“Jesus. You really got yourself good,” he muttered, tugging his T-shirt out of his jeans.
“Don’t—Oh, shoot,” Elspeth sighed when she was too late to stop him from tearing off a strip along the bottom of the T-shirt. It was a waste of a good shirt since her bleeding would probably stop before he finished wrapping the makeshift bandage around her leg, Elspeth thought as she watched him arrange it over the wound. She groaned in pain and grabbed for his shoulder to keep her balance when he tied it off tightly with a sharp tug.
Finished with his field dressing, Wyatt straightened and growled, “Well?”
“Well, what?” she asked uncertainly.
“Why did you stab yourself?” he asked with disbelief.
“Oh, right,” she muttered. Sighing, she limped several feet away, and then glanced nervously back toward the door and explained, “My mother usually has no trouble controlling me.”
“Yeah, I got that from the conversation in the kitchen,” he said tightly. “But you didn’t seem to have a problem getting away from her the night we went to The Night Club.”
“Yes. I was able to keep from being controlled then, but I was in pain at the time. My injuries were still healing and I needed blood, and my stomach was on fire, my body cramping and aching . . . I think that’s why she wasn’t able to control me.”
“So you stabbed yourself so you could confront her without her taking control of you again,” he reasoned quietly, a lot of his anger slipping away.
Elspeth nodded.
Wyatt shook his head. “There’s got to be a better way, El. You can’t stab yourself every time you talk to your mother.”
“I know,” she said on a sigh. “And I will try to come up with another way, but later.”
“Another way?” he asked with a frown.
“To be in pain without stabbing myself,” she explained. “This way uses up blood unnecessarily, and I know I shouldn’t be wasting blood like this. But I—”
“I don’t give a damn about the blood,” Wyatt said with amazement. “I’ll give you blood if you need it, but Elspeth, I don’t want you to be in pain. There has to be a better way to deal with your mother than that.”
Elspeth glanced down and ran a finger over the cloth around her wound. “Or maybe I shouldn’t deal with her at all after this.” When he didn’t comment, she raised her head and said, “I’ve tried to be understanding. I know she went through a lot when my brothers died, and it’s made her paranoid and overprotective. I tried to remember that when she hovered, or treated me like a child, or when I suspected she controlled me. But she stepped over the line when she removed meeting you from my mind.”
“When your brothers died?” he asked quietly.
Elspeth nodded, but then waved the question away. “I’ll tell you about that later. Right now I need to confront my mother.”
“All right.” He took a step back, but that was all.
Elspeth narrowed her eyes. “You’re not going back to the kitchen, are you?”
“Hard to guard you from the kitchen,” he pointed out dryly.
“Right,” she muttered. “Well, do me a favor and at least wait in the hall. I didn’t stab myself just so she could control you and use you against me.”
Wyatt stiffened at once. “How could she use me against you?”
“In any number of ways,” Elspeth assured him, and moved past him to the door. She raised her hand to knock, but then noticed the door was cracked open and simply pushed it wider instead. Knocking was requesting entrance. It wasn’t a strong approach and Elspeth needed to come on as strong as she could for this confrontation. Besides, this was her home, and her mother was packing, not changing into a peignoir or something.
Actually, she wasn’t even packing, Elspeth realized as the door swung open on an empty room.
Ten
“She’s not here,” Wyatt said quietly behind her as Elspeth walked into the empty guest room. “Neither are her clothes or her luggage.”
She glanced over her shoulder to see that he was standing by the door, his gaze moving around the room, including the empty closet visible through the open bifold doors.
“She must have finished packing and headed down to the basement apartment while we were in the kitchen,” Elspeth said thoughtfully.
“Doesn’t seem like her. I’d have expected her to at least make us carry her luggage down,” Wyatt commented, moving up beside her.
“At least,” Elspeth agreed.
“She went down after your sisters joined us in the kitchen, or they would have mentioned she’d left,” he pointed out.
Elspeth merely nodded, and then gasped in surprise when he scooped her up in his arms. Grabbing for his shoulders, she protested, “I can walk.”
“It’ll be faster if I carry you, and I need to be sure she didn’t leave the door unlocked,” he explained as he hurried out of the room and up the hall.
“Of course she didn’t,” Elspeth said calmly. “She’s the one who’s overprotective and . . .”
Her words died as they reached the front entry hall and saw that the door was unlocked.
“She came out and overheard the conversation in the kitchen and now knows you know,” Wyatt said with certainty.
“What makes you say that?” she asked curiously, reaching out for the wall to balance herself when he set her on her feet and moved over to lock the door.
“It’s the only reason she’d leave and not think to lock the door when she knows someone is trying to kill you,” he reasoned.
“Maybe. Or maybe she was just using the attack as an excuse to regain control of me and doesn’t really think I’m in much danger,” she murmured, and when he glanced to her in question, she pointed out, “Well, whoever pushed me in front of that car couldn’t have been an immortal. Any immortal would know that wouldn’t kill me, so it had to have been a mortal, which means they aren’t much of a threat.”
“You don’t consider mere mortals a threat?” he asked, his gaze narrowing as he walked back to her.
Elspeth got the distinct impression he felt insulted by the idea that she might not think him dangerous, so said honestly, “You would be. You know how to kill us. Most mortals don’t though. Most don’t even know we exist.”
Appearing somewhat mollified, he nodded and scooped her up to carry her into the kitchen.
“Ellie!”
“Elspeth!”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. I’m fine,” Elspeth said quickly as Sam, Alex, and the twins rushed forward to crowd around Wyatt as he carried her to a chair.
“Do you have any bandages here?” Wyatt asked as he straightened.
“Bandages are a waste of money,” Alex assured him as she retrieved a bag of blood from the refrigerator. “It will close quickly. It’s already stopped bleeding.”
“Thank you,” Elspeth murmured as she took the bag and slapped it to her mouth.
“Mother didn’t do this, did she?” Julianna asked with a frown.
“No,” Wyatt answered for her. “Elspeth stabbed herself.”
“What?” Alex asked with amazement. “Why would you do that?”
Elspeth rolled her eyes above the bag at her mouth and again it was Wyatt who answered.
“She was able to resist Martine’s control the other night because she was in pain, so she thought if she stabbed herself . . .”
“Martine couldn’t control her,” Sam finished for him on a sigh, and then raised one eyebrow. “So? Did it work?”
“She wasn’t there,” Wyatt said quietly. “The room was empty and she and her belongings were gone.”
“Really?” Julianna asked with surprise. “She hadn’t come out before we came into the kitchen.”
“Yeah, and she isn’t likely to leave without us,” Victoria said dryly. “She usually doesn’t let us out of her sight for more than a couple minutes.”
Elspeth shifted her gaze to Wyatt and gave him a meaningful look.