51

K oen was carrying the total weight of my body when we slumped back into the Manor. His shirt was soaked through with blood from the collar down the left side of his body, which he had tucked beneath me. The wound was clean, but it had bled worse than Koen was prepared to deal with.

Clay crashed down the stairs, buttoning his shirt wrong with clumsy fingers as a yawn spread over his face, and he shook off the sleep we had woken him from.

“What the hell?” He shouted and jumped into action, taking Koen’s place beneath me and helping me toward the kitchen. Koen stood, staring straight ahead with a glassy look in his usually bright green eyes.

The hunt had been brutal. Two of the vampires had been children .

I had been unable to put them down, or I would have.

He might have considered it a punishment, but I didn’t mean it to be.

Koen had had to step up.

On the way home, as he swerved through random traffic, trying to keep his composure, he said something to me. I was half awake, dealing with the explosive pain that radiated from my thigh, but when he started to talk, I did my best to listen.

“You know,” he growled, anger building beneath his panic as a defense mechanism. “Just because you can’t find your way back from the edge, Wes, doesn’t mean the rest of us are lost out there in the darkness. Some of us like the sun.”

I stared at him for a long moment, digesting those words and trying to understand what they meant. The stubborn part of me wanted to remind him that I had been keeping his ass alive for years and that in almost every life-threatening scenario, I had always come out right. But I kept my mouth shut and closed my eyes as the pain took over. I was deserving of that agony.

“Don’t leave him there,” I barked at Clay.

“Aye.” Clay stopped in his tracks. “Ko!” His voice dropped an octave as he called out to a dissociating Koen. “Come on, pup.” He whistled.

Koen’s head turned slowly, briefly stopping to look down at his blood-covered skin before he stumbled after us into the kitchen.

“Two deep breaths,” he ordered Koen. “You got him home. What’s next?”

Koen stared at Clay, going to rub the confusion out of his eyes but stopped short, seeing his blood-stained fingers.

“Uh… The medical kit.” He stumbled over the words, slowly coming back to reality.

“The kit.” Clay pushed on Koen when he staggered up next to the island as Clay hauled me onto it. “In the study!”

Koen backed away, tripping over his feet and hauling ass toward the opposite end of the house.

“What the hell happened?” Clay stripped the shirt from my torso, the shredded fabric coming away in ribbons. My body screamed in pain as the threads pulled from the wounds. Flesh and fiber were fused together in sticky blood and drying gore.

“Nothing,” I groaned, lifting my hips for him the best I could as he shucked my jeans from my legs.

He glared up at me, inspecting the wound on my thigh and hissing at the bubbling blood that pushed from the open wound. “This isn’t nothing .”

“No,” I laughed, a blood loss delirium taking over me; I felt almost drunk. “That is from a machete!”

“What happened?” Its voice appeared from the other side of the kitchen, and I angled my head up to look at it with its pretty auburn hair and big emerald eyes.

“Get that thing away from me,” I growled and squirmed under Clay’s touch as I tried to get off the counter.

“Lay down, you twat,” he spat at me and shoved me back against the butcher’s block.

“Why are there a bunch of candles in the study?” Koen asked in a string of fumbled words as he burst back into the kitchen. “Oh.” He stopped when he saw it standing there, eyes wide at the amount of blood on him.

I couldn’t help the pained growl that exploded from me as it stepped toward him. I couldn’t protect him in my weakened state. Which is exactly what it wanted. If it wanted to take them; it had just found its perfect opportunity.

“It’s not mine,” he said quietly, backing away from her with his blood soaked hands out in front of him. “I’m–” he stuttered before disappearing just as quickly as he had appeared.

“Koen!” Clay hollered but was never answered. For the second time his tone shifted, “I’m going to need your help.”

I tilted my head up from the counter to look at him, thinking he was talking to me, but his eyes were on it .

“Hell no,” I protested, but Clay was already rolling the bloody sleeves back from his wrists and digging in his bag.

“If she doesn’t help, you’ll bleed out in the next thirty minutes.”

“Better off than dead than touched by that,” I snapped and tried to move again, but Clay grabbed me roughly by the hair on the back of my head and stared at me.

“If you die,” it spoke, “then you’ll never get the satisfaction of finding out if you were right about me.” It circled the table and looked at Clay.

“If I die in this fucking Manor…” I growled in pain as Clay pinched my skin on my side.

“Sorry,” he chuffed, quite proud of himself, but continued to prod me.

It moved quickly and opened a cabinet in the far corner of the kitchen. The sounds of bottles being moved about and set down heavily on the counter pierced through the pulse in my head. When it returned it held two large green bottles, capped with a cork.

“These are clear spirits, they will help clean the wound,” it said, its voice steadier than I would have expected from it, considering the amount of blood. It raised a delicate eyebrow as it uncorked a bottle. “Perhaps you should have a sip first, it’s not going to be pleasant.”

Clay didn’t seem to have the same worry as he splashed the alcohol into the depths of the slash on my thigh. I almost shot off the counter hissing at the pain, but it held me down with a hand on my chest and handed me the bottle. Emerald eyes met mine. “Drink.”

I took the bottle and swigged back the contents. I sputtered, spraying both myself and the two of them with what tasted like hundred proof lighter fluid. My head swam from the blood loss and the drink.

“How steady is your hand?” Clay asked, completely ignoring my continued groaning protests.

I’ve seen that look on his face before. It had been fleeting in the past, nothing to be concerned about, but whatever had happened while we were gone was a catalyst. Clay was under its spell. Something had happened between them. I surged forward and grabbed him by the collar, bloody fingerprints staining the fabric red.

