His eyes were intense, fixed on her face. She had never seen eyes the actual color of indigo, but that was the only true color to describe his eyes. A cross between a midnight blue and a deep violet. In the darkness, his hair and eyes both appeared inky until she got up close. There was only the briefest of hesitations and then she lifted his head gently, holding him as she pressed the water bottle to his mouth. For a moment she thought he might not drink, his face rippling with what appeared to be disgust, but she saw the moment he made up his mind and then drank.
“I’m sorry it took so long. I was …”
You thought I was dead and were afraid to come back to me. There was a twinge of humor in his voice as it brushed against the walls of her mind.
“Well …” There was no denying it, not if he could read her thoughts. “Yeah. The thought of finding you dead out here in the middle of nowhere—” She broke off.
It was difficult to hold his head up and not look down at his body covered in bloodstained clothes and dirt.
“I shouldn’t have packed your wounds with dirt. I honestly didn’t think you had a chance of surviving, but you’ve lived this long, so maybe I was wrong. I should try to clean out the wounds.” Her stomach lurched again at the idea. “I’m not much of a medical type. I don’t even put Band-Aids on other people’s wounds.”
I know this is difficult for you.
That made her feel small. Guilty. Ashamed. He was the one suffering. She was acting like a baby. “What do you need me to do? I don’t have any painkillers with me.” She had aspirin but was afraid to give it to him. It was a blood-thinner, at least she thought it was, and the last thing he needed was to lose any more blood.
“Can you put your tent up around me? Over the top of me, so that I’m inside it? It is large enough?”
Because she was traveling distances and hadn’t known what kind of weather she’d be running into, Lorraine had brought an all-purpose tent, one that was larger than a single overnight tent. It was heavier and she could spend several rainy days in it, moving around if she had to.
“Yes. I can set it up.”
“The sun can’t touch me at all.” He issued the warning aloud.
She lowered his head back to the ground and stepped away from him, trying not to think of the implication of those words. Lots of people had allergies to the sun. His skin wasn’t exceptionally pale, nor had she seen evidence of vampire teeth, but just the fact that he was still alive after being brutally assaulted and left with so many wounds that should have killed him made her think about what the three men had accused him of being.
I’m not going to hurt you, Lorraine. Again, there was soft amusement in his tone.
Her body clenched for no reason, deep inside, a purely feminine reaction to the sound of his voice brushing along the walls of her mind. It was truly intimate and every individual note felt as if he was stroking velvet over her skin.
She didn’t answer him. Instead, she put the water bottle close to his hand and began to lay out her tent. It was easy to pitch, an extreme, rugged, mountaineering tent. Almost at once, she saw the problem. She couldn’t put the tent over the top of him with the floor in it. “I’m going to have to pitch the tent a distance from you and then find a way to get you inside.”
“You’ll have to cut out the floor where the tent is positioned over me.”
Her heart stuttered. “I can’t cut the floor out. It will ruin my tent. This wasn’t cheap, and I still have a long way to go.”
“I’ll repair it for you.”
She didn’t say he’d be dead by morning because that would have been rude. Instead, she touched her favorite camping knife to make certain she was wearing it on her belt and proceeded to lay out the tent for easy setup. She was going to cut the floor out exactly around him. It would be the dumbest thing she’d ever done, but she consoled herself with the idea that she was giving a dying man his last wish.
It took a very short period of time to set up the tent, a giant hole in the floor surrounding him. She sank down onto the ground beside him. “I think we’re good. This is a heavy tent. It’s made to withstand wind and rain and lower temperatures. I think it will keep the sun off your skin. Do you have allergies?” She sent up a silent prayer that if he didn’t, he’d lie to her.
He managed a small smile, and her heart nearly shattered. In spite of the blood and wounds, he was valiant. He fought to stay conscious. She could see it was an effort, but he did it for her. She wanted to tell him not to, but then if he let himself go to sleep, she feared he’d slip away and she’d be there in the close confines of the tent with a dead body.
“I need you to dig out more of the soil around me and cover as much of me as possible.”
