“You need to lay her flat on the ground,” I instructed, getting to my knees.
“I need to give her my blood,” Marcus said, pulling at his sleeve.
I shook my head. It was his go-to move. Vampire blood was our universal curative, but it wouldn’t work here. “It might make her lungs function, but it won’t clear the water. She’ll just drown again. You two get back. Now.”
I could take charge of this. Summer was covered in blood and I wasn’t sure how much of it was hers, but if I could get her breathing again, Marcus could fix anything else that was wrong with her. I leaned over and placed my mouth on hers. Two quick breaths and then I found her xiphoid process and moved up an inch on her sternum.
“Be careful with her,” Quinn said, kneeling next to me.
Marcus was opposite me, Summer’s hand in his.
I started compressions, being careful because I had a whole lot of strength and I wasn’t sure how fragile she was. I found a rhythm in my head and let it take over.
“It’s not working.”
I didn’t need to see Marcus to feel his fear.
I kept on, unwilling to give up on her.
“Kelsey, let Marcus try giving her blood.” Dev was every bit as freaked out as Marcus was.
Again, I didn’t take the time to explain that it wouldn’t work the way they hoped it would. I kept up my steady beat, giving her breaths when the time came.
Her eyes flew open as I leaned over to put my mouth on hers. She knocked me back as she twisted to one side and vomited up all the lake water she’d swallowed.
I breathed a sigh of relief as she dragged air into her lungs, and Dev and Marcus crowded her in a way that would have made me growl.
“Bella, you are all right?” Marcus asked.
“Of course she’s not all right,” Dev complained. “She was attacked. Give her blood, Marcus. Look at what it did to her arm. Did you kill it?”
“He’s talking about the yucky horse thing.” I noted no one was complimenting my CPR skills.
They ignored me entirely.
Summer’s body shook as she cleared her lungs and her gut. Marcus held her hair back, lending her strength. Dev pretty much got in the way, but he thought he was her dad and I would likely be all kinds of upset if Fen drowned. I’d been twelve kinds of freaked when he’d nearly been sacrificed by witches and I hadn’t even been his mom then.
I put a hand to my belly. I was bringing a kid into a world where witches might try to sacrifice him. He would be part demon, and though we’d managed to break Gray’s contract, what would happen if one of his relatives tried to enforce that legacy on his son?
Why hadn’t I thought of any of this before I’d gone and gotten pregnant? I was mom to a wolf king. At some point every alpha in the world would likely force my Fenrir to prove himself far before he was ready.
The son I was carrying would be less than a halfling. He would be a freak in the demon world, part demon, part demon hunter. How would they treat him? Hell, I wasn’t even sure we weren’t about to get involved in a war with that plane. Would I be bringing my son into a world where no one would accept him?
Was this how the queen felt when she’d become a mom? Had she been this paralyzed with fear? Had she wondered what the hell she was doing? If she was even doing the right thing?
If she was ready? If she was capable of being a good mom?
“I’m fine.” The words croaked out of Summer’s mouth.
“You are not, bella. Your arm is still bleeding, and I think I can see bone.” He reached down to gently touch her right forearm.
Summer hissed and tried to sit. She brought her left hand up, touching the collar at her neck. I’d noticed it before, but only in a vague way. It was a thin circlet of what looked to be silver, and there was a charm attached to it. Honestly, I don’t know much about jewelry, but it wasn’t something I would have picked. It didn’t seem to go with Summer’s skin tone. I would have put her in gold. The queen wore a lot of gold, and it seemed to bring out the warmer tones of her skin. But Summer must have some sentimental attachment because she seemed deeply relieved it was still there.
“I’ll be fine. I need to get home. Erna can heal me.” She sounded out of it, but then she’d recently drowned so I wasn’t judging.
“Marcus can heal you,” Dev insisted. “Vampire blood heals quickly and there will be no scars.”
She shook her head. “I know what that means. Vampires don’t heal you for nothing.”
“It means only that I do not want you in pain,” Marcus explained.
“He won’t expect anything from you.” I felt the need to plead Marcus’s case. I don’t know what vampires she’d known before, but Marcus wasn’t the kind of male who would ever hold off on offering healing to anyone. Except the bad guys, and then he would be the one getting inside their heads, telling them to gut themselves. “You can heal, Summer. He won’t jump you or anything. Not like the horse thing. It’s dead, right?”
Marcus nodded. “The each-uisge is dead. I drained it and he tasted quite good. He will not bother another traveler.”
Summer shook her head. “I don’t think he was trying to eat me. It was weird. He wanted…”
Summer’s head fell back and Marcus caught her. I heard Dev curse.
“Give her blood.” The good news was with her all passed out and stuff, we could drip that sucker into her mouth.
“Or you can step away from her, vampire,” a new voice said.
A young man who couldn’t be more than twenty stood to the side, and he was holding a crossbow aimed right at Marcus.
Some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed.
* * * *
Zoey
It’s not easy to walk in an invisibility cloak. Maybe it is if you’re the only one inside it, but I wasn’t, and my human son wasn’t the most coordinated kid in the world.
We were walking down the hallway that led to Myrddin’s apartment when he nearly tripped and sent us both tumbling.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Did you forget to tie your shoe?” I’d asked him twice if they were tied properly.
He knelt down. “This wouldn’t happen if you got me the Velcro kind.”
I stood there, keeping the cloak around us and trying so hard not to lecture the kid. I could hear my father down the hall at Sarah’s knocking on the door. It was all a part of the plan. He’d led us to the residential wing of the building. There were cameras everywhere, and I didn’t want Myrddin wondering why an elevator opened and closed on its own, nor did I want to risk riding up and down until someone wanted to go to the right floor. The cloak hid us visually. It couldn’t hide our mass if someone brushed up against us. According to Lee, there was something about the cloak that hid it from cameras and allowed eyes to see what they thought they would see. If we stood in front of the door, there wouldn’t be a shadow there. They would see right through the cloak. There was nothing I could do about the door coming open, but my father was there to make sure no one was hanging out. Sarah had a spell for the camera in the hallway and the one on the door that would let Myrddin know who was standing there. We were lucky with that. Sarah was our official witch. She was the only one the security systems weren’t warded against in case we needed her.