“Wait.” Jordan held up a hand, his tawny eyes serious. “If you exchanged bodily fluids, maybe you could give her blood?” Immortal blood could heal the wounds of other immortals and their mates, and sometimes of enhanced humans.
“She’s not enhanced,” Garrett said hollowly, his ears ringing.
Sam shook his head. “Your blood will kill her, G. No human can take it. Better her arm gone than all of her.”
Did he have a choice? “Maybe just a little will get her to the hospital.” Without waiting for an argument, Garrett’s fangs dropped, and he bit into his wrist. Blood welled. Holding his breath, careful not to jostle the unconscious woman on the ground, he leaned over and let three drops fall into her slightly opened mouth.
Color instantly washed through her face.
“Whoa,” Jordan said.
A cut above Dessie’s right eyebrow slowly knit itself together.
“What the hell?” Sam hissed.
“I don’t know.” Garrett settled his wrist against Dessie’s mouth and let more blood slide inside. There was no way a human female could take that amount of blood without seizing and dying, but she was healing quickly instead. “She’s not an enhanced female or an immortal.” Even now, not one ounce of power emanated from her.
She gave a soft moan, still out cold, and sucked more blood from his body. She jerked several times.
Dr. Nance elbowed him aside and gently reached for the protruding bone, shoving and setting it. “It’s close but not there yet. Give it a second and I think it’ll find the right alignment without my pushing it harder into place.”
Dessie drank more blood, and her legs kicked out.
The bone began to mend in front of their eyes, forming a solid white form. The bleeding stopped. The flesh and then the skin began to stitch together with invisible thread.
Sam growled. “G? I have a feeling your pet here isn’t being truthful with you.”
Garrett’s growl rumbled low. He’d been thinking the same thing, but he wasn’t discussing it around the lions. “Shut up, Sam.”
“Sure thing,” Sam muttered.
Katie returned, wearing a cotton shift with a towel wrapped around Lark as he snuggled into her neck. She tossed a pair of worn jeans at Jordan. “I’m confused.” She stared down as Dessie healed as well as any immortal would have after such an injury. Maybe even better.
“Me, too,” Garrett said, feeling for the pulse in Dessie’s wrist. Strong and steady now. “I need to get her to the Realm doctors.” None of this made a lick of sense. He dug deeper for his strength and intuition, all but shoving them into her body. Nothing. Not one vibration or one hint of her being anything other than a normal human female. What the hell was happening, and who was she? Did she even know? “Destiny?”
She slowly blinked her eyelids open, and her pupils immediately dilated. But instead of panicking and trying to sit up, she just looked at him. “My arm.”
“It’s healing.” He stared down at the now smooth skin.
She frowned and turned her head to look at her arm, which only had a red scrape now. “I don’t understand.”
He helped her to sit and brushed leaves out of her hair. It was time to get some answers from the little minx. “Have you always healed quickly?”
Her mouth parted, and her brow furrowed. “No. Not at all. If I even get a little scrape, I need antibiotic ointment to prevent infection.” Her voice was slurred as she regained consciousness. Then her gaze landed on Jordan, who had thankfully yanked on his jeans, although he’d left them unbuttoned. “You turned into a mountain lion.” Now she just sounded dazed.
The cut muscles in Jordan’s torso bunched. “I don’t suppose I could convince you that you hit your head and imagined everything.” The lion’s tawny hair hung in wet ropes to his shoulders, and threat was evident in every line of his body.
“Sure,” Dessie murmured, her gaze moving to Katie. “No problem. Concussions definitely cause hallucinations.” Her voice rose slightly at the last.
Katie smacked her mate in the arm. “Knock it off, Jordan. There’s no need to terrify her. She just saved your son from drowning.”
Dessie shoved wet hair out of her eyes. “I should probably learn to swim before we do that again.”
Garrett’s throat closed. “You can’t swim?”
She shrugged. “Never had the chance to learn.”
He ducked down and lifted her into his arms, standing tall. She was wet and shivering against him. Brave little human. Either she was telling the truth and she’d risked her life to jump into a rushing river to save a child, or she was lying to him and had an ulterior motive for everything. Either way, she was courageous, and he could admire that, even if she was working against him. A fact she’d regret.
