His eyes widened, but he let the matter go, and instead asked, “Who were those men in your apartment?”
The question brought surprise flashing over her face. “You tell me. They’re vampires like you.”
For some reason her words made him stiffen up like a soldier at attention. His words were just as stiff when he said, “I am an immortal. Not a vampire. And those men we stopped were nothing like me and Tybo. They are obviously rogues.”
Allie frowned at this explanation and was going to ask what he meant when Tybo returned with Liam.
“Time to go,” Tybo announced. “We’re catching a ride with one of the delivery boys. He’s pulling up out front. This way.”
“Just a minute,” Allie said with dismay, hurrying forward to grab the man’s arm and drag Liam from him. Holding the boy tightly, she peered from one man to the other and then shook her head. “Thank you for your help, but we aren’t going with you. Liam and I—”
“Will not survive more than ten minutes on your own,” Magnus interrupted firmly. “We are your best bet, Allie. Tybo and I can get you to a safe house where you will be protected until we can find out what is happening and take care of this situation.”
Allie scowled. “And I’m supposed to just take that on faith? I don’t know you any better than the first two men who broke into my apartment.”
“Magnus,” Tybo said quietly. “We don’t have time for this. I’m hoping those men will search the apartment building first. But there are enough of them that they can do that and still send a couple over to check the plaza. We need to move.”
Allie eyed Tybo suspiciously. It sounded to her like he was asking for permission to do something. She was sure she was right about that when Magnus gave a short, reluctant nod. When Tybo immediately turned a concentrated gaze on to her, Allie found herself turning and carrying Liam toward the front of the restaurant. It wasn’t a choice. At least, not her choice, and she should have been panicked and horrified that she was doing something she didn’t intend or want to do, but she was oddly calm and unaffected by it.
As if she’d been drugged was the unconcerned thought that floated through her head, but that didn’t seem quite right. It was more as if her anxiety and worries were being veiled somehow so that she couldn’t connect to them, and a sense of calm and serenity was being pumped through her in their place. Whatever the case, Allie carried Liam straight through the kitchen, and then the bright dining area with its white floors and plastic orange seats to the door and out to the car waiting there.
She got into the back seat, sliding along its length until she was crowded up against a stack of pizza warmers. Allie then settled Liam more comfortably in her lap while Magnus squeezed in next to her and Tybo got into the front passenger seat.
Allie was aware of Tybo pulling out a phone and talking to someone named Mortimer, but her own attention was on the parking lot around them, her eyes searching it for the men who had pulled up in front of her building. Much to her relief, she didn’t see anyone before they were wheeling out of the plaza parking lot and onto the road.
“Mortimer’s expecting us and is having Sam ready a room for Allie and Liam, as well as one for yourself, Magnus,” Tybo announced.
Magnus tore his gaze away from Allie to peer at the younger immortal as he tucked his phone into a pocket of his jacket. Tybo had turned sideways in the front seat to talk to him, and now added, “He’s also sending men to round up the rogues at the apartment if they’re still there when they arrive. If not, they’ll simply take care of the apartment and any video footage from the entry camera, if there is one, then collect our SUV.”
Magnus grunted, his attention slipping back to Allie and Liam. The boy had curled up on her lap and fallen asleep with his head on her chest and she had dozed off with her head against the warming bags stacked next to her. While the boy had probably dozed off on his own, Magnus was quite sure Tybo was responsible for Allie’s sleep. This situation certainly wouldn’t normally put a woman to sleep, he was sure.
“She’s extremely pale,” Tybo commented from the front seat.
Magnus nodded, his eyes sliding over her classic features and pale skin. Her eyes were closed now, but he’d noticed they were hazel. Her hair was long and light brown, and while most would have said she was just pretty enough, she was the most beautiful woman in the world to him. His life mate, he thought, and then pointed out, “According to the officers who answered the 911 call, she had fallen and hit her head.”
“She didn’t fall,” Tybo announced grimly. “She fainted . . . from lack of blood.”
Magnus glanced at him sharply. “What?”
“She’s been feeding the boy with her own blood for a good four years,” Tybo announced, his concentrated gaze on her face as he found the information he was passing along. “She was trying to rob the blood bank out of desperation. Feeding the boy is killing her, literally. And she knows it. She was hoping to get him blood from the blood bank to give her system a chance to recover, and got a job there to make the theft easier.”
Magnus turned his attention back to Allie, wishing he could read her thoughts so that Tybo didn’t have to. He didn’t like the other man poking through her head like this.
“Unfortunately,” Tybo continued, “she passed out during the attempt . . . hitting her head and losing even more precious blood.” Tybo shook his head. “At this point, she probably needs a blood transfusion herself. She’s very weak, Magnus. Even asleep her heart rate is elevated and her breathing rapid and shallow.”
Magnus frowned at this news and reached out to brush away a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. “Feeding a child as young as Liam should not be this detrimental to her health.”
“No,” Tybo murmured, and was silent for a moment, his gaze still on her, and then he said, “I think she’s been letting him overfeed.”
Magnus’s eyebrows rose. Overfeeding the boy would mean that his system would use up a lot of blood trying to remove the extra blood from his system, which would just mean a need for more blood. It would be a vicious circle—the boy always hungry, always needing more blood. Unfortunately, more blood than one mortal could safely supply. If she’d continued like this much longer, it would have killed her. As it was, Allie was lucky she hadn’t already suffered a heart attack or simply died from the blood loss. In effect, the boy was bleeding her to death.
“Who is the boy?” Magnus asked now. “How did she end up the mother to an immortal?”
Tybo was silent for so long that Magnus turned to look at him. The other man’s expression was even more concentrated now as he sought an answer to that question, but it was another moment before he murmured, “Stella.”
“Stella?” Magnus asked. “Is that the boy’s mother?”
“I . . .” Tybo lost the concentrated look and rubbed his forehead with his thumb and fingers as if trying to ward off a headache as he murmured apologetically, “Her thoughts are very confused and almost veiled. It’s as if she’s so used to trying not to think about this stuff that even in sleep she’s protecting her thoughts. All I could get was the name Stella.”