Chapter Fourteen

T hank fuck he was at work. At least he could keep busy and not think about a certain vampire who annoyed him more than anyone else ever had. He’d really thought Gray had changed. The night before had been good until the restaurant. It had all gone downhill from there and Henry had seen how much his mate detested humans.

The way he watched them, monitored their movements, glared at them and the poor waiter. Sighing heavily, Henry checked the stock on a shelf, then moved farther down the aisle to check another item. He heard a grunt, but didn’t think much of it. He’d seen and heard plenty of things, so he’d learned to ignore certain sounds.

Crouching, he froze when the cold muzzle of a gun touched his temple. He swallowed hard and waited. He was at the mercy of whoever held the gun.

“Stand,” the deep voice ordered.

Henry slowly stood and faced the man. The man stepped back, the gun held steady in his hand. Henry couldn’t see his face due to the hoodie and scarf covering it, but it didn’t matter. He wanted to live, so he was doing what the man asked.

“Empty the tills.”

Henry walked down the aisle and shook his head when Jasmine, a staff member, gasped. The last thing he wanted was for her to be injured. He needed to keep the man’s attention on him. “I’ll empty both tills.”

He staggered forward from the blow to his head, the pain causing him to bend over. The push in the back kept him moving, and he ignored the warm trickle down his neck. He reached the till, and as soon as he opened it, he was pushed aside.

They’d been robbed before. This wasn’t new, so Henry took several calming breaths and waited for the man to empty both of them. He kept his eyes on his staff and the few customers who had wisely disappeared and waited. He knew as soon as the tills were empty, the man would leave.

It only took a minute or so for the man to have everything he wanted, then he turned and ran out. Henry sagged in relief, then picked up the phone to call the police. Not that they would do much, but at least the crime will have been logged for insurance purposes.

Putting the phone down, he began to usher the customers outside, apologizing as he did so. Some took it fine, but others shouted and screamed at him. Those he ignored as he continued to work. The staff were fine as most had dealt with these situations as well.

The number of times they had been robbed was well into double figures, but if it carried on, the shop would eventually close. No matter how much money a business made, if it continued to make losses through theft, then the owners would close up shop.

This was a business, at the end of the day, and it wasn’t the people who continued to rob it who felt the consequences. It was those who were employed there and the local community who shopped there. Employees lost their jobs, and the community lost a place to go when they needed food. Henry liked working there, but having a gun shoved in his face was getting old, and he was close to quitting.

Just as he was about to shut the front doors, the same man who had robbed them came back in and shoved Henry to the floor. He waved his gun around, then ran behind the counter to grab cigarettes and some of the alcohol they kept there.

Henry stayed where he was and waited for the man to leave again. He’d had people do this as well. Leave then come back. The man ran back out from behind the counter, stared Henry in the eyes, raised his gun, then shot him.

Henry heard the sound and felt a punch to his chest, throwing him backwards. He hit the floor and grunted. A second later, a burning, intense pain flooded his chest. It felt like he’d been hit by a burning sledge hammer. He lay on the floor, trying to breathe, but his lungs didn’t want to work.

“Ambulance is on its way.”

Henry tried to swallow to answer, but he couldn’t speak. He cried out when Jasmine applied pressure to the wound, then gritted his teeth.

Henry

Fuck off

You’re in pain

No shit Sherlock

Why?

Why do you care? Why the fuck was he arguing with Gray now? Now wasn’t the time. And of all the times to reach out to him it had to be now when he was writhing in pain. We were robbed and I’ve been shot. Ambulance is on its way now.

Fuck! I’ll be there in a minute. Henry closed his eyes and sighed, then winced. Where do you work?

Henry didn’t respond. He couldn’t. Everything dimmed around him like he was entering a dark tunnel. He could hear voices above him, but they sounded far away. A voice in his head shouted his name, and he whispered, “Gray.”

***

Gray shot forward in his chair, pain exploding in his chest. Grabbing his chest, Gray swallowed hard and waited for the pain to disperse. When it didn’t, he pulled his T-shirt away from his chest and looked down, but saw nothing.

The pain wasn’t his. That realization had him freezing. Shit. Not him. Henry.

Henry

Fuck off

You’re in pain

No shit Sherlock

Why?

Why do you care? Gray didn’t respond, hoping Henry would tell him without Gary having to ask again. We were robbed and I’ve been shot. Ambulance is on its way now.

Fuck! I’ll be there in a minute. He stood then stopped. Where do you work? He should know this, but he hadn’t bothered to do a thorough check on his mate because his mate was human, and now he might lose him.

“Gray, you okay?”

“No!” He ran his fingers through his hair, then glanced at Hugo standing next to Key. “Henry’s been shot.”

“When?” Hugo stood next to him. “Where is he?”

“At work?” Key asked.

