With a snarl, he jabbed the injector pen into his right thigh. Mercifully, the lust flowing through his veins eased. Finally, he could tear his gaze away from Scotty and the sexy curve of her neck as she absently traced the site of his bite with one finger. Was she thinking about what they’d done? Had she dreamed of it the way he had, turning the feeding into lovemaking on the forest floor?
“Get up, lazy asses,” that dickhead, Jon, barked like a drill sergeant.
He must have stripped off his T-shirt at some point in the night, because he was now parading around in front of Scotty in nothing but his sleep shorts. When he crouched down in front of his bag to dig out some MREs, she stared at him so hard the guy had to feel her gaze like heated lasers on his skin.
“Sunset is in an hour.” Jon tossed the Meals Ready to Eat onto the old, rickety table. “We need to go over the map and our game plan.”
Mace really did not like that guy.
“Put on a fucking shirt,” Blade muttered as he shuffled his way tothe bathroom.
Jon snorted and ripped into the plastic MRE bag with his teeth.
“I’m a big girl,” Scotty called after Blade. “I’ve seen bare chests before. Also, don’t hog the bathroom.”
“Don’t worry, Scott,” Mace said. “We all know hogging the bathroom is your thing.” He swung his feet off the bunk. The moment his left foot hit the floor, a thousand kilotons of pain dropped on him like a bomb.
“Sonofa—!”
Scotty was there in an instant. “What is it?”
“My leg,” he hissed through gritted teeth.
Scotty peeled the blanket away. “Oh, my gods.”
He told himself not to look. But he often gave himself advice he didn’t heed.
He looked.
Instant. Regret. And not a small amount of nausea.
His lower leg was a blackened, pulsing mass of flesh, like a charred hot dog on the verge of bursting. Sinister crimson streaks ran like fractured glass from his toes to his knee, and as he watched, they spread upward into the healthy flesh as if driven by hunger.
“Blade!” Scotty shouted. “Blade, get out here. Hurry!”
Blade nearly ripped the blanket doorway off its nails as he tore out of the bathroom, his jeans still unbuttoned. He was there in three strides, the cabin trembling with every heavy step on the scarred wooden floor.
“Bro,” he breathed. “Shit. Why didn’t you say something?”
“I was sleeping,” Mace ground out as a fresh wave of pain shot through him. “Musta been out of it.”
“I checked on him during my watch a couple of hours ago,” Scotty said. “He looked fine.”
Mace vaguely remembered both Blade and Scotty taking turns checking on him, but he hadn’t been in pain. Not like this. This had happened fast.
Blade wrapped his hand around Mace’s ankle, his touch light, as if he was afraid too much pressure would pop Mace’s leg like a water balloon. Hisdermoirelit up, from the broken sword glyph beneath his right jaw, all the way to the swirls at the tips of his fingers. Then the hot sting of Blade’s power stabbed into Mace’s muscles. His head swam, and he no longer gave a shit about the symbols of their male ancestry.
“You can fix it, right?” Scotty gave Mace a comforting smile and apat on the hand, like, “Of course, Blade can fix it.” He could fix anything. He was always patching them up.
Mostly, he patched up Mace, though. Scotty usually healed too fast to need his help.
“Sorry, man.” Blade heaved a heavy breath. “This is out of my league. You need to get to Underworld General.”
“Hell, no.” Mace struggled to conceal a particularly agonizing slice of pain, but he couldn’t hide the way he spoke through clenched teeth. “Try harder.”
Blade’s eyes narrowed, shadows flickering in their dark depths. “I did. I’m telling you, this is more than I can handle.” He turned to Scotty. “You’ll need to cast a gate.”
Closing her eyes, Scotty let out a deep breath. She hated opening gates. Not that she’d ever admit it. She denied it every time, but she had tells. “No problem.”
