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“Theo, I’m going to hold on to the arrow and lift your leg to raise the arrow out of the ground.” Sliding the arrow out of the dirt and threading it through his leg seemed like an injury risk, and while I might be able to snap the arrow in half, I didn’t want to hurt him further.
“As soon as you’re free, I’m going to pick you up and carry you to the car and drive us the hell away from here.”
He swallowed hard. “You’re going to leave the arrow in my leg?”
“For now, yeah. I want someone more skilled to remove it. Someone trained in keeping the blood actually inside your body. My expertise is kind of the opposite.”
“Okay,” he said with a forced smile. “Okay.”
I wiped my hands on my pants, smearing blood and dirt, then reached beneath his leg and gripped the arrow. I put the other hand beneath his knee, prepared to lift his leg straight up. I pulled, but my fingers slipped away, and I ended up slamming my hand into his leg.
“Damn,” he said through his teeth. “Oh, damn.”
“I’m sorry, Theo. One more time, okay? For all the marbles. Brace yourself.” He sucked in a breath, readying himself for the pain. And I didn’t make him wait. I gripped the arrow again. With Theo rigid and shaking beside me, I lifted his leg and managed to keep the arrow in place, removing it from the soil one slow inch at a time.
A volley of arrows made a quick ring around us, a Stonehenge of armament.
“Almost there,” I told Theo, ignoring the flash of an arrow in my peripheral vision. I grabbed his leg, the arrow, and pulled.
He stifled a scream as he was freed.
“Hold the arrow,” I said, then climbed to my feet, pulled him up.
“Put your arm around me,” I said, putting an arm around him and trying to avoid jarring the arrow that still stuck sickeningly through his leg.
“Lean on me,” I said.
“I’m bigger than you,” he said, chin trembling as he fought against the pain.
“I’m a vampire,” I said as we hobbled across the yard toward his car. “But are you made of Adamantium, by chance?”
“No.”
“Or possibly dark matter?”
“No,” he said, the word falling to a grunt as he stumbled a little. “I sure as hell would like to see the goddamn getaway car right now.”
I thought I was losing him, that he was going loopy because of the blood loss, because there wasn’t a single siren on the wind.
Until the enormous black SUV burst through the open gate. It roared toward us, then spun to a stop with a spray of dirt and grass.
And then Connor was throwing open the back door.
“’Bout time,” Theo muttered, and his head slumped against my shoulder.
“I’ll get him,” Connor said, casting a curious glance at the arrow and then picking up Theo with a grunt and loading him into the back of the SUV. He closed the door just as an arrow buried itself in the door panel.
Connor swore. “Eli is not going to like that.”
Another arrow flew overhead, but I couldn’t stop staring. Or smiling. “What the hell are you doing here? You should be in, I don’t know, Iowa by now.”
“Good to see you, too, Lis,” Connor said, and his smile was as cocky as his tone. “Get in the vehicle.”
“I called Connor, too,” Theo said in a singsong voice from the backseat. “And he rode to the rescue again. Really screwed up the lawn, though.”
• • •
I called Yuen as Connor drove to the nearest hospital, explaining what had happened and arranging to meet him at Cadogan House when Theo was on the mend.
