“She is fine,” Dante said quickly, taking her arm and urging her into the chair across from the one he’d been seated in. “She broke a leg in the accident, but—”
“What?” Mary cried, jumping to her feet again.
“She is going to be okay,” he assured her, placing a hand on her shoulder to push her back down onto her chair. “She is at the veterinary hospital.”
“And they’ve kept her four days?” Mary asked with alarm, popping to her feet once more. Vets did not keep dogs that long unless it was terribly serious. Hell, she’d had dogs that were operated on and sent home the same day.
“Russell . . . convinced them to keep her for a few days because we thought it best she not be here while you were going through the turn,” Dante explained soothingly.
Mary didn’t need to ask to know he was talking about mind control when he said convinced.
Dante added, “It was for the best. We had enough on our plates looking after you and trying to keep anyone from calling the police to report a murder. We couldn’t watch Bailey too.”
“What murder? Why would anyone call the police?” she asked with a combination of alarm and confusion.
“Mary,” he said solemnly. “The turn is very painful. You have been screaming your head off for four days. We had to take turns, two of us holding you down to ensure your bindings did not snap and loose you to hurt yourself, and one of us out in the hallway controlling anyone within hearing distance.”
“You tied me down?” she asked with amazement.
“We had to. You would have hurt yourself otherwise,” Dante said apologetically.
“I would not,” Mary assured him indignantly. “I’m not into cutting or any of the other self-abuse things.”
“It is not a matter of being a self-abuser,” he assured her. “It is a matter of the pain being so great that . . .” Dante paused as if searching for an example, and then sighed and said, “I heard once of a turn who stabbed himself in the eye trying to end the agony.”
“Ewww,” she said, sitting down abruptly.
“Si. Exactly.” Dante nodded. “I wished to avoid your doing something like that.”
“Thank you,” Mary muttered, trying to imagine how bad pain had to be to make a person do something like that. She couldn’t even imagine it though. It just seemed so alien. Shaking her head, she admitted, “I don’t remember suffering any pain.”
“That is a blessing then,” Dante said and began to move the plates with food still on them closer to her.
Mary stared down at the food before her, and then glanced up and asked almost apologetically, “You said Russell is sure the kidnappers followed us back here?”
He nodded.
“So they drove us off the road and then just let this Russell and Francis collect us and bring us here?”
“Not exactly,” he said dryly. “When the kidnappers forced us off the road, Russell and Francis were in the SUV directly in front of us. I do not think the men in the van even realized they were there. The RV probably blocked their view of them.”
Mary nodded. She had noticed the SUV he was talking about. It had practically been riding the RV’s front bumper. She had no doubt the kidnappers hadn’t known they were there and had probably thought the road empty when they forced the RV off the road.
“Russell and Francis pulled over at once when we were forced off the road,” Dante continued. “Apparently shots were exchanged and then the kidnappers must have decided not to risk themselves. The van pulled away and Russell and Francis gave chase, but we were only miles from town. Russell and Francis had to slow down once they reached the more populated area to avoid harming innocent mortals. The van, however, did not and they lost them. Russell and Francis then came back for us.”
“I see,” Mary murmured, accepting the fork he handed her. She managed to wait until he’d reclaimed his seat, then dug in. Literally. She was suddenly starving, her stomach churning with it, so she started with some sort of pasta dish that was quite nice, then halfway through it, picked up a chicken leg and began to alternately gnaw on that and scoop pasta into her mouth until she realized that Dante was watching her with amusement. Realizing what a disgusting picture she must make, she set down the fork as well as the chicken leg and reached for the glass of water he pushed toward her.
Mary took a sip of the cool water, then set it down and asked, “Is it the nanos that are making me this hungry? Am I always going to be wolfing down food? And if I am, how the hell are the nanos going to keep me at my peak condition?”
Dante chuckled and shook his head. “You will not always be this hungry. No doubt this is a result of a combination of the turn and not eating for four days. As for the nanos keeping you at your peak, they will. It is as simple as that. You can eat all day and night and they will keep you at your peak. They will also use a great deal of blood to do it, however, which means you would have to consume more of it.”
“Oh.” Mary had picked up her fork again, but now lowered it to the table and glanced down at her new hands worriedly. She hadn’t considered that part of the deal. It was awesome and lovely to look and feel young and strong again, but he had turned her to do it. She would have to feed . . . on blood. Mary wasn’t sure she could do that. She didn’t even like rare steak. The blood turned her off.
“Eat Mary, you can worry about everything else later,” Dante said gently.
She hesitated, but then gave in and picked up her fork again. Her stomach was still churning with hunger, and she hadn’t eaten for four days. She reminded herself of that and then decided that starving herself would probably mean taking in extra blood too.
Once Mary started to eat again, Dante picked up his own fork to continue eating. They were both silent for a bit, and then Mary said, “Everything smells so . . . much,” she ended finally, because she couldn’t think of another way to put it. The good smells still smelled good, but were stronger, and it was the same for bad smells. Mary had never cared for blue cheese, the smell had always bothered her, and there was a very small, thin slice of it on a steak on a plate in the center of the table, probably more as a garnish than anything, but it smelled to her like there was a pound of blue cheese under her nose.
It was just one of the scents assaulting her, though. Mary could smell everything as if it were concentrated and set directly under her nose . . . including Dante. He had a deep, almost smoky scent combined with a higher note that was slightly coppery. It was quite wonderful, and to her, smelled more delicious than any of the food on the table.
“I did tell you that the nanos improved skills and senses,” Dante reminded her softly.
“You said they improved speed, strength, eyesight and hearing,” she countered. “You did not mention smell.”
“Ah.” He shrugged. “I was born immortal, so have never experienced the difference myself. I can only tell you what I was told by others,” he pointed out. “I suspect the truth is the nanos improve pretty much everything.”
“Hmm,” Mary murmured and turned back to her food. After a moment, however, she jerked her eyes to him again and said, “This means I won’t need my glasses anymore, doesn’t it?”
Dante’s eyebrows rose. “You wore glasses?”
“Oh.” She flushed, and dropped her gaze. “I only needed them for reading. I never needed them when I was younger. I had better than twenty-twenty vision then. It was only as I got older that I started having trouble with reading and such.”
“I see. Well, you will not need glasses anymore,” he said softly, and then grinned and added, “Although that might be a shame. I suspect you were sexy in glasses.”
Mary laughed at his teasing, but merely shook her head and returned to eating. Between the two of them they finished off everything on the table, and still she was hungry.
Giving a little dissatisfied sigh, Mary set her fork back on her plate and leaned back in her seat, her gaze shifting to Dante. Now that all the food was gone, the smells in the room had been reduced a great deal. The primary smell filling her nose now was Dante, and he did smell delicious.