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“You don’t expect me to believe King went out, and she leaped to his defense?”
“He came out for me.” Glenna opened eyes glassy from the pain. “And they took him.”
“Quiet,” Hoyt ordered. “Moira, I need you here.”
“We’ll use this.” She selected a bottle. “Pour it on the bruising.” After handing him the bottle, she knelt, rested her hands lightly on Glenna’s torso.
“What power I can claim I call now to ease your pain. Warmth to heal and harm none, to take away the damage done.” She looked entreatingly at Glenna. “Help me. I’m not very good.”
Glenna laid her hand over Moira’s, closed her eyes. When Hoyt laid his on top for a triad, Glenna sucked in a breath, let it out on a moan. But when Moira would have yanked her hand away, Glenna gripped it tight.
“Sometimes healing hurts,” she managed. “Sometimes it has to. Say the chant again. Three times.”
As Moira obeyed, sweat sprang onto Glenna’s skin, but the bruising faded a little, going the sickly tones of healing.
“Yes, that’s better. Thanks.”
“We’ll have some of that whiskey here,” Moira snapped.
“No. I’d better not.” Trying for steady breaths, Glenna pushed up. “Help me sit. I need to see how bad it is now.”
“Let’s see about this.” Hoyt skimmed his fingers over her face. And she grabbed his hand. The tears came now, couldn’t be stopped.
“I’m so sorry.”
“You can’t blame yourself, Glenna.”
“Who else?” Cian countered, and Moira shoved up to her feet.
“He wasn’t wearing the cross.” She dug in her pocket, held it up. “He took it off upstairs and left it behind.”
“He was showing me some moves. Wrestling,” Larkin explained. “And it got in his way, he said. He must have forgotten about it.”
“He never meant to go outside, did he? And wouldn’t have but for her.”
“He was mistaken.” Moira laid the cross on the table. “Glenna, he needs to know the truth. The truth is less painful.”
“He thought, he must have thought I was going to let her in, or step out. I wasn’t. But I was being cocky, so what’s the difference? Smug. He’s dead because of it.”
Cian took another drink. “Tell me why he’s dead.”
“She knocked on the door. I shouldn’t have answered, but I saw it was a woman. A young woman with a map. I wasn’t going out, or asking her in, I swear that to you. She said she was lost. She spoke with an accent, French. Charming, really, but I knew…I felt. And I couldn’t resist toying with her. God, oh God,” she said as more tears spilled. “How stupid. How vain.”
She took a deep breath. “She said her name was Lora.”
“Lora.” Cian lowered the bottle. “Young, attractive, French accent?”
“Yes. You know her.”
“I do.” He drank again. “I do, yes.”
“I could see what she was. I don’t know how, but I knew. I should have just shut the door on her. But on the chance I was wrong, I thought I should give her directions and get her moving. I’d just started to when King shouted, and he came running down the hall. I turned around. I was startled, I was careless. She got some of my hair. She pulled me outside by it.”
“It was so fast,” Moira continued. “I was behind King. I barely saw her move—the vampyre. He went out after them, and there were more. Four, five more. It was like lightning strikes.”
Moira poured herself a shot of whiskey, downed it to smooth the raw edge of her nerves. “They were on him, all of them, and he shouted for Glenna to get inside. But she got up instead, she got up and ran to help him. It knocked her back, the female of them, like she was a stone in a sling. She tried to help him, even though she was hurt. Maybe she was careless, but so was he.”
Moira picked up the cross again. “And it’s a terrible price he paid for it. A terrible price he paid for defending a friend.”
