imagining his pain.

“We will remove the polluted blood,” Elena continued, “and replace it with blood that is clean and wholesome.”

“Give him my blood,” Jenna whispered. “Let me help.” Elena laid one gentle hand over Jenna’s where it rested on Nic’s chest. “Oh, my dear, you will help. He cannot take your blood yet, his ability to metabolize it is compromised.” Jenna whimpered with the realization that her father had not only nearly murdered her lover, but had stolen her ability to heal him.

Elena sensed her distress, because she spoke firmly, demanding Jenna’s complete attention. “You cannot give him your blood, but you can give him your strength. You are his soul, his reason for living. Remind him of that, that he has something to fight for.” Elena nodded to Bas. “Bring in the first.”

Bas left the room, and the healer took a wicked looking athame and opened Nic’s wrists, laying them over two wooden bowls. The blood flowing from his veins was dark and black looking. An acrid odor filled the room.

Bas returned, bringing a massive Vampire with him. The Goliath knelt by Nic’s head and tore at his wrist with his teeth before one of the girls could offer him the athame.

Once his blood was flowing freely, he placed his wrist against Nic’s lips.

A shiver twitched over Nic’s cool body as the clean, healing blood hit his tongue.

Unconsciously he wrapped his lips around the wound, and Jenna took a ragged, relieved breath as she saw his throat begin to work.

All the while, Elena bled Nic, stepping in often to reopen the wounds on his wrists as they began to heal. After a time she stepped in and gently broke the seal of Nic’s mouth on the giant’s wrist. Nic didn’t wake, but his brow wrinkled, and his head turned as if to follow the source of nourishment.

Another donor entered. And another. Elena reopened Nic’s wrists. Coaxed his polluted blood into the wooden bowls. As the color and texture of Nic’s blood lightened, his skin began to heat. Soon he was feverish in Jenna’s arms, body moving restlessly in her embrace.

The ritual continued for hours as Elena and her apprentices fought to cleanse Nic’s system.

Finally Nic’s blood flowed fresh and red. Elena dismissed the donors and gently eased each stake from Nic’s chest as Jenna held him. There was a long, breath-stealing moment as bright blood bubbled from each puncture, and then Jenna let out a low moan of relief as they began to slowly seal, knitting his skin to together in thick red puckers.

Jenna held him anxiously, stroking his matted hair.

“It’s time to wake up now, Nico. Open those blue eyes and give me hell for worrying about you.”

Nic remained as still as death.

“The crisis has passed,” Elena comforted her. The healer deftly eased Jenna from the bed. “Your man is strong, and he has much to live for.” Her lips whispered over Jenna’s forehead, leaving a strange tingling in their wake. Slowly the tingles crept down her body, spreading warmth and well-being through her from head to toe.

When Jenna looked at her in wonder, the healer just smiled at her, looking for the entire world like a child with a delicious secret. She turned to Bas with a sharp snap of her fingers.

“Sebastian, take your sister to the kitchen and get her fed.” Jenna shook her head in protest. “Oh, no. I’m not going anywhere.” Elena tapped her chin and retorted, “You will do him no good if you fall over from hunger and exhaustion. Do as I say.”

Jenna looked to Bas, who simply shrugged.

“I haven’t found a way to deny her in almost six hundred years,” the Vampire told her helplessly.

* * * *

Bas put his hand at Jenna’s back to lead her through the crowd gathered in Nic’s living room. She was frighteningly pale, and streaks of blood stood out garishly on her creamy skin. She appeared alarmingly fragile, with her wide brown eyes slightly glassy, her slender hands shaking, but she still stopped with a word of thanks for each of Nic’s donors. Her warmth and genuine gratitude won over many of the more skeptical Vampires, and by the time he’d led her into the kitchen, Bas was satisfied that she was well on her way to making several strong alliances.

Bas fixed her a sandwich, but Jenna just picked at it.

“Now, Jenna,” he began teasingly, “you’re going to make me think you don’t enjoy my cooking if you don’t eat something.”

She sent him a dry look. “I don’t think slapping turkey cold-cuts on slices of bread counts as cooking.” But, to his relief she took a bite.

He was about to respond when a shriek split the air.

“Where is he?” Chandra flew into the apartment like an avenging fury.

“Oh, fuck,” he muttered and darted out of the kitchen, catching the blonde Vampiress by the arm before she could barge into Nic’s room.

“Chandra,” Bas whispered, “he’s asleep. He’s going to recover, but not if we subject him to a bunch of hysterical scenes.”

Every eye in the room was glued to them as Chandra stood, bosom heaving like a tragic heroine. When a fat tear began to tremble on her lower lashes, Bas drew in a deep breath. Of course this wasn’t going to be easy.

She turned her beautiful blonde head toward the kitchen doorway, where Jenna had propped herself. Jenna, Bas was proud to notice, was watching Chandra with a bland expression as she munched on her sandwich.

“
You,
” Chandra howled, breaking free of Bas’s grasp. “You stupid, fat, human
cow.

This is all your fault. Nicky wouldn’t be almost dead if it wasn’t for you.” Her eyes were poisonous green flame and her fangs dropped menacingly as she hissed at Jenna. Her long red nails became razor-sharp talons as she lunged at Jenna. Bas wasn’t sure if she’d intended to bite her or claw her, but it became a moot point when Kane and Abel stepped in front of Jenna, creating a solid wall of Wolf.