His broken body lay on the ground. His neck had been ripped open in several places, savaged and mutilated. Even his hands were bloody and torn. He’d tried to fight. Eamon’s persuasion, a vampire’s automatic defense, must not have worked. I didn’t doubt it, because Eamon had become unhinged in the end. His love for a goddess who had tortured him had been his undoing.
But Persuasion had never worked on Ray as long as he’d lived, and if Eamon had used it, Ray would’ve hated every minute of it. I grinned in spite of the situation, enjoying the fact that it must’ve pissed Eamon off as this human fought for his life.
I drew closer and knelt. “Oh, Ray,” I said on a small breath as I crouched down by his side. “I’m so sorry it had to end like this. If you can believe it, I was actually beginning to like you.” I placed my hands carefully on his broken body and cocked my head. His heart had just given one single, strangled beat. “What are you doing, Ray? Trying to survive at all odds?” I smiled. “You are one stubborn mother. I’ll give you that.” I lowered my head to his sternum. There wasn’t another beat for several long seconds. I lifted my head. “Ray, I can’t fix this.” I swallowed, angling my face up toward the ceiling in frustration, trying to clear the ball in my throat. “Even if you’re holding on as hard as you can, I can’t help you.” I forced myself to look down at him again. He was ravaged beyond repair, the wounds deep and deadly. “You’re human, and this kind of damage can’t be fixed even by the most skilled doctor in the world, even one of our own. There is nothing I can do. I’m so sorry. I really am.”
“I can fix it,” a voice said behind me. “If you’ll allow it, Ma Reine.”
28
“What the—” Tyler slammed on the brakes. The ridiculous canary-yellow Humvee skidded to a stop right in front of my office building, tires jacked halfway up the curb, rocking us all on our seats.
It was three a.m.
Every light in my office building was ablaze.
My head shot off Rourke’s lap, his growl of displeasure reverberating around the truck. I squinted out the window, rubbing my eyes. “Damn, what’s going on? Did anyone call us?”
We’d left Selene’s lair, tired and bedraggled, without Naomi or Ray. I had no idea if Ray would survive the transformation into a vamp or not, but there was nothing more we could do. We’d been in the truck for eighteen hours straight, stopping only for gas and a shower at a local YMCA at my insistence.
“My phone is dead,” Danny said. “I didn’t remember to pack the bloody charger.”
I sat up straighter while Tyler evened out the beast. I reached for my cell phone in my backpack. I’d spoken briefly with my father on the sat phone once we’d emerged from the mountain, and told him we were on our way home. “I don’t have any messages and nobody’s called since I talked to Dad.”
“This looks like it happened recently,” Tyler said as he shut off the engine. “Likely no one knows what’s happening yet. It’s the middle of the night. I’m going to look around. Stay here.” I was tired enough to let him figure it out.
“There are no other visual disturbances,” Danny said, scanning the building. “Does Nick usually work this late?”
“No,” I said. “Something’s definitely happening. Every light is on. In the entire building. To do that, someone had to access the main housing. Or they spelled the entire thing. Looks like they were trying to find something. Or someone.” Likely me—who was I kidding?
Rourke opened the door. “I’ll go too,” he called to my brother, who had gotten out already. As he got out, he leaned over to kiss me first, lingering for a long moment.
“Bloody hell, do we have to stand witness to every single kiss?” Danny grumbled. “I’m surprised your lips haven’t melded together yet with all that snogging.”
I broke first, chuckling.
Rourke’s eyes seared me, sparking emerald. He gave me a wicked grin before slamming the door. I was starved for him. As in, if I-didn’t-get-him-soon-I-might-die kind of starved. But we hadn’t had two seconds of freedom since we’d all trudged out of the mountains. By the look in Rourke’s eyes, if we didn’t find some privacy soon things were going to happen whether anyone liked it or not. My wolf licked her lips. We are ladies; we can wait. She growled. In all honesty, I was with Jezebel on this one. My wolf wasn’t the only one who wasn’t going to care if anyone was around.
“Danny, if you’d had a chance, you would’ve ridden horizontal on top of the coolers in the back with Naomi. Don’t even pretend you wouldn’t have. I saw all the flirting going on. You don’t offer to save a woman’s life if you’re not interested.” Wolves had very little modesty when it came to sexuality. They liked sex. End of story.