Her heart plummeted as she saw the vampire gulping at the bright red blood. It took everything she had to do as her lifemate had commanded. She had promised. She felt his agony and fear lived and breathed in her, every bit as terrible a monster as the master vampire, but she held on.
Andre had told her to look inside his mind. See his plan. Know that he had one and he would use it to make the world a safer place. She hid herself in the thickest branches possible, all the while staying in his mind. She kept silent even when she wanted to whisper to him that she was there, she was with him. He wasn’t alone in this fight and she would do anything at all to help him.
He had said by staying safe that would help the most and she had to trust that he was right. He had blocked all pain so he didn’t feel the damage the vampire inflicted on his body. He didn’t seem to notice the terrible rake marks down his chest as Popescu dug his talons into flesh and ripped at it, even gulping some of that in his eagerness to feed on rich Carpathian blood.
The sight sickened her. She had never seen anyone so torn and bleeding. Still, he didn’t stop. The resolve in his mind was absolute. He would destroy this vampire to keep it from ever again preying on humans or Carpathians. He wasn’t afraid. He had buried his emotions somewhere deep where even she couldn’t find them. He didn’t feel the raw agony, but she did.
Her stomach churned and for a moment she thought she might actually black out. She knew better. She didn’t dare. Andre would be distracted and he was in a fight for his life. More, he was relying on her. He would have tried to move away from Popescu’s attack had she not been there to take his back.
The pressure was enormous, but at the same time, she was elated, no—more—she was honored that he would trust her to save his life no matter how badly he was wounded. She swallowed down bile and forced herself not only to watch, but to assess the damage to his body, which lacerations were superficial, which were life threatening.
Coming up with a plan of action that continually changed as the battle raged on kept her mind occupied, and she could compartmentalize the pain. At first she wasn’t even aware that she was doing it. She was far too busy mapping out Andre’s body and following every single rip and tear. Monitoring his blood supply and helping him to slow the blood loss. She found she could even, because she was entrenched so deeply in his mind, repair some of the damage to his veins and arteries even from the distance.
She wanted to do as he had done and become pure healing energy, but she didn’t dare leave her body behind and unprotected, not until she knew the vampire was dead. The two combatants disappeared from her view. The broken branches from the tree they’d hit were blackened, the leaves withered and dried as if all the energy had been sucked out of it—or if it had been poisoned.
She caught a glimpse of the master vampire and Andre under two healthy trees, but one bent toward Andre, branches reaching like two hands toward the back of his head. Vines sprang from the limbs and wrapped around his neck. Her heart in her throat, she nearly jumped from the tree and spread her wings to get to him, but she forced herself to look into his mind. To stay still. To keep her promise. It was so difficult. She knew she was weeping inside the body of the owl. Her heart pounded and every cell in her body wanted—needed—to get to Andre, but she held herself in check.
His mind was utterly consumed with the battle. He had known Popescu had directed the battle path toward the two trees. He had even known what would happen and he hadn’t tried to escape. He still didn’t try. Instead, he withdrew his arm from the vampire’s chest.
She could see Andre’s fist was closed. His arm was mangled, bloody and the flesh was gone all the way to the bone where the vampire’s blood had eaten through skin and tissue. The vines whipped around him fast, covering him from his head down his shoulders and arms, pinning his arms to his side.
Teagan heard rolling thunder and lightning forked across the sky.
Sivamet. You know what to do.
Andre dropped the blackened organ at his feet, lowered his head, vines and all, and drove his shoulder into the vampire, driving him backward and off his feet, away from the heart.
Teagan didn’t have time to think. She saw the instructions in Andre’s mind and she took control of the lightning, dragging a whip from the sky and slamming it to earth. The first pass hit inches from the target, but she steadied her aim, ignoring the vampire tearing strips of flesh from her man, ignoring the nasty teeth ripping into his bones. The whip of lightning hit the small target dead center, incinerating the heart.
Popescu’s shock showed on his face. He was certain Andre was helpless to control the white-hot energy pouring from the sky. He turned his head slowly to look toward the trees where Teagan hid. She shivered at the mask of evil, the terrible hatred she saw there. The red, burning eyes went vacant and his body toppled to the ground. As it did, the vines around Andre loosened and then dropped away, no longer under the vampire’s control.
She waited until Andre stepped away from the body, until he went down on one knee and dropped his head, sagging. She slammed the whip over Popescu’s body and watched it incinerate. She held the energy there for Andre. He didn’t move toward it and, heart in her throat, she moved it closer to him. It took him too long to bathe his arms and chest in the heat to burn every drop of vampire blood from his body. As soon as he was done, he let himself sag to the ground.
Teagan allowed the energy whip to go back to nature and she flew as fast as possible, shifting as she touched the ground. Again, she forgot her clothes, but as she rushed toward Andre, she managed to add jeans and a T-shirt. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered but Andre and healing his wounds.