“Oh, he was still in pain, but it was a different kind of pain to this,” she said, and spotting her expression, Divine sighed. “The pain when you’re low on blood feels unbearable, right?”
Jackie nodded.
“Well, it isn’t. We bear it, but it certainly inspires us to make sure we feed and that’s the point. It’s like a toothache or a really loud blaring alarm screaming nonstop. It’s painful, constant, urging you to do something. In this case, feed. And it’s distracting enough that you will feed no matter the pain you know it will cause once you do. Or maybe the pain is there to ensure you can’t think clearly enough to recall the pain that will follow once you feed,” she muttered. She knew all this only from experience after having lived so long. Divine did not have any scientific knowledge to back it up.
Shrugging, she said, “While the pain caused by the need to feed feels unbearable, the pain of healing actually is unbearable. Marcus won’t be able to withstand it for long before he—” She paused abruptly as Marcus’s moan turned into another long, loud shriek. His whole body vibrated briefly in her arms, his teeth snapping like a cornered dog in pain, and then he went abruptly limp as if someone had flipped a switch turning him off.
Divine stared down at his pale, scarred face and released a little sigh. Marcus had passed out, but who knew how long that would last. The pain would probably wake him in a bit and have him thrashing and screaming again. They had to move quickly to get him tied down so he wouldn’t hurt himself. He’d simply prolong the healing if that happened. That concern uppermost in her mind, Divine shifted her hold on Marcus, and then stood up with him cradled in her arms.
Jackie stepped back, expression incredulous, and for a minute Divine thought the girl was such a newbie as an immortal that she didn’t yet know her own strength now. She realized that wasn’t the case though when Jackie said, “Your chest.”
Divine glanced down and took brief note of the bloody rivulets in her chest where she’d trapped Marcus’s hands. He’d clawed at her, digging into her chest to try to make her release him. She’d been aware of it at the time, but had ignored it. Sighing, she shrugged, “He did worse in the back of the SUV. I’ll heal.”
Swinging away toward the door, she asked, “Can you show me to the room you prepared for him?”
“Of course.” Jackie hurried around her to get the door, held it for her, and then rushed past her again to lead her to and up the stairs. They were halfway up when Vincent hurried back through the front door, chains in hand.
“You should have told me he’d stashed them under the front seat. I looked everywhere before I found them there,” Vincent reprimanded as he hurried toward the stairs.
“Sorry,” Divine murmured, not bothering to explain that she had hid them there, not Marcus. She hadn’t wanted him to wake up and see them and be reminded of the unpleasantness he’d suffered.
“Here, let me take him for you,” Vincent offered, rushing up the stairs behind them.
“I’m—” Divine had meant to say she was good, but didn’t get the chance to finish. Vincent had already handed the chains to Jackie and then took Marcus from her. He then hurried up the stairs, Jackie hard on his heels. Divine was left to follow.
Eleven
“You’re awake.”
Marcus had barely stirred when Vincent’s overly cheerful voice finished rousing him from sleep. Opening his eyes, he stared briefly at the man standing beside the bed he lay in before glancing around the room. It was disturbingly cheerful, a bright yellow room lined with a wallpaper border of sunflowers. He closed his eyes with a sigh. “Yeah.”
“How do you feel?” Vincent asked.
Marcus popped his eyes open again as his brain began to function. He was in a room in Vincent and Jackie’s home, healing after a fire that had torched Divine’s RV, he recalled.
“Where’s Divine?” he asked abruptly, trying to sit up, only to have Vincent force him back down with one hand on his chest.
“Slow down, buddy. She’s fine. Resting in her own room. Now, tell me how you feel,” Vincent insisted, withdrawing his restraining hand and straightening when Marcus stopped struggling to sit up.
Marcus almost barked out Fine as an automatic reply, but then thought better of it and took inventory. Nothing hurt, which was a relief. He had a serious case of dry mouth though, and while he wasn’t suffering the pain of blood hunger, he was hungry . . . which was truly weird. He hadn’t experienced that in quite a while.
“Hungry,” he said finally.
Vincent nodded as if that were to be expected. “We could tell you were on the verge of waking up so Jackie went down to fetch you a drink and something to eat. She should be back in a minute.”
“How could you tell I was on the verge of waking up?” Marcus asked curiously.
“You stopped moaning and thrashing hours ago and lay still as death since then,” Vincent said dryly. “But about ten minutes ago you started shifting restlessly and talking in your sleep.”
Marcus stiffened at this news. “Talking? What was I saying?”
“Something about ball busters,” Vincent said with amusement. “It wasn’t very intelligible for the most part.”
Marcus grimaced and relaxed in the bed.
“I gather Divine did some damage to the old baby makers, huh?”
Marcus stiffened again, eyes sharp on the younger man. “Did Divine tell you that?”
Vincent shook his head solemnly. “I read the memory from your thoughts.”
Marcus stared at him silently for a moment, his mind in an uproar. Vincent shouldn’t be able to read him. The man was younger than he. The fact that Vincent could read him . . . well, that was another symptom of finding a life mate. Hunger, sex drive, and the inability to block your thoughts were all signs of a life mate’s presence. Divine was his life mate.
“Damn,” Marcus muttered finally, letting his head fall back and eyes close. “I was afraid of that.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Marcus scowled at the sympathetic words and opened his eyes again. “So? Can you read her too?”
“Yes,” Vincent admitted, but Marcus didn’t miss the reluctance in his voice.
“Yes, you can read her, and . . . what?” he asked quietly. When Vincent hesitated, he guessed, “She’s Basha?”
“We’re not sure one way or the other,” Vincent admitted.
“What?” Marcus asked with disbelief, sitting up again.
Vincent pushed him back down almost automatically, his attention on his thoughts and trying to express them. “She has a very . . .” He paused, hesitated, and then tried again, “Her mind is rather . . .”
“Rather what?” Marcus snapped impatiently, sitting up again, only to have Vincent absently push him back flat in bed again as if it were little effort at all. He might be healed, but he obviously hadn’t regained full strength yet if Vincent could handle him so easily, he thought with disgust, and then glanced sharply at Vincent as the man started to speak again.
“I’ve never been able to read someone as old as Divine appears to be,” he said finally. “Her mind is . . .” Vincent grimaced and then said, “Well, frankly, it’s a weird combination of almost anal organization and complete disorganization at the same time.”
“How could she be both organized and disorganized?” Marcus demanded impatiently, sitting up again.
“It’s weird, I’ll admit,” Vincent said, pushing him back in the bed once more, and then sitting down on the edge of the bed beside him and leaning his weight on his elbow on Marcus’s stomach as if it were a pillow. The move ensured Marcus wouldn’t rear up again, which was apparently the man’s intent. But he looked damned pleased with himself as he did it. “But I think it might be a result of the length of her life.”