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“BABE, BABE, IT’S ME.Shhh. It’s all right. I have you.” Kilter’s voice broke through my cries and sank into my panicked mind.
I stopped struggling but my chest heaved in and out and my heart slammed against my rib cage. “Kilter?” He was here? But where was the—
“He’s gone, babe.” He smoothed back my hair and said gently, “He can’t hurt you. I got you.”
This was a side of Kilter that hid behind the rude and abrupt comments. Soft caresses trickled down my back, whispers of soothing murmurs as he held me in his protective embrace.
“You came back,” I whispered.
“Told you, just needed time to cool off.”
I gave a pained smile. “Ten minutes?”
“Don’t need much,” he replied. “Come on. We need to get you to Anstice. There’s blood all over your gown.” He swung me up into his arms and I curled into his shielding warmth. “I heard a gunshot.”
I nodded. I couldn’t see my leg from my gown, but I saw the blood, and there was a lot of it. “He shot me in the leg.”
“Fuck,” he grunted. He jogged down the alley to his car and placed me in the front seat. He leaned over me and pulled the seatbelt across before yanking up my gown. “Shift up, so I can see it,” he demanded.
I put my weight on my left hip and he examined the back of my lower thigh. “Need to stop the bleeding.” He undid his belt, yanked it off, looped it twice around my thigh above the wound then pulled tight and buckled it. I gasped, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “That should hold until we get there.”
He shut my door, ran around to the other side of the car, and leapt in. Then he drove like a maniac, and car horns blared as he weaved in and out, ignoring red lights and stop signs. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
God, why did I feel so cold and tired.
“Damn it.” Kilter’s hand came down hard on my shoulder and he shook me, causing the car to swerve. “Rayne!”
I tried to focus on him, but my vision blurred. “Kilter?” He looked worried. Why was he worried? Was I going to die? I didn’t want to die. Not now.
Not after fighting so hard to live.
And not before I saw Kilter’s eyes look at me again like I was his savior. Like I mattered.
“Rayne, open your eyes.”
I slipped into a black void of darkness.
“Rayne, open your eyes.” Fuck. I swerved into the curb, taking a corner too fast, and clipped another car that honked and pulled over. I didn’t.
“Anstice, incoming. Rayne’s been shot in the upper right thigh. She’s unconscious.”
“TOA?” Anstice replied.
“One minute.”
When I arrived, the gate was already open and I sped up the driveway. I jumped out of the car without shutting off the engine, ran around the other side, and threw open the door as Keir ran up.
“What happened?” he asked.
I undid her seatbelt then and scooped Rayne into my arms. “Vampire.” Her head flopped back onto my shoulder, her limbs hung limp, and the lower half of her dress was stained with blood. Fuck, she didn’t look good. No. Fuck, no. This was not happening.
“A vampire shot her? Since when do they carry guns?”
Yeah, exactly what I was thinking. “Where’s Anstice?”
“Guestroom,” Keir said as he ran ahead. “Timeline?”
