It was a few minutes before I could speak again. “Shit, I needed that.”
Panting, she breathed, “Me as well.”
As I dried her body with a towel, she remained pliant against me. I couldn’t help but smile since Sam being pliant wasn’t a regular occurrence. She was still limp as a noodle when I positioned her on the bed and came to rest next to her, my head propped on my hand. “You okay?”
Her eyes fluttered open. They were pleasure-drunk but also…baffled. “You really would do anything for me, wouldn’t you?”
“You’re only beginning to realise this now?” I gently ran my finger from the hollow of her throat down between her breasts and further down to circle her belly button. “You should already know that.” My hand splayed possessively over her stomach. “You should feel it here. In your gut.”
“I really didn’t think that you would bring Paige here. Not when it was possible that it would bring trouble to The Hollow and everyone here.”
She thought that I’d ever let her die for any reason? I shook my head, gazing at her with mock sympathy. “I love this place, and I care about some of the people in it, and I consider it my responsibility to keep everyone who resides here safe. But you come before everything and everyone.”
Her brow furrowed as her expression suddenly turned vulnerable. I knew why it was so hard for her to comprehend. No one had ever put Sam first. Not her parents, who had been more interested in running the family business than caring for her. Not her Sire, who had killed someone she cared for and then used her in every sense of the word. Not her nest, who had stood by and watched as she was used that way. Granted, many of them feared Victor and a few of them had tried to help her, but it hadn’t been enough. So even though she could feel how important she was to me, she still couldn’t understand it. She didn’t realise what lengths I’d go to in order to keep her or to protect her.
She snuggled into me and pressed a soft kiss to my chest. “I really am sorry that I put your life in danger.”
I cupped her face, brushing the pad of my thumb along her cheekbone. “Baby, you don’t need to apologise for that. You did your job; you looked out for our squad. I was never angry that my life was threatened. I was only angry that something had happened to you. It wasn’t your fault – I shouldn’t have blamed you.”
“But you could have died.” Her voice was low, pained.
“I was more worried about you.” Confusion flashed across her face. See? She just couldn’t quite grasp that someone would put her first, that they would find her so vital and necessary to them. Making a mental note to try to tell her I loved her more often, I kissed her mouth softly. “Sleep, baby. You’re exhausted.”
“Only if you don’t let me sleep too long. We need to make sure that Evan has the chance to speak to Alora before she leaves.”
“I’ll wake you up in a couple of hours.”
She closed her eyes. “Stay here with me.”
Her plea squeezed my chest. As much as she had tried to hide it, she had been terrified when she’d been bitten – more terrified for me than for herself. I knew from experience that coming extremely close to death had a way of making you realise just exactly how much you had to lose, just exactly what was important and just how important it truly was. It could shake you and your equilibrium in a way that not much else could. And she was shaken. I rested my head on the pillow and practically enveloped her body with mine. “I’ll be right here.”
She drifted to sleep with a smile on her face, and – just like I’d done the time she’d been unconscious after killing her Sire – I stayed where I was and watched her sleep.
Chapter Twelve
(Jared)
When I arrived at the infirmary a few hours later, it was to find that it was empty apart from a still unconscious Evan and Mary Jane. She explained that Max and Stuart had already woken over an hour ago and had gone to their apartments to wash and change. A little worried that Evan hadn’t yet woken, I settled on the chair beside his bed, intending to wait until he did. Mary Jane wanted to linger so she could tend to him when he woke – purely because she liked to fuss over people. But as I knew I’d need to speak to Evan privately, I asked her to leave. Besides, he was healed now, so her help was no longer required.
It was over half an hour later that his eyes finally flickered open. Relief breezed through me. “Hey, shithead.”
Tired eyes landed on me and his mouth slowly curved into an amused grin. “Hey, asshole.” He looked totally drained and hung-over, but that was a hell of a lot better than how he’d looked a few hours ago.
“Here.” I handed him an orange-flavoured NST. He chugged it down. “Take it easy.” Evan being Evan, he didn’t listen. “I’d hug you, but you still stink.”
He chuckled. His voice slightly hoarse, he said, “You found a counteragent?”
“You don’t remember what happened?”
He shook his head. “I don’t remember much. But I remember the thirst. I remember the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach.” He gave me the empty bottle and then gratefully took another NST. He drank that one a little slower. “It’s strange…I feel thirsty, really thirsty, but I don’t have awful hunger pangs or anything. Shouldn’t my system want to make up for lost time?”
“Mary Jane put you, Max, and Stuart on a drip of pure blood for the first hour after you were healed when you were all unconscious.”
“That explains it then. But it doesn’t explain how I’m healed, or how I ended up unconscious in the first place.”
“I didn’t find a counteragent. I found someone who, sort of, has the ability to heal.” I told him about Paige West, including the part about Luther’s vision – it turned out that Evan didn’t remember the time I had telepathically told him about it all while he was ill. I also told him about the assignment and about how Sam had been bitten. His eyebrows rose higher and higher as the story went on. “I’m sorry I never brought Paige here sooner, but”
Evan raised a hand. “Don’t be. You were protecting your mate. I’d never want anything to happen to Sam either. She’s like my sister. I’m glad she’s okay.” His face pulled into a frown. “It’s kind of odd that her bite wound healed by itself, huh.”
“Antonio thinks it’s because she’s now a hybrid. Her skin heals unbelievably fast – maybe even so fast that it began to heal before The Call had the chance to fully taint her system and fuck up its healing abilities.”
“Is the ugly mark still there?”
“No, it disappeared once Paige removed the taint from her body.” I rubbed my nape as I continued, uncomfortable, “On a whole other subject…There’s something you should know. Alora’s here.”
Evan blinked. “Alora? Why?”
“When she heard you were tainted, she came here.”
Incredibly perceptive, Evan narrowed his eyes as he said accusingly, “You broke your promise, didn’t you? You let her see me like that?”
“Alora cares about you, Evan. She wouldn’t have come on an assignment and endangered her life if she”
“You let her go on an assignment?” He gaped, clearly horrified and pissed.
Damn, I was just digging a deeper hole for myself here. I pushed on. “Even though she believes you’ll never want her, she came here and asked for permission to stay for a while to help find a way to save you.” I let that sink in for a minute. “She told us everything, Evan. To be honest, I was a bit of a bastard to her in the beginning because I thought she’d rejected you.”
He averted his gaze. “It was me who rejected her. It was a shock, you know. What she told me…I’d never have seen that coming.”