“You said you were okay.” One hand was suddenly wrapped around my wrist while the other was on my stomach, pressing.
“Hey!” I smacked at his hand, but he studiously ignored me. “I don’t think I’m bleeding.” When he still felt along my midsection, I caught his hand and squeezed hard. “I think it’s your blood.”
“I’m fine,” he gruffed out. “Are you sure you haven’t been hit?”
“Pretty sure I’d know if I’d been shot,” I said, squinting at him. He was wearing a dark thermal and pants, like he had the first time I’d seen him. I placed my hand on his right shoulder and felt nothing. I slid my hand down his chest, and he sucked in a sharp breath.
“What are you doing?” he asked, voice deeper, thicker.
My gaze lifted to his, and I thought I probably should pull my hand away, but I didn’t. I moved to the other pec, and it was me who sucked in air this time. Wet warmth hit my palm. “You’ve been shot.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” I exclaimed. He let go of my wrist, so I got both hands involved. “You’ve been shot in the shoulder, too!”
The Prince said nothing.
I didn’t know the biology of Ancients, but I figured, like the fae, they could survive mortal wounds. But a chest and shoulder wound? I stepped back, lowering my hands and wiping them over my jeans. Did the pant leg of his right thigh look darker? Shot three times? That… that was a lot.
My stomach pitched with concern I probably shouldn’t feel, but he had covered my body with his when shots rung out and he had paid for the crab cakes and crawfish.
“We need to get out of here,” I said, looking over my shoulder, to the entrance of the alley. “With that many gunshots, police will be on their way. Can you heal yourself?”
“Normally.” His voice was off. Not like it had been when I’d been feeling him up or Monday night, but there was something strained about it. “You should get out of here before the police arrive.”
Or more gun toting fae showed up since this was apparently an everyday occurrence to him. “What do you mean by normally?”
“Do you always ask this many questions?” he demanded.
“Yes. Is it annoying?”
“Yes,” he growled.
“Sorry, but you’re going to have to deal with it,” I shot back.
He’d moved back into the shadows, but I could practically feel his glare. “You know that the fae can heal from virtually any wound if they feed,” he said.
And rather quickly too. That’s what made fighting them so dangerous. You didn’t have a lot of time for what they’d consider flesh wounds.
“I know that, so you should….” Understanding dawned. “You… you need to feed?”
He let out a dry, racking laugh. “Something like that.”
“When was the last time you… you fed?” Those words sickened me, and a part of me didn’t want to know the answer.
“A while.”
I stared at him for what felt like a whole minute. “What exactly does ‘a while’ mean? A couple of days? A week?”
“Try longer than that.”
A frown pulled at my lips. “Longer than a couple of weeks?”
That didn’t make sense to me, especially with him being at a place like The Court where humans were happily on the menu.
He said nothing.
“A month? A couple of months?” I whispered. Knowing what I did about the fae, they had to feed on a regular basis to slow down the aging process and give them their preternatural abilities. The Prince might look like he was in his mid to late twenties, but he had to be hundreds of years old, if not older. The fae metabolism was much like ours. They might not need three square human meals a day, but from the Order’s research, they had to feed at least once every other day.
“You need to go,” he said as the faint sound of sirens could be heard.
“And leave you here to bleed all over yourself, the alley, and perhaps even on police officers?”
“Do you really care what happens to me?”
My fingers twitched. “No.”
“Then go.” He started to back up.
I should go. I should leave his ass here to bleed out like a stuck pig. He was an Ancient, and even if he hadn’t fed in a few months….
Holy crap.
It struck me then. “You haven’t fed this whole time, have you? Not since the spell was broken.”
He tossed a glare at me over his shoulder through thin slits. “Aren’t you leaving?”
“What does that mean then if you haven’t fed in like two years? Can these wounds—”
“Kill me unless it’s treated or I feed? Probably not, but it’ll take a while to heal.” Grunting, he pushed against the hole in his shoulder. “I just need to get out of this alley.”
“You can’t go to the hospital.” Having a very human doctor discover that fae were a real thing was not exactly on the to-do list for tonight.
“No shit,” he grumbled.
I ignored that. “I can—I can get you back to Hotel Good—”
“No,” he interrupted, and I thought that he might’ve swayed a little. “You will not contact them.”
Confusion filled me. “What? Why?”
“Can you just accept an answer without following up with another damn question?” He let out another curse. “God, you’re infuriating.”
I lifted an eyebrow at that. “You know, if I am so infuriating, then you probably shouldn’t have stalked me into the alley.”
“I wasn’t stalking you,” he grumbled. “And if I hadn’t been then you’d have ended up dead.”
I threw up my hands. “First off, you just admitted to stalking me after saying you didn’t, and we’ll address that, but most importantly? I’m not the one bleeding all over myself, now am I?”
He didn’t respond to that, at least not vocally, but I had a feeling he was mentally cursing me out.
“I’m fine. I just… I just need to get to my place,” he said, and he sounded like those words pained him.
The sirens were getting closer, and I needed to make up my mind. He needed help, whether he wanted it or not.
Taking a deep breath, I walked over to where he stood and decided. “Like it or not, I’m going to help you.”
* * * *
There weren’t a lot of moments in my life where I had to stop and ask myself what in the fuck I was doing.
For the most part, I lived a practical, boring existence—well, outside of my plan to hunt down the fae who’d attacked my mother and me. Other than that, I was like a bowl of white rice without any soy sauce.
But here I was, waiting for the Prince—the Prince—to unlock the door to what appeared to be one of the many old warehouses that had been converted into upscale condos.
Luckily he hadn’t argued with me when I’d led him out of the alley, and I was leading him. By the time we reached Royal Street, in the opposite direction of the sirens, his steps had slowed to a near crawl. I was able to flag down a cab and thank God, as far as I knew, he didn’t bleed all over the backseat.