Night Reigns (30 page)
Chapter 14
It took far longer than it should have for Marcus to reach the long, dirt road that led to his home. Whatever drug continued to course through his system had muted his senses and reduced his response time almost to that of a human. At least a dozen times on the hectic drive from David’s house, Marcus’s car had skidded into oncoming traffic or nearly left the road as he took curves far too quickly and failed to compensate at preternatural speeds.
When at last he brought the much-abused hybrid to a gravel-spraying halt in front of his home, the brakes were smoking.
Marcus leaped out before the engine quieted. The garage door was up, a strange car parked haphazardly within. Bypassing it, Marcus raced to the back door.
The bronze doorknob was sticky beneath his hand as he turned it and hurried inside the kitchen. His boots hit something slick on the floor and flew out from under him, nearly landing him on his ass. Only a quick grab for the nearest counter kept him upright.
Frowning, Marcus righted himself and glanced down at the crimson liquid that pooled on the floor just inside the door.
Blood.
Ami’s blood.
He closed the door, forced his senses to expand and searched the house for intruders. Only he and Ami occupied it.
Ami was alive!
But in what condition?
A dappled trail of congealing blood began at the puddle in which he stood and crossed the kitchen floor, accompanied by ruby, boy-sized boot prints. Small, red handprints dotted the edges of the cabinets along the way, something about them seeming off.
Marcus’s heart pounded painfully as he followed the trail. Larger stains smeared the walls Ami had leaned against in her efforts to remain upright. Halfway between the kitchen and the stairs another puddle marred the floor where she must have fallen. He could see where her knees had hit the floor, a hand, the toes of her boots. His gaze zeroed in on the handprint, compared it to the ones in the kitchen and on the walls in between.
She was only using her right hand. What had happened to her left?
Visions of the possible atrocities the vampires might have inflicted upon her sent him racing up the stairs.
Tink.
The odd sound struck his ears as he entered her bedroom. Her shirt, sticky with blood, lay on the badly stained coverlet on her bed. The door to her bathroom was closed. Muffled weeping permeated it.
Tinkalink.
Marcus crossed to the door. “Ami?” he called and heard her gasp.
“Marcus?” Her voice was so thick with tears he almost didn’t recognize it.
Grasping the knob, he tried to turn it. “Ami, open the door. It’s locked.”
A ragged exhalation. “You’re okay?”
“I’m fine, baby. Open the door. Please.”
Both knew he asked as a courtesy. Even in his weakened state, a flimsy door couldn’t keep him out.
“I ... I can’t,” she choked out. “I don’t want you to see me like this. Let me ...” She paused, emitted a muffled moan. “Let me finish cleaning up, then I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Marcus stared at the door in disbelief.
Screw that!
Gripping the knob, he pressed hard until the frame cracked and the door swung inward with a loud pop.
Screw that!
Gripping the knob, he pressed hard until the frame cracked and the door swung inward with a loud pop.
Ami cried out as he stumbled inside, so startled she dropped whatever she held in her right hand.
Tinkalinkalinkalink.
Clad only in her underwear, she spun away, giving him her back, as his gaze went to the sink where the object she had dropped came to rest.
A small, malformed lump of lead settled beside three others in white porcelain Jackson-Pollocked with blood trails.
Marcus stared at her narrow back, hunched slightly as though she were trying to make herself smaller. Two jagged, ragged holes—too large to be anything but exit wounds—defaced it: one on her right side down near her hip, the other on her left side up higher near the base of her ribcage.
Two exit wounds. Four bullets. She’d been shot six times. In the abdomen according to the blood he had briefly glimpsed on her front.
“No,” he whispered, terror burning its way into his gut.
“Marcus—”
“Nooo.” The word emerged as an inhuman howl as he wrapped his arms around her from behind and held her as close as he could get to her.
Ami screamed in pain.
Shaken, he hastily released her and backed away.
Ami swayed drunkenly, reaching her right hand out to steady herself.
Marcus hastily took her hand (slick with warm, fresh blood) and lent her his strength. Once he was sure she wouldn’t fall, he touched her shoulder and carefully turned her to face him.
Her beige bra was smudged with ruddy stains, her formerly white bikini panties now carmine. The smooth skin of her flat stomach bore six wounds still weeping blood, four of which she had dug the bullets out of herself. A shallow cut bisected her middle from side to side. Bone protruded through the skin of her left arm where it had been badly broken. Bruises, puncture wounds, and gashes crisscrossed her arms and legs. No bite marks marred her form.
Her sweet face was blood splattered, her eyes red-rimmed. Tears steadily streamed down her blotchy cheeks, washing them clean. One temple was bruised and swollen. Her nose was pink from crying.
“Ami,” he whispered.
Lips trembling, she lowered her head, limped forward, and buried her face in his chest. Both of her arms came around his waist, though she kept the left one angled away from him.
“I couldn’t feel you,” she murmured brokenly, her right hand fisting in his shirt. “I couldn’t feel you and thought ... I thought the drug had killed you.”
Marcus wrapped his arms around her, allowing himself a few seconds to rest his cheek on her hair before he swept her up into his arms as gently as possible.
Carrying her into the bedroom, he laid her on the bed.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” she asked when he turned away.
“I’m fine,” he promised, mind racing as he retrieved a towel from the bathroom and knelt beside the bed.
