And light exploded around them, warm and brilliant-and the vampires she and Tom hadn’t killed stopped fighting and ran. Anna’s vampire grabbed his arm off the ground before tearing after the others. Anna took a step after them, then forced herself to stop.
There were still four vampires, and that was probably three too many for her-and she couldn’t abandon her fallen comrades.
“Tom?”
“He’s alive,” she told Moira after a quick-but-thorough examination-done from five feet away. “But he’s going to need a moment before he’s ready to believe we aren’t the enemy.” She knelt beside the witch. “Are you all right?”
“Fine, damn it. Just fine.”
Moira was bleeding, Anna could smell it, but not a lot. She saw cuts on knees and elbows, but nothing horrible. The horrible thing had nothing to do with the vampire attack.
Moira’s glasses had been knocked to the pavement and Anna saw what she’d hidden behind them. One eye scarred beyond belief, as if someone had ripped it out with a clawed hand. The other withered like a raisin, a sickly yellowish white raisin.
Without a word, Anna found the sunglasses-which were unbroken-and put them in Moira’s hand. The witch’s hands shook as she shoved them onto her face, then she steadied.
Anna understood about shields and the odd shape they sometimes took.
“He’ll be all right,” Anna said-glad that Moira couldn’t see what Tom looked like. It would be easier to convince her that he would be all right that way. Werewolves were tough.
“Can you shield us from sight? The vampires were doing it-or someone was”-it had felt like pack magic-“and now that they’ve run, it’s gone.” She didn’t know enough about pack magic to do it herself-and it usually required a pack anyway. Her pack, her new pack, was in Aspen Creek, two states away.
“I can manage for a little bit, but you’ll have to tell me if it’s working,” Moira told her, sounding more like the opinionated woman Anna had been spending the day with and less like the scary witch.
Anna glanced around, but the beheaded vampires’ bodies had turned to ash, either from true death or from Moira’s sunlight-she didn’t know that much about vampires.
“That will work,” said Tom, though he didn’t make any effort to move. His voice was still growly, and his eyes gleamed yellow in the darkness. “Anna, my cell’s in pieces, and Moira won’t carry one. You need to call for help-I’m not going to be walking anywhere for a few days.”
Dominant wolves didn’t deal well with injuries like that. Ones that left them vulnerable. Angus’s pack would be set up like most of them. Angus clearly at the head, then two or three near the top, the rest ready to step in when necessary. And Tom had a broken arm, and she was pretty sure there was other damage not immediately obvious.
“You have a healer, right?” Anna asked.
“Alan Choo,” said Tom. “But you call Charles and tell him to send-”
Deciding he wasn’t going to budge, she turned to Moira, who’d followed Tom’s voice until she could touch him. From the look on her face, it was a good thing for the vampires that they were either dead or had fled.
“Moira, tell me about Alan Choo. How dominant is he?”
“He’s not.” Tom sounded exasperated. “He can’t make you safe.”
A moment before, Anna had been numb and shaking with the aftereffects of the fight. But when his words registered, Anna was suddenly furious that Tom would put himself at risk for her. Again. Because the vampires had been hunting her.
Power came to her call, and she said, “I will make myself safe.” When he didn’t have anything to say to that, she turned to the witch. “Moira do you have Alan Choo’s number?”
“Give me your cell phone, and I’ll call him myself,” Moira said in an odd voice.
Anna handed it over and turned to deal with the witch’s mate-and found him looking at her with a little smile. “Shit, woman,” he said, “I haven’t been put in my place so well since the last time Charles did it. You’d better call him. Your mate’s going to be wondering why you drew upon him that way.”
What way? But telling him she didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about didn’t appeal to Anna. She’d learned about revealing weaknesses, too. Even if she liked him.
“He’ll have to wait-Moira, tell Mr. Choo to meet us at my hotel room.”
“And just how are going to get to the hotel without help?” Tom asked. He tried to sit up and failed. “Shit,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere for a while.”
Anna waited until Moira was through talking to their medic and took her phone back from Moira. Then she answered his question. “Your mate’s going to keep us invisible, and I’m carrying you back to the hotel.”
At Moira’s astonished face, she rolled her eyes before she remembered the witch couldn’t see her. “Werewolf, here. I may not look like a brawny male, but I can carry Tom to the hotel just fine.”
Tom relaxed a little. “We don’t have any females,” he said. “You look pretty scrawny. I forgot.” She looked at him, and he gave her a faint smile. “Sorry.”
They weren’t too far from the hotel, but it seemed like a hundred miles. Tom was not light-werewolves are denser than humans, and she kept worrying about the pained sounds he made no matter how carefully she walked. Then he quit making sounds, and that was worse. And remembering to warn Moira about curbs and broken bits of sidewalk was harder than Tom had made it look.
Just when she was ready to call it over, she looked up-and there was the hotel.
Her cell rang. A couple of people coming out of the restaurant attached to the hotel patted pockets and looked bewildered, so Anna thought that maybe Moira’s spell was fading.
Anna’s hands were occupied, so Moira pulled the phone out of Anna’s jacket and silenced it. Tom had lost consciousness a little while back, and Anna worried about blood trail-but it couldn’t be helped.
She’d figured out a plan of action on the way back. She’d call Charles and explain the situation. If she understood about pack hierarchy and Tom’s danger as a wounded dominant, certainly Charles would, too.
“Door,” she whispered to Moira, and the witch trailed her fingers from their place on her shoulder to the glass door and held it open while Anna scooted inside with her wounded burden.
“Windy tonight,” someone in the lobby commented as the door shut behind them.
By some luck there was no one in the hall by the elevators-or on their floor when it stopped. Anna had to set Tom down to find the keycard for her room. Moira stayed beside him, murmuring softly, when Anna left him there as she tore the bedding from the bed and layered it with towels to absorb the blood.
Getting Tom up again took time they didn’t have. He was semiconscious and defensive-and Anna was anything but calm. Finally, she just hefted him up. If he bit her, she’d still have time to get him in and shut the door. He was in too rough a shape to do any real damage, not compared to the damage the vampires had done on purpose. And she found that she was willing to risk that.
But he didn’t bite her. She got him into the room, on the bed. Moira shut the door, and they both heaved a sigh of relief. Anna’s phone rang for the second time. Moira shoved it into her bloody hands.
It was Charles.
“Anna?”
His voice was dark and urgent-and as soon as she heard it she felt him running through the dark streets. Felt his panic and the rising rage behind it like a dark tide of violence.
“I’m fine,” she told him-though after she said it, she wasn’t entirely sure that was true. In the heat of battle nothing had hurt-but she’d caught a few good punches and given a few, too. She didn’t remember it, really. But her knuckles were sore, and so was her right shoulder. And her stomach wasn’t too happy with her either. Fortunately, she hadn’t taken stock until after she’d told him.