Her heart accelerated. She found herself staring at him—at that face with all those angles and planes. All that stark male rawness. He was extremely masculine. He looked as if he could be quite dangerous even lying there with so many terrible wounds. He wasn’t threatening her in the least, quite the contrary. He was being quite gentle when he spoke to her, and she somehow knew he wasn’t accustomed to it.
“I’m not burying you while you’re still alive.” She poured resolution into her voice because she had the feeling he was used to getting his way. The three would-be murderers had said he could beguile with his voice, and she believed them. Not because she believed he was a vampire, but because his voice was so powerful a weapon he could cast spells with it. The timbre and pitch were so perfect she wondered what he would sound like singing. Most certainly, he wouldn’t have trouble hypnotizing or mesmerizing an audience.
“Not burying me alive,” he countered. “Just covering my body with soil. I told you, the composition of my body allows the soil to heal me. The more natural minerals, the faster I heal. This ground hasn’t been touched. The soil is particularly loaded with elements I need.”
She thought he was a New Age nut. Newer than New Age. She’d never heard of any of her friends who were into that sort of thing believing in partially burying their bodies so the earth could heal them. How far should she go to humor a dying man?
“Just please do this for me.”
“I cut up my tent for you,” she snapped and then was ashamed of herself. Lorraine pressed the heel of her hand to her throbbing head. She had the headache from hell now and she couldn’t complain, not when he was lying there with giant holes in his body.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re asking me to do things that I believe are going to harm you more than help you. I don’t want to carry the responsibility of your death, and I would. I put dirt in open wounds. If you’re in what amounts to a shallow grave and I dig it deeper and you die, the authorities are going to think I killed in you in a terribly brutal way.”
“Lorraine.” He said her name softly and just waited.
She counted the beats of her heart. The air moving in and out of her lungs. Crickets sang. Somewhere a coyote howled. He remained silent, and the compulsion to look at him grew until she couldn’t stand it. Her gaze met his and her heart nearly jumped out of her chest. Those eyes were every bit as hypnotic as his voice.
“I’m not going to die. What makes you so certain the authorities would believe you would kill a man? You don’t have a mean bone in your body.”
She couldn’t face him, not that gentle look, not his innocent questions. She caught up the saucepot. It was a little dented from hitting one or all of the men she’d fought. She began to dig around him, scooping up the soft soil and tossing it over his body. It kept her from having to look at him.
“I have a bad temper.” That was a confession. A true one. “I’m working on it, though. I took a year off from school and am traveling in the mountains, living immersed in nature as best I can in order to conquer the worst traits in me. Especially my temper.”
Andor watched her. She didn’t have to look up from her task to know. She felt the impact of those indigo eyes on her. It was like a physical touch. There was something so compelling about him she couldn’t seem to resist him. She knew his wounds should kill him—one was enough, let alone all of them—but there was a part of her that believed he wouldn’t die.
“I have no idea whether or not I have a temper.”
Her gaze jumped to his face before she could stop it. “Of course you know. How could you not?”
“I have been in a place for a very long time where I didn’t feel emotion. Now that I do, I suppose I will find out what kinds of traits I have, good and bad.”
The tip of her tongue moistened her upper lip while she considered what he’d said. “It’s hard to feel again after being numb.” It was the best she could do. She didn’t want to pry into his life because if she asked questions, he would return the interest. She couldn’t have that. She’d come to the mountains to escape the spotlight.
“When you haven’t felt anything for a long time, any emotion, good or bad, is welcome. The problem is figuring out how to control feelings when they seem so wild and out of control.”
“I didn’t think of that. Take another sip of water. You lost so much blood and need the fluid.” She bit her lip and then sank back on her heels. “Andor, I’m going to be honest with you. If you’re going to make it, I should strip you, wash you and try to sew up these wounds. I don’t have a clue how much damage has been done to vital organs. For all I know you’re still bleeding internally.”
He shook his head, his eyes on her face. That look. It was impossible to ignore. He made her feel as if he saw everything about her.
“Come here.”
“I am here.” She was closer to his bloody body than she wanted to be. The scent of blood was strong. It looked as if he’d bathed in it. She was fighting every moment not to vomit. That would be wonderful, add that smell to the already nauseating scent now almost overpowering in the confines of the tent.