Page 54 of Reckless Witch

I bolt upright, heart pounding. The room wavers, then snaps into focus. Ethan and Blade stand over me. What the hell? Except for the collar of Ethan’s shirt, he’s shirtless and blood stains his jeans. I’m half laying on a leather couch. Raith kneels on the floor beside the couch. I gasp at sight of my ripped shirt drenched in blood. I jerk my gaze to Raith. The front of his white shirt is stained with blood. The tips of his fangs indent his full bottom lip. I’ve never allowed a vampire to feed on me. I’ve never considered the possibility. The idea that Raith took that liberty without my permission is paramount to rape.

“How dare you?” I say in a hoarse voice.

I kick him hard with the heel of my foot and he tumbles onto his ass.

He looks at Ethan. “No good deed goes unpunished.”

“Good deed?” I repeat. “You have one hell of an ego.”

“Leilah,” Ethan cuts in, “he saved your life.”

“What—”

Memory slams into me. The spear. My belly. My mind registers the bloody, broken spear lying on the carpet a few feet away. Heart pounding, I look down at my belly where the wound should have been. I run my fingers over the spot where the spear pierced my stomach. Smooth as a baby’s bottom.

I lift my gaze to Raith. “I didn’t know that a vampire feeding could heal.”

“It can’t.” He shoves to his feet.

I look in confusion to Ethan and Blade.

“Raith healed the puncture by feeding on you,” Blade says. “But it was you drinking his blood that healed the internal injuries.”

I stare. Did I hear right?

“I drank his blood?” I whisper.

“You’re welcome.”

I wince at the sarcasm in Raith’s voice and, in the instant before he turns away, I glimpse the thin line of his mouth. He crosses to the large mahogany desk located near the left wall and sits in the chair behind the desk.

“How much did I drink?” I try to control my racing pulse.

“Not enough to be turned,” Blade says.

I’m not feeling anything strange. In fact, for someone who’s just been skewered by a spear, I’m feeling pretty damn good. I’m almost…relaxed, and I feel oddly safe—despite my racing heart.

I shift my gaze to Raith. “Thank you.”

His eyes don’t shift from Ethan. “What happened?”

I’m not one to embarrass easily, but my cheeks heat at the obvious rebuff. He’s angry with me. Because I kicked him?

Blade takes two steps and sits on the couch beside me, heedless of the blood that slicks the leather. “You sure you’re all right?” he asks.

His smooth British accent usually makes everything he says sound sinful. This time, however, it’s the concern in his voice that causes the insides of my miraculously healed stomach to gel. He actually sounds like he cares—a lot. My cheeks warm, again, not with embarrassment, but due to the intensity of his gaze.

I scoot backward toward the couch arm so that I can pull my legs up and swing my feet onto the floor. I stand. To my surprise, my legs are steady. I feel as if I could run a marathon.

“I seem no worse for wear,” I say.

“Is someone going to tell me what happened?” Raith demands.

I want to tell him to go to hell, but Ethan says, “Someone used magic to pull a spear from the wall and…”

My stomach somersaults at the roiling cloud of emotions in the dragon’s eyes. Fuzzy images jumble in my brain and I recall strong arms around me and the shwoosh of powerful wings taking flight.

“You brought me here,” I say. He’d unfurled his wings and I’d missed the whole thing. God, that must have been a majestic sight.