Prince of Twilight (17 page)

Vlad's entire body erupted in pain. His eyes went wide, then bulged as he clutched his middle and fell to his knees.

“Well, what do you know? You were telling the truth about that much, at least. You
do
feel pain more intensely than mortals.” She tipped her head to one side. “Is it true, what Tempest believes? That the older the vampire, the more heightened his senses? Because, if it is, that must
really
hurt.”

She shrugged, then dropped to her knees so she
was at eye level with him again. He struggled to speak but couldn't form a word. The pain was too much.

“I can help you, Vlad. I can bandage that up for you and feed you from my own body.
If
you will transform me. Make me what you are, what I was born to be.”

“It would kill you,” he told her. “I can't be the cause of that, Beta.”

She shrugged and got to her feet again. “Then…goodbye.”

T
he front door slammed open, and Vlad lifted his head, trying to blink past the red haze of pain to see who was there. And then he knew, even before he saw her. He
felt
her.

Tempest. Her wide eyes swept the room, came to rest upon him, where he knelt on the floor, clutching his belly and bleeding, and then turned their full fury on Elisabeta.

“What the
hell
did you do?”

Elisabeta turned from where she'd been standing, and studying Vlad as if she'd never seen a bleeding man before. She faced Tempest, and her stance became stiffer. “Why are you here?” she asked. “Can't you see that my husband and I are having a long overdue reunion?”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“She has a knife, Tempest.” Vlad managed to force out the words.

“I see that, too,” she said. Then she stepped and turned, and lashed out with one foot, then the other. The two kicks were delivered powerfully, rapidly. The first sent the blade flying from Elisabeta's hand, and the second connected with her borrowed jaw.

Beta's head snapped back, and her body jerked before she hit the floor. Tempest didn't bother with her any further. Instead she turned and hurried to Vlad. Dropping to her knees, she gripped his blood-soaked shirt in her hands and ripped it open without taking time to unbutton it. He saw the way her lips thinned, the way her eyes flickered when they fixed on the wound in his gut. But she didn't give her reaction any more time than she'd given Beta. Instead, she tugged off the shirt she wore, revealing the T-shirt she had on underneath. She balled up her white button down shirt and held it to his belly.

“Press it to the wound. Press it
hard,
Vlad.”

Behind her! He started to speak a warning, but before he made even a sound, Tempest sprang up, turned and slammed the heel of her hand to Beta's chin, then the other hand, then the first again, in a rapid fire assault that had Beta's head snapping
like a punching bag. With the final blow, blood spurted from Beta's nose.

Beta shrieked, clutching her face and backing away. “
Tarva!
Bitch!” she cried as she blinked in shock at the pain and the blood on her hands. “I will kill you! I swear I will kill you if it's the last thing I do.”

“Yeah, I'm worried about that. I couldn't fight you before, Elisabeta. You were inside me. But you made a big mistake getting out, getting a body, because I
can
fight you now, and I damn well intend to.”

“You'll never win.”

“I already have.” Tempest reached for her, gripped her arm and tugged her away from the door.

“Tempest,” Vlad managed. “What are you going to do with her?”

She looked down at him, her eyes filled with what looked like blatant disbelief, but before she could answer, Elisabeta bit her hand, and when she jerked it away with a gasp, Beta whirled and ran from the house as fast as Brooke's legs would carry her.

Tempest lunged as if to give chase, then stopped herself, turning slowly back to him. “I should let you bleed out, you know that?”

He nodded once, slowly. “Give me a few more minutes and I'll oblige you.”

“Shit.”

He fell backward, too dizzy to remain on his knees, as retaining consciousness became a struggle.

 

Stormy wished for her car and the heavy duty first-aid kit she kept in the trunk. In her line of work, it didn't pay to be without one. Vampires were bleeders. A lot of them were friends. And most of the people who knew of their existence would just as soon see them all dead.

But she'd decided to walk tonight, so she didn't have her car. She was just going to have to make do. She did have some supplies in her backpack.

She raced through the house in search of a kitchen or bathroom, glancing at her watch on the way. Not even eleven yet. There was a lot of time before dawn, when his wound would heal on its own. A lot of time—he could be dead before the sun rose.