“Yeah. Some fucker was robbing them, then shot Henry. Fuck!” Gray tugged on his hair and spun around, then turned back to his desk.

“Key. Find out which hospital he’s likely to go to.”

“Go to where he works. They will have to treat and stabilize him first.”

You don’t know where I work? Seriously?

Please Henry.

Henry told him and Gray appeared around the side of the building. There was no ambulance as he rushed to the front door. Pushing it, he realized it was shut. Seeing Henry on the floor, he concentrated and moved to an aisle near his mate.

Within seconds, he was next to Henry and looked him over. “I need to see your back.”

Henry grunted. “No.”

“I need to check if the bullet is still in there or not.” Gray didn’t wait, but carefully took Henry’s shoulder and rolled him over. Henry moaned as Gray checked the area, wincing when he felt the bones move under his fingers. “Clean through, but the bones are possibly broken.”

“I can feel them,” Henry paled, his lips blue and thin, stress and pain lining his face.

“When will the ambulance get here?”

“I don’t know.” A blonde-haired woman, her cheeks wet, shook her head. “I don’t know why he shot Henry. He did everything the man wanted, gave him everything.”

“It’s fine,” Henry mumbled.

Gray had to get his mate out of there and to a vampire medic. They were mated, and that will have had some effects on Henry. The connection they had would show up in blood work. Gray had bitten and fed from Henry, his saliva entering Henry’s bloodstream and altering him so he would live as long as Gray. Be stronger, faster, recover quicker. It would be noticed, especially by doctors, when Henry recovered from the gunshot far quicker than the average human.

Grabbing his phone, Gray stepped back and called the one person he should have spoken to when he’d mated Henry. “Alma. I need your help.” Alma was a female vampire and a sitting member of the council. It also helped that she was a good friend of Gray’s.

“What’s wrong?”

He liked that about her. She was straight to the point. “I mated a human and I will stand before the council, but I need help. He’s been shot and you know he can’t go to a human hospital. Not now he’s mated to me.”

“Gray,” Alma sighed. “Where is he? Is he at a hospital or en route?”

“He’s in a shop. They were robbed, and he was shot in the process. The bullet went through the shoulder, but the bone is a mess. He’ll need surgery.”

“I see. Can you bring him here? I’ll need to know his blood type so I can ensure we have some ready for him.”

“O positive and I’ll teleport him straight there. I need to get him out of here first. There’s a crowd.”

“I’ll send some people over to create a diversion. Make sure the cameras are off. Oh, and Gray? You’ll be spoken to as soon as he’s out of danger.”

Alma hung up and Gray quickly called Key. “I need you to mess the CCTV up here. Some vamps are coming to help me get Henry out.”

“On it.”

Gray shoved his phone in his pocket and as he approached Henry, he heard banging and shouting coming from the front of the shop. “Stop them!” he ordered. The humans all ran over to the front door just as the glass shattered. Gray ignored it, leaned over Henry, and picked him up in his arms.

Henry cried out, but the sound didn’t travel far. One second they were in the shop, and the next Gray stood in the emergency room at the vampire hospital. A bed quickly appeared and Gray lay Henry on it. He watched his mate as they wheeled him inside, and when he went to follow, a nurse shook her head.

“We need to take some of your blood in case your mate needs it.”

“Why?”

“If he’s lost too much blood, your blood will sustain him until we can replace his and it will help speed up his recovery. Councilwoman Alma called to inform us you would be arriving and what blood type we would need. We have some here for another human mate, so you’re lucky we didn’t have to borrow some.”

“Borrow?”

The nurse shrugged her shoulders, her long black hair flowing down her back. “We don’t normally carry human blood, but with a human mate living among us, we felt it wise to have some just in case, otherwise one of us would have to drop in at the local blood bank and borrow some.”

“Ah. You mean steal some?”

The nurse shrugged again, then pointed to a door. “I need to take some of your blood. Follow me.”

Gray went through the double doors and followed the nurse down a hallway and into a side room. He sat where she pointed and rolled up his sleeve, watching as she grabbed what she needed to take his blood. He glanced away when she approached with the needle and hid the wince when it pierced his skin. Gray had been in fights, had knives and guns shoved in his face, but a needle? Fucking hated them.

Once the nurse finished, Gray rolled his sleeve down and left the room. In the waiting room, he paced until a nurse sighed. “Sit down. You’re making the place look untidy.”

“Where is the wonderful bedside manner I hear about?”

“See a bed around here?” The nurse scanned the waiting room, arched an eyebrow and returned to the paperwork in front of her. “All you can do is wait. We’ll let you know how he is when we can.”

Gray sat and dropped his face into his hands. He could have lost his mate and the last words they spoke were ones said in anger. His mate could have died and Gray would never have been able to apologize, to treat Henry the way he should be, to tell him he’ll try harder.

He was an idiot.