Shorty tried another misguided attempt to punch her. She hit his hand with the pot so hard even Andor winced at the sound. Shorty howled and stepped back, regarding her warily.
“I’m on a journey seeking personal enlightenment, and you are disturbing my aura of love.” The pot hit Barnaby on his shoulder hard enough that he covered his head and turned sideways to avoid another swipe. He’d made the mistake of trying to sneak up on her from the other side.
“I’m on a path of nonviolence so that my life can be an example to the world of what it would be like living in a better place. Peace …” She smashed the pot against the side of Barnaby’s head as he went at her again and then kicked the side of his knee hard enough to send him to the ground. “Love.” She turned toward Shorty and began to advance on him menacingly. “Embracing nature.”
Shorty grinned at her and shook his head. “You’re a nut.”
“Maybe, but you’re a murderer.” She ducked a punch, blocking it smoothly with the pot and bashing his arm while she stepped in and punched his jaw. Hard.
Andor could see Shorty’s head snap back. She had quite a punch, but he was going to have to do something before the murderous pack got serious about going after his woman. He forced his body to move. It wasn’t easy with a stake protruding from his chest, right beneath his heart. When he moved, blood leaked out around the wood. It hurt like hell and he had to cut off his ability to feel pain if he was going to actually move.
“Don’t,” she hissed out at him, a clear command. Annoyed.
No one in his lifetime had ever used a tone like that on him. He gave the orders, not a woman, and certainly not a human. Worse—a human woman.
“Don’t you move. I’ll get to you in a minute.” She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, and her eyes widened in horror. “Oh. My. God.” Her saucepot lowered and she half turned toward him.
He waved his hand toward Shorty, who was coming up behind her fast. Shorty stumbled and fell, almost at her feet, drawing her attention. She smashed the pot over his head. She became a little fury, rushing Barnaby again.
“Why would you do that to another human being?” There was a little sob in her voice, as if just seeing the cruelty of the stake in Andor’s chest hurt her as well. “I’m supposed to be learning to live without anger and you’re torturing and brutally murdering another man. How can I possibly be okay with that? If this is some kind of test, I’m failing. You’re making me fail.” She kicked Barnaby in the chest, hard. Her forward snap kick was powerful and sent the assassin flying back so far, he hit a tree and slid to the ground.
“He’s not human!” Carter shouted. “That’s a vampire!”
She stopped in her tracks. “You’re all crazy. He’s a man.” For the first time wariness had crept in.
Maybe she finally realized she was out in the middle of nowhere with three madmen who had staked another man. Andor could only hope.
“There’s no such thing as vampires.”
The three men got shakily to their feet and then fanned out, surrounding her. “We saw him. He called down lightning. Look at the scorch marks on the grass,” Carter said.
“They’re right, in that there are such creatures as vampires,” Andor said calmly. He managed to sit all the way up, both hands supporting the stake. He was weaker than he’d realized. Maybe he really wasn’t going to make it out of this one. He’d lost far too much blood. “They’re also wrong. I’m not a vampire. I was hunting them. The humans saw the tail end of the fight.” He had no idea why he was bothering to explain. He had never explained his actions in his life.
“Don’t listen to him,” Shorty said. “Cover your ears. Vampires can beguile you.”
“Beguile me?” She sounded as if she thought Shorty was insane. Her gaze shifted to Andor, and she paled. “For God’s sake, lie back down now.”
Her skin looked beautiful in the moonlight. His eyes on hers, Andor reached up to grasp the thick stake protruding from his chest. Her eyes widened. She shook her head, dropped the saucepot and ran toward him.
“No. Don’t pull that out.”
Shorty tried to grab her as she ran past him. The thought of one of these men putting their hands on her brought out something in Andor he hadn’t known was lurking beneath the surface. It exploded out of him, a roar of pure rage. It came with the force of a volcano, welling up from somewhere deep and threatening to annihilate everything in its path.
“Do not touch her.” It was a decree. A command. Nothing less.
The mandate froze all three men. She made it past them and was on her knees at his side, her face a mask of worry as she touched the stake.
“Don’t move.” She jumped back up, pulled a cell phone from her jeans and began frantically trying to get it to work. She kept putting her arm up into the air, waving her phone around and moving from one place to another.
