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Oh. She was being cared for. Had she been in an accident? Was that why she hurt so badly? Why couldn’t she think, and why did her right forearm burn in exactly the same way as her left forearm?
With great difficulty, she turned her head in the other direction. More clear tubing, only it was red this time. A transfusion? She followed the line of the tube. It didn’t go up, however, but down, and the bag holding the blood sat on the floor, a stone floor, a dirty stone floor. What kind of hospital was this and why was she sitting on a bench so near the floor?
She leaned forward but she couldn’t get far. She was restrained around her waist.
She knew one thing. She needed to get the tube out of her right arm, the one carrying her blood away from her body. Someone had made a mistake. She tried to reach over but she couldn’t move her arm very far.
She turned once more and saw a black chain. She lifted her hand. The chain was connected to her right wrist by a heavy black bracelet decorated with butterflies. It was pretty in a way but more goth than she liked.
“I don’t intend to drain you, if that’s what you fear.”
The voice was male, sort of familiar, and sounded chipper.
Drain her? That made no sense. Why would someone in a hospital talk about draining her and of what? Her blood?
She looked at the man and worked hard to focus. His features started to take shape through the fog of her mind. She had seen him before.
A whisper of fear moved through her. She was looking at Crace, the death vampire who had attacked her in her town house. Why was he in her hospital room?
“Yeah, I had to give you a drug, otherwise you’d just fold out of here or worse, head into the darkening, and I can’t have that. But don’t worry. The bruises will heal. Don’t you remember? You struggled when I put the manacles on. Again, don’t worry. The manacles are high-tech. They have clip releases and hinges because every once in a while I’ll need you out of chains.” He laughed.
“It’s hot,” she whispered as more sweat dribbled into her eyes and burned all over again.
“You’re in my forge, Havily Morgan, and you’re going to be here for a long, long time. Welcome home.”
* * *
Marcus lay shaking. He drifted from complete blackout, to awakening in so much pain he would do a dry heave then black out again.
He woke up this time, his sight bleary, and turned his head to empty his empty stomach once more. He remained awake despite the sensation that all his skin had been peeled from his body.
Jesus H. Christ.
He ignored the pain. “Havily. Where’s Havily?” What had happened to his voice?
“Good. You can talk.”
He shifted his gaze, turning his head slowly until a mountain of black hair came into focus. She’d looked the same way at the COPASS hearing, like a wild child. “Endelle? Did you find her? Is she dead?”
“We haven’t found her yet.”
“Crace has her.” He struggled to sit up. “I have to get to her.”
“Easy, Marcus.” Endelle again. “We know. Let Horace and his team take care of you.”
“I ran away from her. He had her and I ran away. I abandoned her. She’ll never forgive me now.”
“No, Marcus.” He knew that voice, Kerrick’s voice. It came from behind him but very close. “I saw what happened. Crace had a bomb in his hand, lit, ready to go off. You ran away from the crowds, to direct the explosion toward you. You saved a lot of lives tonight.”
He tried to sit up. “I have to get to her. I have to find her.”
Kerrick, however, pinned him down with hands on his shoulders. “We’ve got to get you healed first.”
He shifted to try to look at him. Pain streaked through him, all over his skin, into his muscles. “Kerrick. Go after her. Find her. Please.”
“Marcus, ease down,” Kerrick’s voice sounded anguished. He put his hand on Marcus’s chest and held it flat, a weight that … settled him. His chest had been bouncing. Oh, shit, he couldn’t see because he was crying. Fuck.
Marcus shifted his head toward Endelle. “Can you find her with your voyeur’s eye? I know that’s one of your powers.”
“I’ve tried,” she said. “But I can’t get a fix on her. She must be in one of Greaves’s locked-down military facilities. Sorry, Warrior. When we’ve got you on your feet, I’ll go into the darkening, but without a location it will be a goddamn crap shoot.”
Kerrick leaned close. “We’ll find her,” he said straight into Marcus’s ear. “Somehow. We’ll find that bastard. We’ll slay him, brother, if it’s the last thing we do.”
Marcus turned once more and met Kerrick’s gaze. He’d missed the bastard. Goddammit, for two hundred years he’d missed Kerrick. Now Kerrick was making promises about finding Havily and avenging her kidnapping.
Oh, dear Creator, was Havily still alive? She had to be.
He nodded and his eyesight dimmed. He faded again. Dammit.
* * *
Endelle stared down at the mess that was Warrior Marcus. She had rare moments when she felt like this, not enraged because enraged was too small a word. Explosive. Yes, more like that. She wanted to stretch out her arms, draw in power from every corner of the universe, let it flow through her, then annihilate the entire planet.
If she understood what had happened, High Administrator Crace was now a death vampire of tremendous power and he’d made it his priority to gain control of Morgan, which he had. The few people in the vicinity who had seen the abduction and were still alive told the same story: A huge, muscled man, shirtless and dressed in a black kilt and battle sandals, had put his arm around Havily’s neck then disappeared with her.
That he’d been able to fold into and out of a locked-down site like this … Shit. She could do it. Greaves could, which meant there was another entity on Second with powers that could challenge hers … so, yeah, shit.
Though she rarely made use of her healing gifts, she employed them now. She put her hands over Marcus’s face. His eyes, now closed, were blood red. His cheek and neck were burned into deep tissue. She worked over his eyes first as Horace worked his legs, where the greatest damage was done. Horace had summoned healers from all over the globe to help with the disaster. Several worked beside him now just on Marcus, his skin knitting together by magic beneath so many sets of warm, glowing hands.
As for the attack, it would be weeks before she had a report from Seriffe on exactly how the bombs had been cached in the fireworks batteries, whether they’d arrived as part of the original orders or if some other kind of stealth had been employed. If Crace had been behind the incendiary bombs then probably stealth. So, again … shit.