“It got you,” I blinked through the nauseating pain that cascaded through my entire body and waited for him to answer me.

“You can yell about it later after I save your god-forsaken life.” He shoved me back down onto the counter and off him, and it splashed more of the stinging liquid into the wound, rubbing the blood from my skin enough to find where the wound began and ended. “Hold that there,” he mumbled as my vision grew hazy around the edges.

“Where did Koen go?” I grumbled, but neither of them answered me. “What are you doing?” I kicked my leg out as a stab of pain vibrated through my muscles.

“You are worse than a child. Sit still,” Clay demanded, his tone no longer soft or playful.

“Have him put this in his mouth,” it said, holding out a wooden spoon to Clay, its hands were steady and it did not look away from the laceration that was oozing, it looked like it was calculating.

“Polite monsters are the worst,” I choked and opened my mouth.

“As opposed to?” It rolled its pretty eyes at me and looked to Clay.

“Usually, I would have Koen for help, but considering his swift exit, I’d say he’s done for the night. I’ll hold him down…” Clay’s words trailed off into a garbled silence as he came around to my side and held me down against the island top. “Go slow.” He nodded.

I opened my mouth to object but pain ripped through my muscle as it started the first stitch, and I bit down hard on the wooden spoon. My entire body felt heavy and I knew it wouldn’t be long before I went into shock, but I couldn’t afford to fall asleep with its hands buried in my flesh.

“Hurry up,” I growled, the spoon nearly falling from my lips.

“Be quiet,” it snapped back and threaded the hooked needle through my tender skin. Clay looked like he might be sick as he watched it work through the first wound. “He’s lost a considerable amount of blood, Clay.”

“He’ll be okay. He’s too stubborn to die.” His eyes met mine, full of concern. “Do the next one, don’t stop.”

Nausea swept over my body when my eyes finally opened. Every muscle heavy from exhaustion, it felt like I hadn’t even fallen asleep.

At least I was alive.

I hadn’t bled out on the table in the kitchen.

A noise from my left alerted me that I wasn’t alone and I turned my head to find that monster slinking around the room, folding things on the dresser.

Its curves were highlighted in a corseted blouse and long brown skirt. Auburn hair was tucked into a bun, which exposed the long sweep of her neck– Its neck.

“Get out,” I snapped, slipping slightly as I attempted to sit up in bed but my arm was too sore to move. I wrapped it tightly against my bare stomach to steady the dull throb that radiated through my muscles. The blankets fell around my hips and I huffed out a strangled breath as another wave of pain rolled through my bones. The brain fog slowly started to clear only to be replaced by nauseating fear.

“Where are they?”

Clay and Koen . When it finally turned to me its eyes were dark and tired with what appeared to be worry, an emotion I wasn’t even sure it could feel. “They went into town to get supplies.”

“How long ago?” I asked.

“They should be back soon. Do you need anything?”

“Not from you.”

“Are you sore?” It asked, ignoring me.

“Of course I’m sore,” I grumbled.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

It disappeared and returned ten minutes later with a tray of warm tea and a bowl of something that smelled akin to chicken noodle soup. It set it down on the side table and pulled a chair up next to the bed.

“What are you doing?” I snapped at it.

“Currently? I’m acting as your bedside nurse, Mr. Cameron.” It sighed. I hated the way my name sounded off its lips.

“You’re a monster pretending to be a nurse.”

“And you’re a child pretending to be a man.” Its dark green eyes were slits that met mine. “You remind me of the surly ravens that used to sit on the rooftops in the city and crow about their lives at the top of their lungs for everyone to hear. They would swoop down and peck and shred apart any creature smaller than they were and examine their insides–only then deciding after whether or not it was something worth devouring.” Its hands grasped the tea cup and held it out to my lips. “I am not a carcass for you to shred. You can peck and pull at my skin all you want. I am still just a woman, Mr. Cameron.”

I opened my mouth and let it press the cup to my lips, sipping the warm tea. I wanted so badly to refuse the help, to swat it away but, once the liquid hit my lips, I could not help but drink it greedily. It was perfectly made and settled against my sore chest like a balm to my exhausted soul. “If you poisoned it… At least it was a good cup of tea,” I huffed begrudgingly, annoyed at the admission.

She smiled at me.

Shite .

“Don’t do that,” I snapped at it, shaking away the feeling of its gaze on me and narrowly escaping the warmth of its smile. “Do you know if Koen is okay?” I didn’t want to make small talk but I needed to know if my brother was alright. That hunt had been…rough.

She –It stared at me for a long moment, no doubt waiting to see if I’d crack again. I couldn’t help but admire the way her long lashes fluttered as she took me in.

“He’s been quiet for a few days, but seemed to be in a better mood this morning.”

“Days?” I groaned as it lifted the bowl of soup to my lips. It was hotter than the tea and scalded my tongue, but it was salty and instantly calmed the nerves in my stomach. It didn’t have a foul after taste of mold and it made me uneasy as I leaned in for more and waited for her answer.

“You’ve been out for a week.”

“What?” I choked on the soup and it held its hand beneath my chin to catch it running down my face. I pushed it away and rolled on the bed, hissing in pain as the stitches on my leg tugged tightly. “Mother of Christ,” I growled and flipped the sheet back to look at the hack job, but there wasn’t one.

The stitches were perfect, each a tiny, straight line all the same size, and the bruise around them had already started to fade and heal. “You did that?” I asked.

“I’m a very good nurse,” it said, looking at the space I had created and clicking its teeth together.

“You make a terrible monster, though.” It wasn’t meant to be a joke, but when laughter filled the room, I couldn’t help but smile at her. The laughter was honey, butterflies, and afternoon sunlight. It was human .