Kitchen. Excellent, the water faucets worked. She peeled her T-shirt off over her head, and used her teeth to tear off the short sleeves. Then she put it back on, and soaked the sleeves in water.

Back in what she presumed to be the living room of the broken down house, she saw Vlad trying to get to his feet and shook her head. “Stay down. Just…stay down, or you'll make it worse.”

“I thought…you'd gone after her.”

“And leave you to die? I'm pretty pissed at you, but not quite that much.” She sighed. “Sit down. Lean back against the wall there and let me see how bad it is.”

He sank down, leaning back on the wall as she pushed his shirt off his shoulders and began wiping the blood away with the wet cloths. It didn't matter that she had no soap or antiseptic. It wasn't an infection that would kill him—it was the bleeding. But she had to be able to see the wound.

“Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“Hmm?” Kneeling, she straddled him and tried to quell the queasiness that washed over her at seeing so much blood coating his rippled abs.

“Martial arts moves,” he said. “Flawlessly delivered.”

“I'm a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.”

Her hands were shaking as she continued to wash away the worst of the blood. It didn't do a lot of good, because there was more coming.

“I didn't know.”

“I imagine there's a lot you don't know, Vlad. You couldn't possibly have watched my every move for the past sixteen years. Here,” she said, pressing the wads of cloth to the wound. “Hold this tight.”

He did, but she could see it was hurting him. As
old as he was, he probably felt a splinter in his finger the way she would feel a knife wound. God help him. It was nothing compared to what was coming.

She'd dropped her mini-backpack by the door when she'd come in, just before she'd dropped Elisabeta close beside it. She went for it now, brought it back to where he lay and dug around inside. She might not have a full blown first-aid kit, but she wasn't entirely without resources.

Being prepared had become a way of life for her.

She pulled out a small packet that contained curved needles and silk thread. Vlad spied the needle when she took it out of the pack, averted his eyes and swore.

“I know. It's going to hurt like hell, but if I don't stitch this up, you won't last until dawn. I don't see any other way to stop the bleeding.”

He nodded. “I know. It's all right, go ahead.”

“I intend to.”

She bent closer, pinched the edges of the still-bleeding wound together and jabbed the needle through his skin. Vlad's entire body tensed, and he sucked air through his teeth.

“Sorry,” she muttered and quickly knotted the silk and prepared to make a second stitch.

It would only take six. Three would be plenty for
a mortal, but this was a vampire. She couldn't leave any space between one thread and the next or the blood would just seep through.

“I wasn't going to hurt her, you know. I just wanted to take her back to the mansion.”

“For what purpose?”

She jabbed the needle in. “Rhiannon's there. She says Brooke and Beta will both die if things aren't dealt with. She says Brooke's body is incompatible. That the soul won't
take.
”

“She needs
your
body.”

“Yeah. Fortunately, you're in no shape to deliver me to her right now.”

He lifted his brows, forcing his eyes to focus on hers.

She averted hers, noting that he didn't deny that had been his intent all along. She put the stitches as close together as she could and tried her best to ignore the pain she was causing the man she loved beyond all reason.

By the time she finished, he was trembling. She cleaned the blood from his skin, watching the area she'd sewn up to see if the blood would still manage to escape. It didn't. She covered the wound with a gauze square from her purse and stuck it in place with the tiny roll of adhesive tape. Then she sat back on her heels. “Done.”

She looked at his face when he didn't respond, and alarm shot through her. His eyes were closed. He lay still. The pain must have been tremendous to make him lose consciousness. Unless this was from the blood loss. Unless he was…

“Hey.” She smacked his cheeks. “Come on, Vlad, talk to me.”

He blinked but couldn't seem to stay focused, and his eyes fell closed again. “Sorry.”

“Not your fault.” She shrugged. “Well, actually, it's entirely your fault.”

Barbs were lost on him at the moment, though. She slid an arm beneath his shoulders, raised him into a more upright position. “Come on, we need to get you off the floor and into your safe room, wherever that is.”

“Safe room?”

“I know you have one. You people
always
have one. So where is it, Vlad? Where have you been spending your days?”

