At the End of the Dragon, Eli, Bruiser, Grizz, and I walked to the box truck and the driver, Wrassler. As the bikes were loaded, he filled us in about Quint. “She’s alive,” he said.
Relief shot through me.Thank God.
“Hen’do put in a chest tube in the helo.”
I winced.
“Yeah,” Wrassler said. “Sucks. I understand she was, uh, not happy at the procedure, and vowed lifelong vengeance on Hen’do, including pulling off, uh, various body parts, an idea she apparently learned from Grizz.”
Grizz chuckled from behind me. It was a dark sound and my Beast liked it. Inside my soul, she chuffed.
“But having her lung expand kept her breathing,” Wrassler continued, “and Hen’do says his future safety and the loss of potential offspring was worth it.”
I looked out over the scenery, what I could see through the winter-bare trees at this spot. Someone would need to have a talk with Quint, and that someone would likely have to be me. She wasn’t one to renege on a vow and it was possible I’d have to issue a royal decree to keep Hernando safe.
“Quint was delivered to UT Med. in Knoxville. They have a level one trauma center, and we have people in the area.” Wrassler looked at me, extra meaning in the words and the look.
Rick LaFleur. Rick was in Knoxville, Rick was law enforcement. He’d help us any way he could. Rick would smooth waters and placate other powers that be. Or he’d take over the case. Could he do that?I didn’t ask.
“LaFleur and your friend Nell Occam of PsyLED Unit Eighteen met the helo at the trauma center. Quint was given full body scans. I understand she cussed the ER doc and staff like a sailor when they moved her.” His eyebrows waggled a little.
Eli said, “She can cuss.” It sounded admiring.
“Currently, she’s heading to surgery to have orthopedic work done. Screws and plates and rods and stuff to stabilize her bones. Maybe tomorrow or the next day she might need some spinal stuff done, but nothing so urgent it has to be done today. Oh. She got a couple bags of blood in ED.”
Human blood. Quint was not getting vampire blood. Vamp blood couldn’t be preserved. At all. It had to be fresh outof a vein. Quint was getting human donor blood, which was the best she would get until the vamps woke. Not that I was bitching about human donor blood. Human donors were angels. It would keep her alive until one of mine could get to her and start the true healing.
Wrassler said, “One of the guys woke Koun. He said he’ll do it as soon as the sun sets, and we’ll have a helo ready to transport him.”
Koun was my best warrior. He might not want to sleep with her—or he really might want to sleep with her but was putting it off. With vamps, who knew—but Koun would feed her with his blood and speed her healing. Once. Not more than that. The last thing I needed was Koun and my psycho lady-in-waiting having blood-sharing, noisy sex and ending up blood bound. Nope.
Soon, there would be plenty of vamps to feed Quint and the blood sharing wouldn’t be totally on Koun. Other fangheads were sleeping the day away in the cottages and more were on the way, sleeping in Leo’s . . . inmyLear jet. The Lear had been the decoy, so people would assume I was in it and wouldn’t know about the truck cavalcade. Hadn’t worked. Not at all.
The Lear had become mine when Leo died true dead. Except he hadn’t died true dead, though he’d left all his stuff and all his power in my totally incapable hands. Leo was now an outclan priest.Right. Like that would last. That transition to the holy life had caught me off guard. After reflection, no one, including me, thought he was fully done with his multilayered machinations or his pursuit of power.
As I stood back and watched, the last of our bikes and gear were lifted into our trucks. A couple shooters with long rifles kept watch. We were sitting ducks, but no one got shot. I took the win.
Bruiser and I strapped in the helo for the trip back home. The sunset from the air was magnificent over the mountains, the sky scarlet, the shadows in the hollows like the Shade of Death from blood scarlet to ash gray. Glorious view. Morbid thoughts.
I tried to think of ways to feel festive, but I had a dark, nagging sensation that something was going to go wrong and that people would die. Especially since I was getting married in a few hours, and clearly people knew I was at the winter HQ, knew all my plans, like our route here, and like this ride. They knew enough to lay surprise attacks.
So, with all that information at their fingertips, why had both attacks failed? Why had this ambush been so ill planned? So slipshod?
I hadn’t died, and surely that was the ultimate plan.
???
Bruiser looked . . .Holy crap.He lookedgoodin a white tie and tails. I know. I was peeking through the cracked open door when he left his dressing room. I sighed with what might have been romance or something girlie like that, and closed the door as he disappeared down the stairs from his dressing room, next to our suite at HQ.
“That man has a tush todiefor,” Deon said from behind me. “AndIam a tushconnoisseur.”
He was posed with one hand over his heart and the other over his butt. I grinned at him from the doorway and he blew me a kiss. With the butt hand, of course.
“Get over here Queenie and let me weapon you up. I’m better attartingwomen up, but I can do this. You do have your undies on, don’t you? That so sexy smoother? Not that you need the smoother, but it will make the dress and weapons lay justright.” He reached for the lapel of my dressing gown—another silk dressing gown, this one black—and jumped back, when I swatted at him.
Both hands over his heart he gasped, “Queenie!”
I scowled. “I can dress myself. Okay, doing up the dress is a problem, but I can weapon myself just fine.”
