Painpainpain! Beast screamed.
I opened my mouth on a breathless cry, one I hadn’t planned on needing. And then the gray energies slid back into me. I was lying on the ruined floor, face on something smooth and hard, about the size of my hand. I slid a hand under my jaw, gripped the thing I was lying on, and pushed myself upright, legs splayed as vertigo whirled the room around me. I held the rounded thing as I forced my eyes open and focused on my hands. Normal. Human. Mine. I touched my face. Ditto. Looked down my shirt. No fur. I sniffed the thing I’d found on the floor; it had a scent like fish and water plants and the smoke from burning herbs. It was clear, like glass, but slightly pliable like plastic. Rounded on one side and torn-looking on the straight side. Fingernail? The thought intruded. Maybe, but a big honking one, if so. And then I knew what it was. A scale from the dragon’s body. I pushed the scale into my shirt and bra, securing it. Though I had no idea why I’d need to hide it. Probably a leftover big-cat thought, but it just seemed right. And then the pain hit, that gripping, tearing agony, as if something inside me were being ripped apart.
I wrapped an arm around my middle as if to hold my guts in, but my outer flesh felt fine. The damage was inside and I pressed into my stomach to try to still the torture. The muscles there were rigid and tangled, and I pressed hard until the spasm eased and at least I could catch a breath. And great. Now I had done a half shift on multiple security cameras.
I looked around the room. The bleachers were empty. Quiet. But my hearing was still Beast-sharp and from behind me I heard breathing and the heartbeats of two people. I turned my head and saw Eli and Bruiser. And Grégoire. Yeah. Two heartbeats: two humans and one undead blood-sucker. Witnesses in addition to the footage.
“Hey, guys,” I managed, my mouth drier than desert sands. “What’s cooking?”
Eli released a breath. It was only slightly more pent than a normal one, but for him that meant he’d been really worried. I’d seen him fight off a werewolf with less change in his breathing. Bruiser moved to me and held down a hand. I let him pull me to my feet and held on as the room did a nauseating roll and spin. And then the hunger hit me, blossoming out from the pain in my stomach. My abdomen clenched and curled in on itself like a steel hand was kneading a batch of raw bread dough inside my gut. I gagged, a dry heave that left the room spinning. Okay, this was weird.
Bent in two, I got a glimpse of the floor and the workout mats and the coagulating blood and drying dragon gunk. It was crystallizing as it dried. On the edges there was nothing left but dust. A girl in hospital greens and sterile gloves was gathering some of the crystal dust into a sterile tube. Good. I croaked, “For workup in Leo’s lab?”
She met my eyes and then dropped hers back to the floor. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Get it messengered tonight.” I tried to find a drop of moisture in my mouth, but there was nothing. I went on anyway, my voice raspy. “Full workup and DNA—if the gunk has any. Fast as you can.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she repeated.
Eli placed an open bottle of water in my hand and when I could breathe and stand upright at the same time, I drained it. Not sure I swallowed it, exactly, but the bottle was empty. Then another. And another. By the time I’d emptied four bottles, I could force my knees straight. “Steak?” Eli asked.
“Oatmeal,” I grunted around the twisting in my guts. “It’s faster to get into me.”
Grégoire made a small motion to someone out of sight and Bruiser slid his arm around me, supporting me—okay, half carrying me—out of the gym and to the hallway. Grégoire fell in beside me and his scent wrapped around me, a near synesthesia I sometimes found when Beast was very close to the front of me—a pale green, the honey gold of spring flowers, a scent I’d always thought was luscious. The vamp smiled, not that slow smile they do when they’re trying to charm, the one that transforms their faces into angelic beauty, but an uncertain one, which made him seem almost human. He took my arm, above the elbow, as if I was about to fall. And with the floor moving up and down like waves, and around like the water in a toilet bowl, maybe I was.
The four of us made it into the elevator before I threw up, all over the elevator floor, at least ninety percent of the water I’d guzzled. Grégoire stepped back quickly to protect his shoes, which were a wine-colored patent leather. If I hadn’t been tossing my cookies, I’d have giggled. Eli was still in the hallway, out of the line of fire. Bruiser didn’t react at all except to give me a clean hanky to wipe my mouth. “Sorry about your shoes,” I croaked.