“Oh.” He pressed his lips together, swallowed. “Downstairs. There's a room in the basement.”

“Isn't there always?”

She stepped in front of him, sliding her hands underneath his arms. “I'm going to help you get up, okay?”

He bent a leg to press his foot flat to the floor and gripped her shoulders with his hands. “I'll try.”

“Here we go.” She lifted and pulled him forward, and he rose up, only to fall against her chest. She nearly went over backward but managed to keep her footing. She held him hard and told herself this was not the time to think about how much she wanted him pressed against her. Bare chested and needing her. Just not needing her quite like this.

“Easy. Okay, I've got you.”

Vlad lifted his head, easing his body's weight from her, but she knew he wasn't strong enough to stand on his own. She pulled his arm around her shoulders. “Lean on me, Vlad. I'm stronger than I look.”

“Stronger than I ever knew,” he said.

“Stronger than I ever was. I've been working with people like you for the last sixteen years. Have to try to keep up.”

He leaned on her, though not as much as she thought he should have, and pointed the way while she walked him to the stairs. She had to hold him close to fit them both down the basement stairs side by side, and he almost fell once. She gripped him hard, held him up with an arm locked around his waist, grunted with the effort.

Eventually they got to the bottom and through
the door into the private room. The room was small and Spartan. A king-size four-poster bed, neatly made, took up most of the space. No windows, of course, so it was dark as a dungeon. She supposed windowless rooms were a plus in the vamp real-estate market. She yanked back the bedcovers, then eased him down until he was sitting on the edge of the mattress.

“Can you manage to get the shirt off, Vlad? There's no point ruining the sheets.”

“I can manage.”

“All right. I'll be right back.”

He held up a hand. “There's no need. I'll be fine here until morning. Just…lock the doors on your way out.”

She scowled at him. The remark stung, but she told herself this was no time to let her hurt feelings interfere with what had to be done. “I said I'll be back.” Then she hurried up the stairs into the main part of the house. She locked all the doors, checked the windows and commandeered a candle she found on a shelf. She always carried matches in her bag. On her way back down, she locked the cellar door, then returned to the hidden little room and locked its door, as well, after she entered.

And the entire time, she was still stinging over
his eagerness to get rid of her. But she congratulated herself on not stopping to cry or to lick her wounds. His were more serious right now. Besides, this wasn't about her broken heart. It was bigger. Elisabeta had to be stopped. Stormy's life depended on it.

“All secure,” she said when she re-entered the saferoom and lit the candle.

He was still sitting on the edge of the bed. His shirt was pushed down off one incredible shoulder, and that was all. A small red stain showed through the bandage on his belly.

“Damn. It's bled a little more.” She set the candle on a stand and moved close to him, stood between his thighs. “Don't move. Just let me do this.”

Vlad closed his eyes and obeyed her, remaining motionless as she slid his shirt down the other shoulder, her hands running over him as she did. She couldn't quite deny herself this small pleasure. Her palm skimmed over his shoulder, down his arm, over the firm swell of his biceps and all the way to his wrist. She tried not to feel anything in reaction to the sensation of his skin sliding beneath her palm, her fingers, but she responded anyway.

She slid the shirt's one remaining sleeve over his hand and set it aside. “I'm going to ease you back now. I don't want you to try to do anything, Vlad.
You tense up your abs, and that's going to cause the bleeding to start again. All right?”

He nodded.

She got onto the bed behind him and put her arms around him. “Now just let your weight fall against me. No straining. Just relax against me.”

She helped to guide him, and once she supported his upper body's weight in her arms, she lowered him slowly and slightly sideways, until his head rested on the pillows.

She got up then. His knees were bent, legs still over the side of the bed. She tugged off his shoes, peeled off the socks, tugged the covers back still farther, and then lifted his legs onto the bed. Finally she pulled the covers over him.

“There. Comfortable?”

He nodded. His eyes were closed again.

She moved up to stand beside the bed, lifted the covers to check the wound, but didn't see any sign of further bleeding. At least no more had seeped through the makeshift bandages. She walked to the other side of the bed, climbed up onto it, being careful not jostle it too much, and sat with her legs folded to one side.

He opened his eyes. “You don't have to stay.”