She was as pale as a corpse, her flesh cold and clammy. As he pressed the towel to the bullet wounds in her stomach to stem the flow of blood, he grabbed the edge of her coverlet with his free hand and drew it over her legs, the towel he clutched, and her chest to warm her.
“D-did Roland and Sarah make it?”
Her lips held a bluish tint. So did her fingernails. Her breath came in shallow pants. Her pulse tripped along, weak, but fast. Too fast. She was in shock, had lost too much blood.
“Roland and Sarah are fine, honey,” he assured her, keeping pressure on her abdomen while he drew out his cell phone and dialed Sarah’s number. “Is he awake yet?” he asked as soon as she answered.
“No. Did you find—”
“What about Richart?”
“We still haven’t heard anything from him. Marcus—”
Disconnecting the call, Marcus dialed David, then Seth. Both of the powerful healers were out of range and unreachable.
His hand shook as he dialed Chris Reordon.
“Did you find her?” Chris asked without preamble.
“I need a healer and an immortal who can teleport.”
“Richart is the only teleporter in the States and the only one in the world aside from Seth who has ever been to North Carolina. The others won’t be able to locate you. I assume you found Ami?”
“Yes.”
“Bring her to the network.”
Marcus ended the call, his whole body shaking. He hurled the phone across the room. Ami wouldn’t live long enough to make it to the network.
“Marcus.” She rested her right hand on his arm. “I’ll be all right.”
He forced a smile, knowing it would do little to distract her from the tears that threatened to blur his vision. “Of course you will, sweetheart.” He brushed her sticky hair back from her face.
“Don’t t-take me to the network,” she panted.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “I won’t.” He knew the idea terrified her and wouldn’t frighten her needlessly in her last moments.
“Don’t look that way,” she said, squeezing his arm. “I’m g-going to be all right. I j-just need to sleep f-for awhile.”
He nodded, leaned down, and kissed her cold lips, her cheek.
“P-promise me you’ll be here when I wake up.”
His throat thickened. “I promise.”
Her green eyes clung to his. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Ami.”
“D-don’t forget.”
“I won’t.”
Her lids fluttered closed. The pressure on his arm loosened as her hand fell away.
Marcus rested his head on her chest, counted every rapid heartbeat.
He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t just sit there and watch her die.
Change her.
The unforgivable notion slithered through the desperate chaos of his thoughts.
Transform her.
He couldn’t. She wasn’t a
gifted one.
gifted one.
Save her.
So that she could have a year or two of life before she descended into vampiric madness? He wouldn’t do that to her.
Maybe the network will find the cure in time to prevent that.
The voice tempted, but he knew better. They had been waiting and hoping for a cure for centuries.
Ami’s breathing grew labored.
Marcus slid a hand beneath her back and eased her up into a seated position. Toeing off his boots, he slid into bed and settled himself behind her, his legs bracketing hers, her bottom resting against his groin, and drew her back against his chest. After a moment, her breathing eased, still coming fast and shallow, though.
He slipped his arms beneath hers and, with both hands, continued to apply pressure to her abdomen. The coverlet slipped down to her waist. Her left arm fell to the side.
Marcus glanced at it, then frowned.
Releasing the towel, he took her left hand and, hoping it wouldn’t cause her too much pain, rotated her arm slightly.
His breath caught.
The bone no longer protruded from her skin. Instead it formed an awkward lump beneath a smooth, newly scarred surface.
“What the hell?”
Shoving the coverlet back further, he removed the towel. The bullet wounds had ceased bleeding. Were they smaller than they had been before?
He couldn’t tell. He had been too panicked earlier and had noticed little beyond the fact that she had been bleeding to death.
When she shivered, he drew the cover back up to her chin, but left the broken arm out where he could watch it. Beneath his astonished gaze, the bone shifted back into position in incremental movements, then knitted itself back together. Bruises flared to vivid life, passing through a week’s array of colors in only an hour, then disappeared. Her shivers ceased. He pushed the cover down to her hips, watched cuts seal themselves, scars fade to nothingness. The horrible wounds in her stomach vanish completely.
Ami’s breathing slowed, evened out as she slipped from shock into slumber. Her pale, blood-encrusted skin lost its damp chill.
Disentangling himself from the covers and Ami’s delicate weight, Marcus settled her against the pillows and stood beside the bed.
All emotion drained from him as he stared down at her, trying to make sense of it.
On the floor, his battered phone began to ring.
Marcus picked it up, turned it off, then strode from the room.
Ami awoke in an instant. There was no slow, gradual climb to consciousness. One moment she slept deeply; the next she opened her eyes to darkness barely broken by the muted daylight that framed the edges of the curtains drawn across her window.
Sensing Marcus’s presence, she turned her head to meet iridescent amber eyes.
Not good. The one pro to the involuntary glow of immortals’ eyes was that it warned their companions and enemies when they were in the grips of very powerful emotion.
Like fury. The room fairly vibrated with it.
Anxiety sped her pulse.
“Feeling better?” His voice swam out of the shadows, deep and dangerous.
Ami squinted at his outline. Ensconced in her cushy reading chair, he sat with knees and feet splayed, his arms resting along the chair arms.
“Yes.” She cleared her throat when the word emerged as a croak. Ami had dreaded this moment ever since she had realized she was losing her heart to him.
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