“You need a coat, dear. It’s warmer than one would expect for this time of year, but it’s cooling quickly as night approaches. Wyatt, grab her one of my jackets out of the coat closet,” Merry ordered.
Nodding, Wyatt led the way into the house and to the hall closet by the apartment door. As he sorted through the available coats, he asked, “Do you need a ride to work?”
Elspeth accepted the dark, midthigh trench coat he handed her, but folded it over her arm as she glanced at him with surprise. “No. Why would I need—”
“We left your car in the parking garage across from . . . downtown the night before last,” he finished, his gaze sliding to his Gran and back. “I’m sure the mechanic has picked it up by now and will drop it off when he’s done with it, but in the meantime, you’re without a vehicle.”
“Oh.” Elspeth blinked and then asked, “Mechanic? What’s wrong with my car? And what do you mean the night before last?”
Wyatt cast a glance toward his grandmother, but then simply pulled out a black leather jacket for himself and announced, “I’ll drive you to work.”
“Wyatt parked in the spot closest to the house,” Merry told them from the living room door. “So you should be able to avoid Martine spotting you leaving. Though I’m sure she’ll notice you’re missing soon enough.”
“Yes, I’m sure she will,” Elspeth agreed solemnly. “But hopefully it won’t be for a while yet.”
Nodding, Merry smiled faintly. “Well, I’m glad you’re recovering from your flu. Have a good night, dear. And do stop in for tea when you get back in the morning.”
“I will,” Elspeth murmured, thinking that the flu must have been the cover story they were using to explain her being bed bound. They could hardly tell Meredith the truth, she thought, as Wyatt opened the front door and quickly ushered her into the entry and then out of the house.
They were both silent as they hurried to the car. In fact, neither of them spoke until they had pulled out onto the street and Wyatt said, “You’ll have to direct me. I’m not sure where the Enforcer office is.”
Elspeth glanced at him sharply, her eyes wide.
“Left or right?” he prodded, glancing in the rearview mirror at the house behind them.
“Right,” Elspeth said, and then cleared her throat before asking, “How long was I—?”
“We were at The Night Club two nights ago,” Wyatt said solemnly. “You’ve been sleeping nearly forty-eight hours. But Rachel said that was normal.”
“Rachel?” she asked uncertainly.
“Rachel Argeneau,” he explained. “The doctor who’s been looking after you. She’s been stopping by to check on your progress several times a day, and dropped in to let me know how you were doing afterward each time. She didn’t think your mother would keep me informed.”
“No. She probably wouldn’t have,” Elspeth admitted quietly, wondering just how much he knew or understood.
“I’m surprised they expect you to work today after everything that happened the other night,” Wyatt murmured once they’d started up the street. “Did you call Mortimer to see if you were expected in the office?”
Elspeth’s head whipped around at that. His knowing about the Enforcer House was startling enough, but his mentioning Mortimer’s name was shocking. “How do you know about the Enforcer House and Mortimer?”
“Valerian and Tybo,” he answered as he brought the SUV to a halt at a stop sign. “Which way?”
“Right. You want to head to the highway,” she said, and then asked, “You met Valerian and Tybo? What happened that night? I know I got hit by a car, but I don’t recall anything after that.”
Wyatt was silent as he made the turn, but then said, “G.G. came out and lifted the car off of you with the help of some others. I pulled you out. We got you inside and gave you blood to heal. Valerian and Tybo showed up and called in Dr. Rachel. She gave you some drugs that didn’t seem to help much at first, and then wrapped G.G.’s ribs,”
“Wrapped his ribs?” she asked with surprise. “What happened to G.G.?”
“You threw him across the kitchen at The Night Club. He hit a wall pretty hard and has a couple of cracked ribs.”
“Oh no,” Elspeth breathed with dismay, guilt rushing through her.
“Anyway, once you were through the worst of your healing, Valerian and Tybo took you home in their SUV, and Dr. Rachel drove me home in mine with Sam following behind to take her home.”
“Sam? Mortimer’s wife?” Elspeth asked. That was the only Sam she knew, so she wasn’t surprised when Wyatt nodded.
“She and Dr. Rachel were shopping when Valerian called her. Or was it Tybo?” he pondered and then shook his head. “One of them called her.”
“I see,” she said softly, but was peering at him worriedly now. He obviously knew something about what she was, but how much?
Elspeth was fretting over that when he said, “Tybo explained about immortals to me.”
“Oh,” she said weakly, and then cleared her throat and asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I wasn’t hit by the car. It was just you,” he said at once.
“No, I mean about . . . us. About what you learned? You’re not freaked out or . . . ?” She shrugged helplessly, unsure how most mortals would react to what he’d been told.
“Yeah,” he said, but she could hear a note of uncertainty in his voice, and then he sighed, and admitted, “I’m a little alarmed at the mind reading and control business though.”
“Yes. That is a bit distressing,” she murmured. Elspeth hated it when her mother or other immortals read or controlled her.
“And the drinking blood part is kind of—I mean no one likes to hear they’re little more than cattle to another group of people. That’s just—”
“You aren’t cattle to immortals,” she said with exasperation. “Any more than you would be for hemophiliacs or people who have been in accidents, need blood, and source it from blood banks.” Elspeth paused briefly, and then admitted, “It used to be different before blood banks, of course. I mean, we needed blood, and there was only one way to get it. But now that there are blood banks, a lot of immortals stopped feeding off the hoof and reverted to bagged blood as a much safer source.”
“Off the hoof?” he asked with a wince.
“Oh. Yes, sorry. That’s just . . .” She shrugged helplessly, and then went on, “Anyway, in some countries it’s even against our laws to take blood directly from a mortal except in an emergency, or . . . in certain other instances.”
“Some countries?” Wyatt queried dryly. “So it’s legal in other countries?”
Elspeth shrugged. “Every country has their own Council and their own laws. Here in North America, feeding off a mortal when it isn’t an emergency is punishable by death.”
“In case of emergency or certain other instances, you said,” he reminded her and when she nodded, he asked, “What other instances?”
Elspeth hesitated and then admitted, “As a part of love play.”
“Biting as part of love play, huh?” he asked with a small smile.
Trying not to blush, she shifted uncomfortably and muttered, “I gather partners can become overexcited and get nippy in the heat of the moment.”
“Yeah?” he asked with interest and what she suspected was amusement at her discomfort. “Do life mates bite each other?”
Elspeth stiffened. Just how much had Tybo told him? Apparently, a lot. But he couldn’t have told him that he was a possible life mate for her. Tybo didn’t know. Unless G.G. told him, she thought with concern.
“Do they?” Wyatt prodded.
“It’s not recommended between two immortals,” she said finally. “Taking another’s nanos that way causes an imbalance in both partners and means a need for more blood for both. The donor has to replenish the lost blood and rebuild the lost nanos, and in the one who takes the blood, the extra nanos use up more blood until the body can rid itself of them. They need to consume extra blood to make up for it. We all try to avoid anything that will make it necessary to consume more blood. Blood banks have enough trouble getting in the blood they need for emergencies. It’s frowned upon to waste it that way.”