Throwing out his hand, he took her palm in his and pulled her in close. As their eyes met, he said, “Just stay with me. It looks worse than it feels and it’ll be gone by morning. I fed a week ago.”
Her face registered confusion, but his eyes were fluttering and he had to concentrate to just stay conscious. So he couldn’t begin to guess what had disconcerted her.
“Talk to him,” Vishous ordered as he cupped the receiver’s bottom. “Just… for chrissakes, just talk to the fool—hey, yeah. I need the healer to come to Darius’s. Right now.”
Anne opened her mouth. Closed it. And in the silence, Darius was vaguely aware that he’d given something away, shared something that he shouldn’t have. But he couldn’t remember what he’d said—and then he let that worry go: The next thing he knew, Anne stretched out with him and put her head on the crook of her arm. Staring into his eyes, she stroked his face.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.” He smiled through the pain. “You know, we really have to stop meeting like this. In the middle of a catastrophe, that is.”
Her fingertips were light on his jaw. On his hair. “I couldn’t agree more. But I’m glad I’m here.”
“So am I.” He lowered his voice. “I didn’t think things were going to turn out like this.”
“You smell like gasoline.”
“I’m sorry—”
“No, no, don’t apologize—” She glanced up and frowned. Then sat up. “Oh. Oh…”
When Darius followed the direction of her attention, he could only shake his head and wonder how things could possibly get more complicated: Havers, the species healer, had entered the kitchen in a rush. With his black bag of medical crap, and his trademark tortoiseshell glasses and bow tie, he looked like a college professor in search of a lectern, all officious and competent—yet Darius had never liked him. Maybe it was the bad blood with Wrath, who was supposed to be mated unto the male’s sister, but who had refused to claim her.
Or maybe it was something else. Like the guy was an aristocratic prick.
“I’m fine,” Darius announced as he braced himself for some kind of physical exam.
Damn it, this was not how he’d wanted any of the night to go—
Abruptly, he became aware that the healer was staring at Anne, not him or his injuries. Before Darius could get aggressive, however, Vishous stepped in to solve the yes-she’s-a-human-but-it’s—
“None of your business,” the brother snapped. “Now treat him before I make you.”
What a mess, Darius thought.
That was the last cognition he had as Havers knelt down behind him, examined the BBQ that was now his back—and started cleaning all that raw meat. So yeah, not a lot of time for musing as he became busy trying not to throw up from the pain.
The last thing he wanted was to look like a pussy in front of the likes of Anne.
He was supposed to be the protector… not the protected.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Anne stayed through the whole thing, lying on the kitchen floor with Darius, holding his hands as he went through the brutal debridement process. The smell of faded gasoline, burned flesh, and now astringent was something she was never going to forget. In fact, the experience was so singular that she didn’t dwell on the weird apparition and the strange way the doctor had looked at her and that, as first dates went, this was not on any scale, anywhere.
Or wait, had her trip to the ER technically been their first date?
Who was keeping track, anyway.
Boy, Darius was tough, though. He refused all pain medication and just gritted his teeth through what was clearly agony.
And now… the “healer” was packing up his supplies, and speaking to Darius, not that Anne could understand what was being said—
She frowned and looked back and forth between them. It was that language again… that Darius had spoken with the doctor at the ER, that he’d mumbled when he’d stared up at her on the bed.
Shifting her position into a sit once again, she continued to hold Darius’s hand, and tried to take in the words to see if there was anything in them she could understand—and it was then that she realized the doctor had refused to acknowledge her presence in any way.
Physicians had crap bedside manners, didn’t they.
Fortunately, the man departed shortly thereafter. In the aftermath, everybody who was left just stared at Darius.
“With all those bandages, you look like someone quilted you,” the bodyguard with the icy eyes announced as he lit up yet another cigarette.
He had gone through quite a number of them, which suggested that, gruff exterior aside, he had not been unaffected by Darius’s suffering. The good news, she supposed, was that the smoking had given the butler a job, something that the older gentleman had seemed grateful for. Fritz had literally stood at the man’s elbow with an ashtray in his palms, becoming nothing more than a stand for the thing. It had worked for the both of them, however, the soldier and the butler, side by side, as if they’d known each other for a century.
“Thanks, Laura Ashley,” Darius muttered to his friend. “Now give us a help up, so that I can get her to her feet.”
The gloved hand was extended and Darius was pulled off the floor.
And that was when Anne noticed properly that he didn’t have his shirt or his jacket on.
Good… Lord. His body was packed with the kind of muscle that Olympic athletes cultivated, everything from his powerful shoulders to his pecs to his ribbed abdomen a display of male beauty and strength.
“Anne?” Darius murmured as he offered his palm to her.
She looked away. Looked back.
Then she clasped what he’d put out and got gently drawn up off the kitchen floor. He asked her something, maybe like “Are you okay?” and she murmured a yes, even though she hadn’t quite tracked the question. Then he was turning to the man in leather.
Darius said something in that dialect, and then there was a pause. For a moment, it looked like the two men were going to embrace, but then they seemed to move past that to shake instead.
“Take care of him,” the other bodyguard said as he inclined his head to her.
Then that was that. He just walked out the door. But what did she expect? A farewell cruise goodbye—à la Love Boat where they all stood on the back stoop and waved hankies at the departure?
“I’d really like to go to bed,” Darius said with exhaustion as he propped himself against the counter.
“Then let’s get you upstairs,” she offered. “Before I go home.”
There was a hesitation. And then he nodded. “All right.”
Abruptly, the butler seemed flustered, but Darius just shook his head. “I think that would be great.” He extended his arm. “Come here so I can lean on you.”
Holy… smokes.
As she fitted herself against him and they started walking, their bodies somehow puzzle-piece’d even though he was so much taller and broader. And wow. His cologne. While they went along, she could smell nothing of the horrible stench from before. Maybe the aftershave was more of an herbal wash that the doctor had used?
Whatever it was, she felt like she was getting drunk off it.