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It’s not serious. It’s not serious. She kept the refrain going in her head. Forced herself to look away. Pushed the panic deep where it wouldn’t distract.
Two men remained between her and safety. Fighting to keep her voice steady, she drew once more on the leveryas. Faltered when she glanced at Cam’s slumped body. Then gathering herself together, she let the magic take hold. Used her words to calm the situation to manageable.
They retreated, their slack jaws and mesmerized gazes evidence that this time, she’d succeeded in gaining full control.
She dropped to her haunches beside Cam. “Can you walk?” she asked, hating the frightened waver in her voice.
He nodded, his jaw clenched tight. His eyes closed.
Looping her arm under him, she let his rest across her shoulder. Struggled to her feet, bent under his weight. “Don’t you die on me, Cameron Sinclair.”
For a split second, mischief sparkled in his pale face. “I’d have thought you’d be glad to see me go to the devil.”
Afraid to admit the fear that weighted her stomach like lead, Morgan sniffed. “Oh no. If anyone sends you to hell, it gets to be me.”
A strangled laugh was his only answer.
Cam hissed as Morgan peeled off his blood-soaked shirt, exposing the jagged, torn flesh left by the villain’s knife.
He felt a complete fool. What the hell had he been thinking charging into that brawl like some green recruit? Acting the reckless swashbuckler when the situation called for the stealth of the assassin?
He glanced up at Morgan, rummaging through her bag, her back to him. There stood his reason. He’d seen her surrounded, and every instinct had flown. This wasn’t a clinical kill. Not a planned execution. This was Morgan. And all his effort had been to get between her and them. Not the smartest of ideas, as it turned out.
“An inch or two lower and you’d have bled to death in that alley,” was her grateful comment.
“Sorry to have disappointed,” he replied, taking the cloth she handed him. Gritting his teeth as he pressed it against the gash to stanch the blood.
His whole shoulder throbbed where the knife had bounced off his collarbone. Nausea rolled his belly, and the room wavered like water on glass. He bit his lip, refusing to pass out. Morgan would never let him hear the end of it. She was bad enough now. After the momentary truce when she thought he’d been dying—and wasn’t that interesting?—she’d returned to being surly as a badger.
“The next time I rescue you,” he said, “I’ll try to get it right.”
She threw up her head at that remark, a dangerous flash in her eyes. “You rescue me? If you hadn’t come blundering in like a drunken bull in a china shop, I’d have been away without a memory to mark my passing. I had the situation under control. It was only your meddling that nearly got us killed.”
His startled reaction sent a spasm of pain from his shoulder down his right side. Threw pinwheels of light across his field of vision. “And how did you expect to get away from a gang of cutthroats? Turn them into toads?”
She’d discarded her skirt. She stood now, hands on hips, in leather breeks. Tall boots. Her hair bundled into a loose braid. He’d be appalled—or excited—at her appearance if he didn’t hurt so damned much.
“I’ve told you before, Cam. I’m not some simpering miss who can’t break a nail without fainting. And you should be glad of my strength. You’d be dead otherwise.”
“So you’re saying you rescued me?”
The flash in her eyes had become a red-hot boil. She looked ready to explode. “You deserved to get hurt. Mayhap it’ll knock some sense into you. Look at yourself. You’re worthless to this investigation like this.”
The accusations slammed into him like bullets. And hurt all the worse because she was right. He drank too much. Slept too little. Had done so for months. Drinking had been the easiest way to forget how much he’d lost.
At least it had been.
Until tonight.
Tonight had marked his ultimate low. A dingy alley. A whore on her knees. With him too full of self-pity to care.
He tried meeting Morgan’s scowl, but couldn’t hold it. It was as if she knew his thoughts. And despised him for them. It was just as well he’d kept his mouth shut in the taproom earlier. He could just imagine the scorn she’d have heaped on him for that moment of sentimentality.
Her point made, she spun away to rummage in her bags.
Resentment mingled with his pain. Why did he care what Morgan Bligh thought of him? She was everything he hated in a woman. Brash. Willful. Pushy. Arrogant.
And worst of all—right.
