They started to walk away and the JUSTIS officer cleared her throat. “Just one more thing, if you will.” When they paused, she gestured to the street several yards from the casino entrance. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the body that landed on the pavement a few minutes ago, would you? Hard to tell for sure, but we think it’s Moda’s owner, Leo Slater.”
Asher glanced at Naomi before meeting the officer’s narrowed stare. “After the amount of money he lost tonight, odds are good Slater probably jumped.”
The female snorted. “Suicide, then?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Asher replied.
The cop nodded. “All right, then. JUSTIS will be taking a look into this whole thing . . . but maybe not that closely,” she added, low under her breath.
And as she waved them off, Naomi glimpsed a peculiar mark on the officer’s wrist. The same teardrop-and-crescent-moon symbol she had under her chin.
“You all take care now,” the officer called from behind them.
CHAPTER 26
Naomi stuck like glue to his side the whole drive back to the ranch. Asher knew his wounds were as severe as they were numerous, but they would have been much worse if he didn’t have some of her Breedmate blood inside him.
As bad as his condition was, that thought kept him grounded as he pushed Ned’s old truck to its limit in order to get Naomi and Penny home and safe as quickly as he could. His own needs could wait. After the night they’d just had—and having come too damned close to losing either one of them—he wasn’t taking any chances.
“Is he gonna be okay?” Penny whispered to Naomi as they arrived at the house. “Can vampires die?”
“Asher’s not going to die.” Naomi cupped the girl’s worried face, but turned a solemn look on him in the low lights of the dashboard. “Not as long as I have something to say about it.”
They headed toward the house, Naomi tucking herself under his arm. He didn’t mistake the concern in her careful steps, nor in the steady pound of her heartbeat. Her love for him buoyed him, as much as her petite body wedged tightly against him propped him up as he hobbled onto the porch.
“You have a dog?” Penny’s eyes lit up the instant she spied Sam waiting to greet them. She had a decent-sized knot on the back of her head from Slater’s assault in the elevator, but all of the day’s traumas seemed fleeting for the girl in the face of the old hound’s eager reception. She raced to the screen door ahead of Asher and Naomi. “Look at him, he’s so cute!”
Even Asher had to admit, if begrudgingly, that the dog was a welcome sight after the hellish past few hours. They stepped inside, Asher leaning heavily on Naomi. His blood dripped in multiple puddles on the floor, making Sam whine and tilt his big head at him in wary curiosity.
Naomi gently cupped the girl’s head with her free hand. “Penny, will you do me a favor? Take Sam into the kitchen over there and see if he needs some food or water while I help Asher clean up.”
“Sure. C’mon, Sam!” She headed off, led by the enthusiastic dog who had never met a stranger.
Asher grunted. “She’s resilient.”
“Most kids are,” Naomi said. “That’s the only way they can survive a lot of the time. Right now, I’m most concerned about you.”
She marshalled him into the bathroom and sat him down on the closed toilet. “Sit still,” she commanded him, turning to search the cabinet for a clean washcloth and towels and a pair of scissors, which she used to cut away his blood-soaked, grime-stained T-shirt.
He let her work, telling himself it was simply for the pleasure of watching her tend him, but the truth was he’d taken a lot of hits. The gunshot wounds hadn’t killed him, but they sure as hell would have slowed him down or dropped him if it hadn’t been for her blood, feeding his body the way no amount of human blood ever could.
“You saved me, Naomi.”
She slanted him a glance and shook her head. “Not yet, I haven’t.”
“Yes, you have. When I stopped on that desert road a few nights ago, I thought I was saving you. But I was wrong. It was you who saved me.”
He couldn’t resist reaching out to stroke her black hair, hooking some of the ebony strands behind her ear so he could see her face and watch those tender, almond eyes gaze at him in such focused attention.
And love.
It humbled him to see that emotion directed at him, to feel it pulsing and alive within his bond to her.
“You need blood, Asher.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “But more than that, I just need you.”
He curved his fingers around her nape and drew her close for his kiss. He could have gone on for hours without letting her go, but the worst of his wounds were still bleeding and the arousal making his heart pound even harder wasn’t helping.
