He brought her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. “Hi, beautiful.”
“You’ve been running your fingers through your hair again.” Her words came a little slower, as though she were on the brink of sleep.
“Have I?” Probably. It was a nervous habit he’d never been able to break.
“Yeah. I love it when it’s messy like that. It’s how it always looks after we make love.” She started to reach for it with her other hand.
“Don’t move your arm, sweetheart.”
Her eyes closed. Her lashes fluttered as her head rolled on the pillow, turning her face away from him. Then she opened her eyes again, as though struggling to remain awake, and squinted up at Aidan. Frowning, she looked at Nick and said in a sluggish whisper, “That Scottish guy is kissing my arm. That’s so weird.”
Aidan’s eyes danced with mirth as Dana stifled a laugh.
“Don’t worry about Aidan,” Nick murmured, mustering a smile. “He’s an odd sort.”
“Odder than you?” she teased, lids lowering to half-mast.
“Definitely.”
She shivered as her face slowly paled. “I’m cold.”
Nick grabbed a blanket off the foot of the next bed and draped it over her, then grabbed another. When he turned back, she appeared to have lost consciousness. Not uncommon after an immortal’s or a vampire’s bite, but it nevertheless sent a jolt of fear through him.
He piled the second blanket atop the other.
Aidan suddenly shifted his hold on her arm. Freeing one hand, he rested it atop her chest.
Kayla stiffened, then relaxed.
Nick froze, absolute terror assaulting him. “What is it?”
Her heart stopped, Aidan said in his head.
Instinctively, Nick reached for her hand.
Don’t touch her, the Celt ordered gently. I’ll keep it pumping for her until it can resume beating on its own. But that will be harder for me to do if you’re connected to her.
Not touching her was torture. Nick needed the contact to convince himself he wouldn’t lose her.
You won’t lose her. I’m already infusing her with my blood. The first thing the virus will do when it takes hold is repair her heart. Remember, this virus is like no other on the planet. It behaves like a symbiotic organism. It can’t live if she doesn’t live. So it will strengthen her damaged heart before it does anything else.
Nick knew the words to be true but found little comfort in them.
A small hand slipped into his.
He glanced down.
Eliana stood beside him. Curling her free hand around his arm, she leaned into his side.
“What are you still doing here?” he asked softly. “I thought you’d left.”
“Seth needed to meet with me and several others he’s relocating and wanted the privacy of Reordon’s boardroom.”
As the head of the East Coast division of the network, Chris Reordon had a huge office here in North Carolina that included an adjoining boardroom so heavily soundproofed that even Seth couldn’t hear what was spoken inside it once the doors were closed.
She smiled. “I suspect he chose the meeting time so I would be nearby if you needed me.”
He squeezed her hand as he returned his gaze to Kayla. “Thank you for being here.”
A moment passed.
“She’ll pull through, Nick.” Eliana’s voice held no doubt, only reassurance. “I know she will. She’s strong… and too stubborn not to. She loves your handsome ass.”
Despite the fear that still battered him, he found a smile. “No more than I love her.”
It nevertheless took an inordinate amount of time for color to return to Kayla’s lovely features.
Aidan removed his hand from her chest. A moment later, he lowered her arm.
Nick clasped Kayla’s hand, so relieved to find it warm again that he blinked back tears.
An hour later, Aidan again sank his fangs into Kayla’s arm and began to drain her. And once more, he had to rest a hand on her chest and keep her heart pumping when it began to falter.
Eliana remained at Nick’s side, holding his hand whenever he couldn’t hold Kayla’s to keep him from totally losing it. “Did you know Kayla tried to free Oliver when they were at Brightwood Industries?” she asked, no doubt trying to distract him from the panic that kept beating the crap out of him.
“She did?” Kayla hadn’t mentioned it. And he’d spoken little with Oliver in the brief time since.
She nodded. “The woman was zip-tied to a chair, a tranquilizer and two poisons coursing through her body. Yet she still managed to hobble over to Oliver and tried to unfasten the rope that bound him.”
“Damn,” Dana said, her voice full of admiration as she smiled down at Kayla. “She kicks ass.”
Eliana grinned. “And she’ll kick even more once she’s immortal.”
Aidan removed his hand from Kayla’s chest.
Color returned to her face, a little faster this time.
Withdrawing his fangs from her arm, Aidan lowered it to the bed. “And she will be immortal, Nick. Give her a few days and she’ll be strong enough to toss you through the roof. Or through a wall.”
Dana winced. “Yeah. Just FYI… until she gets used to her new strength, she might literally do that.” Sending her husband a look of chagrin, she whispered, “Sorry.”
Aidan’s brown eyes sparkled with amusement as he curled an arm around her.
Dana sent Nick a wry smile. “Going from having the strength of an average human to having the strength of a three-thousand-year-old immortal warrior requires some serious adjusting. You might want to either stay at David’s home for a while or find a place in the country until she grows accustomed to the changes in her body.”
Eliana nodded. “The houses in your neighborhood are pretty close together. If she accidentally tosses you through the roof—”
Dana held up a finger. “Or miscalculates how quickly she can stop while running at preternatural speeds and ends up plowing through an exterior wall…”
Eliana laughed. “Then someone is bound to notice.”
Their warnings of what to expect in the future went a long way toward easing his fears in the present. Nick clasped Kayla’s hand, relieved by the contact. “I’ll take that into consideration.”
He actually looked forward to Kayla tossing him through the roof.
Chapter Sixteen
Kayla raced through the forest. Cool wind blasted her. Trees whipped past in dark, towering blurs. Footsteps pounded behind her.
When fingertips brushed the back of her shirt, she put on a burst of extra speed.
Masculine laughter followed her as the footsteps faded.
She grinned.
Aidan had transformed her two weeks ago. Now she could run faster than she could legally drive on a freeway. So fast, in fact, that Nick couldn’t catch her.
Unless she wanted him to.
She slowed her pace slightly.
Boots pounded the ground behind her. Fingers again brushed her shoulder blade.
When she glanced over her shoulder, arms banded around her and lifted her against a muscled chest.
Their forward momentum slowed, then halted.
Nick lowered her until her feet touched the ground.