“But I couldn’t produce more oxygen for her.”
“I’m fine, Sean,” Nicole seconded.
Stepping back, he studied her carefully. Color was creeping back into her pretty face, and she no longer trembled. Sean drew her into his arms. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“It wasn’t your fault.” She hugged him back. “We made it out safely.”
“Thanks to Seth.”
Belatedly realizing that he probably shouldn’t hold Nicole too long in Seth’s presence, Sean released her.
Nicole turned a grin on Seth. “That was freaking awesome. A dragon? I thought I was hallucinating or something.”
One shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I needed a form large enough to carry you both.”
“As much as I loved the dragon,” Sean said, “why didn’t you just teleport us here in your usual form as soon as you caught up with us?” Chris probably already had his guys combing the internet for dragon-sighting posts and videos.
“Because we would’ve hit the ground here with the same momentum you would’ve hit it there had I not caught you and halted your descent first.”
“Oh.” That was disconcerting. “Thank you.”
Seth’s lips twitched as his dark eyes lit with amusement. “That was a first for me, by the way. I have never in all of my long existence had to rescue an immortal who jumped out of an airplane without a parachute.” And Seth had lived so many millennia that he tended to enjoy things that surprised him or caught him off guard.
Such rarely happened.
Sean’s skin began to prickle and burn. The virus must have used all the blood he’d taken to heat his body enough to help Nicole. He would have to thank Melanie later for making him practice that.
“Sean,” Nicole said, “you need to get out of the sun.” Before he could respond, she took his hand and pulled him after her toward the shelter of the back porch.
He supposed the lack of cloud cover meant that Seth wasn’t pissed at them. Storms often gathered when the eldest Immortal Guardian’s temper flared. “How cold was it up there, Seth?” It had taken a lot of energy to keep frostbite at bay. He’d basically had to turn himself into a furnace.
“Negative seventy degrees Fahrenheit or thereabouts.”
Sean swore. Immortals could tolerate that. But Nicole couldn’t.
Damn, that had been close.
When they entered David’s home, Sheldon was waiting for them with a bag of blood. “I thought you could use this.”
“Thanks.” His skin an angry red, Sean sank his teeth into the bag and siphoned the blood into his veins before he, Nicole, and Seth headed into David’s study.
Seated behind his desk, David looked up with a faint smile. “Didn’t expect it to be so cold up there, did you?”
Sean grinned. “No.”
David motioned to the chairs that faced his desk. “Have a seat.”
Seth addressed David over their heads. “I’m going to pick up Reordon.” He vanished.
David smiled at Nicole. “Can I get you anything?”
“That depends. Has my hair turned white?”
He laughed. “No. It’s still a lovely brown.”
She smiled. “Then I’m good.”
Chuckling, he shifted his attention to Sean and shook his head. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t let them take her.”
Sean straightened. “She’s my Second. Of course, I couldn’t let them take her.”
“Yes,” David replied, his dark brown eyes twinkling with amusement. “Because she’s your Second.”
Sean looked at Nicole from the corner of his eye and found her doing the same.
Did David know about them?
Seth abruptly reappeared with Reordon at his side.
Reordon eyed Sean with a combination of irritation and resignation. “You just couldn’t stick to the plan, could you?” He and Seth sank into two chairs that—added to Sean’s and Nicole’s—formed a horseshoe in front of David’s desk.
Sean stiffened, hackles rising. “Hey, someone had to guard Nicole’s back. And your special ops team insisted on keeping their distance.”
“Because I told them to,” Chris said.
“Well, that was a bad call. There was no way I was going to let her get on that plane by herself. And it’s damned lucky I didn’t. That asshole tried to grope her and then punched her in the head.”
Every face darkened with anger.
Seth’s eyes acquired a golden glow, David’s amber.
Nicole held up a finger. “After I delivered a wicked uppercut.”
Sean smiled. “She did. She hit him so hard with my phone that he bit through his tongue.”
“Good,” David said with relish.
Seth nodded. “Tell us what happened.”
Sean and Nicole gave them a quick rundown. Sean did most of the talking because Nicole’s memory was foggy in places. He cast Seth a worried look.
What troubles you? the Immortal Guardians leader asked telepathically.
Her memory is spotty. Is she okay?
Yes. She suffered a concussion, but I healed her when she hugged me. There will be no lasting damage.
Sean sighed with relief. Thank you.
Seth winked. I healed you, too.
Oh. Right. He’d been shot twice. Fear for Nicole had completely driven that from his mind. Thank you.
Chris shook his head. “What a dumbass.”
Sean frowned, thinking Chris referred to him until he realized Nicole had just mentioned the guard firing his gun.
“How are your wounds, Sean?” Chris asked. “Are you okay?”
Surprised, he nodded. “Yeah. Seth healed me.”
“I think the third bullet that guy fired might’ve hit something explosive,” Nicole added. “There was a deafening boom.”
Chris shook his head. “That was probably the abrupt shift in air pressure.”
Sean nodded. “I didn’t see an explosion.”
Chris leaned back in his chair. “Okay. You didn’t screw up. Good job, getting you both out of there safely.” The network head could be stubborn as hell. But if he was wrong, he wasn’t averse to admitting it.
Sean had always liked that about him. “Thanks. However, I don’t know how safe it was. If I had dropped my phone before I could call Seth, we would’ve been screwed.”
“Sheesh!” Nicole popped him on the arm. “Don’t put that in my head. I was just starting to relax and think of this as a wild adventure.”
All laughed.
As the amusement died down, Sean studied the other men. “Full disclosure—if the gunman hadn’t forced us to bail, I probably would’ve mucked up the plan one way or another once we reached our destination after hearing what they intended to do to Nicole.”
Chris frowned. “What did they intend to do to her?”
“Torture her to get me to tell them everything I know about Nick.”
Swears erupted.
Nicole frowned. “Is it weird that I find it insulting that they thought he would cave faster if they tortured me than I would if they tortured him?”
“Yes,” the men chorused.
She laughed.
Sean didn’t. “They also intended to turn her into a lab rat and run all sorts of tests on her to see if her new stepdad had made her immortal like him.”