The vampire withdrew his hand from Andre’s chest and rich, red blood poured down Andre’s clothes. The creature seemed captivated by the flow of blood, unable to look away from it even as he reached, with a torn cry, for Andre’s closed fist.
Andre opened his hand and tossed the prize away from him. Teagan saw it was a heart, blackened and shriveled. It rolled away from the vampire and Andre.
Stay back. Well back.
It was her only warning and the tone of voice Andre used had her scurrying back several feet. The movement immediately garnered her the monster’s attention. He leapt past Andre and straight at her.
“I’ll kill her if you don’t give it back to me,” the vampire snarled.
Teagan stepped into him as he reached for her, sweeping with one foot to take his legs. As the monster went down, she slammed the rock against his temple and leapt back, running toward Andre, with a vague thought of protecting him.
Teagan.
Andre simply said her name softly. In that voice. The voice that could move mountains or just plain send shivers over her body. His tone sounded just a little exasperated this time, but she couldn’t imagine why when she’d just knocked the crazy monster to the ground. She heard a sound and glanced behind her.
Her heart went into double time, thudding now. The vampire was already on its feet. So much for rocks and martial arts.
Andre held out his hand to her. The good one. The one not covered in black acidy goo.
She hurried to his side. “We need a stake. Do you have a knife?” She tore off her shirt and ripped the hem while he ignored her, doing something else with his hands.
The vampire roared and ran toward the heart on the ground. The heart actually rolled toward the creature. The entire thing was just plain wrong. She kept tearing at her shirt, telling herself none of it was real.
A bolt of lightning slammed down, hitting the blackened heart, incinerating it completely. The spear of white-hot energy leapt from the heart to the vampire. He disappeared in the bright glow, completely disintegrating to become a fine ash.
Andre had shoved her body behind his to protect her, but he hadn’t moved a muscle. The lightning strike didn’t seem to affect either Andre or her. Andre did the craziest thing and actually stuck his arms and upper body in the white, glowing light. The moment he stood straight, she shoved the torn shirt into the hole on his chest.
“We’ve got to get you to a hospital. I can heal things, but this is really bad and you’re losing way too much blood.”
His hand slid up her back to the nape of her neck and then into her hair. His fist closed around the thick ponytail of braids. “Would you like to tell me what you were doing?”
His tone gave her pause. He spoke slowly. Distinctly. Enunciating each word as if he was biting them out between his teeth.
She looked up at his face streaked with blood because she had no choice. He tilted her head back, forcing her gaze upward. She had presence of mind to keep pressure on the wound in his chest. He looked terrible. He had four long, very deep grooves in his face, and his shoulder was a hideous mess. Part of his chest was streaked with deep furrows and then there was the hole the size of the vampire’s fist.
He should have been on the ground. She expected him to topple over any moment. Her legs were shaking and she was ready to fall to the ground in a girlie faint, but she had to take care of him. He didn’t seem to understand that he was wounded. In shock maybe. That had to be it.
Teagan made certain her voice was soft, yet very firm. “Andre. You’re injured. You need to sit down and let me take care of this as best I can. You’re losing way too much blood. It’s already dark and the wolves are going to smell this and come running.”
He ignored her as if she hadn’t spoken, his gaze moving broodingly over her face. His glacier blue eyes were hooded and in spite of everything, all the gore and shock and horror of what she’d seen, his amazing eyes were just plain sensual.
“Tell me what you were doing, Teagan,” Andre repeated. “Do not make me ask again.”
He reached for her hand, his fingers shackling her wrist, and he tugged it to him, even though she tried to resist. She needed both hands for pressure. He ignored the fact that she was saving his life when he used that scary tone, the one that said she’d better come up with an answer.
She opened her mouth to respond, but he was looking at the blisters on the back of her hand and arm from the acid in the fog. He dipped his head, and she felt the stroke of his tongue. Her breath stopped right in her lungs. Her throat closed. Her eyes burned and she blinked rapidly to stop the tears.
Teagan knew exactly what he was doing. He stood there, torn and wounded beyond anything she’d ever seen, and he was healing her minor little burn. “Andre.” She whispered his name.
His tongue was a caress. A velvet rasp that sent shivers through her entire body. Everywhere he touched, the pain vanished. She wished she had a healing agent in her saliva in order to heal him, but her gift didn’t work that way.
His gaze jumped to her face, and she took a breath. He was angry with her. Not just angry, but really angry. She had thought the vampire scary, but Andre’s anger turned the air around them into an electrical heat wave. Worse than the lightning bolt. He waited in silence, one hand in her hair, the other holding her healed wrist. She knew he wasn’t going to allow her to help him until she answered.
“Andre, this is all crazy to me. I mean, I came here to find something to heal my grandmother’s mental illness, and suddenly everything around me is making me think I’m mentally ill as well. I thought you were a figment of my imagination. A really, really gorgeous one. I should have known I couldn’t conjure up someone like you. I don’t have that much of an imagination . . .” She trailed off.