“I expect you got the bastards?” she directed her comment to Karson.
“Of course.”
She seemed pleased by the news. She stepped forward and studied my face, frowning. “Who were they and why were they after you?”
There was an awkward silence for a moment. Matt was looking into them, he probably had names by now—hopefully; not one of them carried any form of ID in their wallets. The rest of the information we hoped to find on their phones. I shook my head, I didn’t know.
She threw a sharp look at Karson. “You can mind-read.” She didn’t wait for him to respond but barked, “You fucking slaughtered them before you found out, didn’t you? You stupid, idiot.”
I grimaced.
Karson merely stared at her as if he was unconcerned, yet I saw a shadow flicker over his eyes, like the flutter of a dark wing, maybe guilt, maybe anger—probably both.
“They had guns.” I felt compelled to defend him. “They were shooting at me.”
She snorted and didn’t take her eyes off Karson. “You expect me to believe you couldn’t leave one alive for long enough to find out who the hell they were?”
Karson hadn’t moved or attempted to defend himself, but the tension simmered around the room.
“What’s done is done,” Michael said, always the rational voice. “There’s no point dwelling on it.”
Dahlia turned so fast to face Michael her ponytail swished like a whip. “There’s a fairly good point, given we now have no fucking clue who is after her.” She placed a powerful hand on her hip.
Karson rose casually and seemed to fill up the room. “We will take care of it, Dahlia. As we took care of Amelia last night.” The shot rolled off his tongue casually. “Perhaps you could help her with her injuries though, sweetheart.”
She glared at him. “Don’t call me sweetheart, asshole.”
Karson smirked.
She turned her attention back to me. She pressed her thumb into the bruised side of my face.
I winced and jerked back.
“It’s not broken but I’m going to need something to help heal that. We’ll need BJ’s mum to whip up some stuff for the bruising and swelling.”
Maybe Karson had brought the blood to satiate them all, so if my lip bled again, they wouldn’t be tempted. Still . . .
“Can you heal the split in my lip at least?”
“Of course you need that done.” Dahlia aimed that arrow at Monique. “Wouldn’t want to bleed with the sharks around.”
Monique tilted her cup forward, Blood, rich and bright, sparkled against the stark white. “You have no need for concern Dahlia, I’m not hungry, this particular witch’s blood was just so satisfying.” She smirked.
Dahlia breathed out a long sigh and moved her gaze back to me.
I lowered myself to the edge of the couch. She waved her hand over my face, and chanted softly, over and over. My skintingled like someone was waving a feather over it. The throbbing sensation dulled, like a dwindling clock, and then slowly dissipated. She stopped chanting. I reached up to touch my face, it still felt hot under my touch and a little swollen, but the pain was gone, and the split had closed.
“Can you please do my ribs, too?” I asked quietly.
“What’s wrong with your ribs?” She yanked at my t-shirt to look. Her eyes widened and then she frowned. “Christ, Amy. They look broken. That must be killing you.”
“A little,” I mumbled, blushing, embarrassed at my weakness. I’d always had an exceptional pain threshold. I broke my arm when I was fourteen. I kept saying it was a bit sore, when mum took me to the doctor two weeks later, x-rays revealed a clean break. Doctors where amazed, I should have been screaming, apparently. But there was nothing like super-healing, super-tough vampires to make my mortal, fragile body feel utterly pathetic.
“Why didn’t you tell me last night, Amelia.” Karson said, furiously. I didn’t answer him. I could hardly say ‘because I feel inferior to your supreme, elitist, immortal healing skills’, Monique would revel in that. I shifted my gaze out the window, watching as two little birds charged up and down in a game of pursuit.
“That’s beyond my level of expertise,” Dahlia said, “we need Caron.”
She was about the last person I wanted to see, let alone ask for help from. “No, do what you can, it’ll be fine.”
