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I didn’t even look up to see who it was. I was watching them carefully pull away the remains of his coat. It was spelled to repair itself, but I didn’t think that would be happening this time. A few filaments were gamely trying to knit themselves back together, but there wasn’t enough left to work with. Despite the armor spells woven into it, almost the entire back of the coat was simply gone, eaten away in huge, bloody holes with little more than leather “lace” between them. And the body underneath—
“My God,” someone said as the remains of the coat were peeled back, taking some of his flesh along with it. The stars spun dizzyingly around me.
“Dragon blood,” Caleb spat, and somebody cursed.
I looked up. “But that can’t . . . we were nowhere near—”
“It must have spat it at you before you escaped,” he said roughly. “Get us to Central. Now!” he ordered the driver.
“He’s not going to last that long,” one of the other mages argued. “We have medical staff on the scene. They just arrived—”
“And you think they’re going to be able to handle this?”
“If they don’t, he’s gone. I’m telling you, we can’t—”
“Get out,” I said softly, my eyes on the ruined map of Pritkin’s back.
“And if we try the emergency unit and they can’t do anything?” Caleb demanded. “We’ll have lost any chance of—”
“There’s no time for anything else!”
“I said, get out!” I snarled, pushing at the nearest mage. “All of you, except for Caleb!”
“What?” the mage who’d been arguing with the boss, a young Hispanic guy, turned to look at me. “What are you—”
“If you want him to live, get the hell out of here!”
“Do it,” Caleb rasped, watching my face. I don’t know what it looked like. I didn’t care.
“Drive,” I told him.
The mages bailed over the side, taking a protesting Fred along for the ride. Caleb climbed into the front seat and I bent over Pritkin. The stench of burnt leather mingled with the metallic tang of blood was bad enough, but there was something else there, too, something dark, something wrong.
“Don’t touch him,” Caleb said harshly. “The stuff’s like acid. You get any on you and it’ll eat through you, too.”
I ignored him. I couldn’t do this without touching. I wasn’t sure I could do this at all. Pritkin was part incubus, which meant he could feed off human energy, almost like a vampire. It was the part he hated most about himself, the part that had once resulted in the death of someone he loved. But it was the only thing that might save him now.
I’d fed him once before, in a similar situation, but I’d had one major a
dvantage then: he’d been conscious and an active participant. I didn’t know what to do with him out cold. If he’d been a vamp, I’d have opened a vein for him, held it over his mouth, made him take what his body desperately needed. But he wasn’t.
And incubi fed only one way.
I slid down to the floor by the seat, so that our faces were on a level. And realized that I had another problem. He was lying on his stomach, his head turned toward me, and there was precious little undamaged flesh that I could reach. I ran a hand through his hair, and as always it was soft, despite the dust and sweat that currently matted it.
I combed my fingers through it anyway, before trailing them over his equally dirty brow, down the too-large nose, across the too-thin lips. He hadn’t shaved today, maybe not yesterday, either, and the bristles rubbed my fingers as I smoothed over his cheeks, his jaw. My hand began to tremble as I reached his chin. The adrenaline that had kept me going for the past half hour was wearing off, but that wasn’t the only reason my hand was shaking. Part of it was fear for Pitkin, but part of it—
Part of it was fear of him.
I’d only seen him feed the one time, and he’d been oh, so careful. And with cause. The power he possessed could not just take some of a person’s energy; it could take all of it. Not that he would, not if he was awake and in his right mind and able to think clearly. But he wasn’t now. And while I’d never seen an incubus drain someone, I’d seen master vampires when they were seriously injured, seen what they left behind when they—
I cut off, breathing hard. Panic and exhaustion vied to put me down for the count, but I pushed them away angrily, along with my stupid, stupid cowardice. Pritkin would risk it for me. He’d do it for me.
I bent and found his lips with my own.
The kiss, if you could call it that, tasted like dust and ashes. I felt his breath on my face, faint and warm, but nothing else. There was no response at all.
I pulled off my tank top and unhooked my bra.