“What are you doing?”
“I need to find just one bar. Just one. We’re down in this valley and I can’t get service to call in rescue.” She pushed past Shorty and then stopped. Froze. Very slowly she turned her head to look at the man. He wasn’t moving. He stood, one arm outstretched, but he was looking the other way. Not at her. “Um.” She backed away from Shorty. “What’s wrong with you?” She looked at the other two men. Neither so much as blinked. She backed up even more. “Something’s wrong with them.” She turned very slowly to look at Andor.
He could smell her fear. It was beginning to dawn on her that no human being could live with a stake the size of the one he had in his chest. Now the men claiming he was a vampire weren’t able to move. They looked like statues carved of stone. He considered leaving them like that, but it would raise questions in the human world and he couldn’t have that. Not now, when there seemed to be a real war brewing between vampires and Carpathians. More than that, he needed blood if he was going to survive this time, and the three could supply it. He had to survive now. There was no other choice.
“I need your help,” he said quietly.
She shook her head, but she took several steps toward him. “I’m not good with blood. I need to call someone …” Her voice was faint this time.
“There isn’t time. If you don’t do as I ask, I will die, and you will have risked your life for nothing. Thank you for that, by the way.” He kept very calm, hoping she would follow his lead.
“When I say I’m not good with blood, I mean I could faint.”
“I’ll deal with the blood. You just do what I tell you and we’ll get through this.”
She looked from the three men frozen like statues back to him. Her gaze dropped to the pooling blood. “You’re bleeding from more than the stake.”
“I told you; before they came, I was engaged in a battle.” Hands covering the gaping wound in his belly, because he could see she really might faint, he had no choice but to lie back. Sun scorch his weakness. She was afraid now, he could see it in her expression and feel it in her mind. He was doing his best to keep her from reading his thoughts. She was clearly telepathic. She had knowledge of his pondering ending his life and she wouldn’t have that if she wasn’t reading him. Keeping her out of his mind took effort.
“Okay.” She moved cautiously toward him, her saucepot held like a weapon. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I don’t do well around blood.”
For the first time, he caught a note of shame. Of guilt. He didn’t like it. He liked her annoyed. He liked her fighting. He liked her confident. That jarring note put knots in his gut and gave him a need to gather her close and comfort her. It was also getting more difficult to block the pain in his chest. He wanted to grasp the stake and pull it out, but he needed her to have everything ready for him.
“You’re going to need to pack my wounds with fresh soil. It can’t be burned. If there are scorch marks on the ground or grass, it can’t be used.” He closed his eyes. He could feel the beads of blood dotting his forehead and running down his face. When she saw that up close, she might really faint, and then he’d have no one to help. It was too late to send out a call.
“What’s your name?” At least, if he was going to die, he’d go knowing the name of the woman who had come to save him.
“Lorraine. Lorraine Peters.” He heard her take a deep breath. She was that close. “And you’re not going to die. We can do this. Are you certain about the soil?” She was already scooping dirt into her saucepot. “It’s very unsanitary.”
“My body responds to the soil. To the earth. When you have enough, bring it to me.” He wanted to see her face, but he was afraid if he opened his eyes and looked at her, she would be the last thing he saw. He would take that vision with him to the next life, instead of enjoying time with her after waiting for so many centuries.
Her body jerked hard, and Andor realized he was drifting. She might have caught some of his thoughts.
“I am sliding in and out of consciousness and having odd dreams. I think these men put weird thoughts in my head.” It was the best he could do and it seemed to work. She was breathing again. Not evenly, but still, he hadn’t lost her yet. He tried to keep air moving in and out of his lungs.
“I’m sorry I’m such a baby about blood.” She knelt beside him. “I just don’t see how I’m going to be of help to you. This stake …” She trailed off. There were tears in her voice. Misery.
She wasn’t worried about him being a vampire. She wasn’t thinking about the three men standing behind her as still as statues. She was thinking she was an utter failure as a human being because she couldn’t look at the blood seeping around the stake or dripping from any number of wounds he couldn’t heal.
“Bring the soil up close to me. I need to mix saliva with it.” He hoped she’d be so intrigued she’d forget about the blood. A sense of urgency was beginning to take hold. He knew he was slipping away. Too much blood loss.