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At the very moment her thoughts spun out into total incoherence, two men showed up in her kitchen. As in… literally appeared from out of nowhere right in front of her.
No, wait, they’re two vampires, not men, she reminded herself. Never men.
Weaving on her feet, stunned past all comprehension, she decided surely this had to be a dream.
Except it wasn’t. And holy hell, she knew the two—vampires—who were in her kitchen: One was that doctor type, with the bow tie and the white coat and the tortoiseshell glasses. The other was the guy with those tattoos at his temple.
“While you treat him, I’m going to go take care of the neighbors,” the one with the diamond eyes said to the physician. “Their lights are coming on, so they heard something or saw the flash of the lesser being sent back to the Omega. I’ll neutralize them—”
“Don’t you dare kill those people!” Anne hollered hysterically.
“Excuse me?” the man—fucking vampire—shot back.
“My neighbors!”
“Oh, relax.” He gave her a bored look. “I’m just taking their memories so a flank of cops doesn’t show up on your front doorstep and ask you questions you can’t answer. Sound good to you? Great. I’m so glad you approve—now give me that fucking gun before you shoot me by mistake.”
Anne blinked. Looked down. Saw that she had pointed the weapon directly at the vampire. “This cannot be real.”
As the doctor knelt by Darius and opened his bag, a gloved hand reached forward, and she didn’t fight the disarming. Had she really shot Bruce? Had she really been about to shoot—
“What’s happening?” she asked the man. Vampire. Whatever.
When he let out an exasperated exhale, she figured he was going to ignore her. But then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not permanent for you.”
She thought about what he’d said about the neighbors.
“My memories,” she whispered, “are mine. You have no right to take them.”
“Just talk to him,” the vampire muttered as he nodded at Darius. “He needs to stay conscious and he’ll do anything you tell him to.”
And then the guy disappeared from right in front of her.
In the aftermath of the departure, Anne went over and picked up one of her chairs that had been knocked to the floor. Sitting down, she hung her head and felt Darius stare at her as he was treated. The doctor started talking about operating, but Darius argued with him, the two going back and forth, getting heated.
At least the whole stay-conscious thing seemed to be handling itself.
And finally, she had to look over—
What she saw made… no sense. Or should have made no sense.
Before her very eyes, the stab wound appeared to be knitting itself back together. To the point where she could watch the skin closing, as if in a special effects movie.
In spite of everything else she had seen, the cognitive dissonance caused by this phenomenon was so great that her mind retreated from what was before her eyes. Unfortunately, what it escaped to was just as upsetting: Bruce had been right about one thing, wrong about another. Yes, Darius was worse than he had been, but as shocking as the basis of this newest bunch of lies was, the reason she was so affected by them was because she had fallen in love.
With someone of another species.
Dear God in Heaven above, how was this her life.
* * *
“I’ll be fine,” Darius said as he shoved Havers’s disinfecting efforts away. “I’ll call if I have any issues.”
Assuming he didn’t bleed out right here and now. Which was probably the biggest medical risk he had, right?
As if that “grave” outcome was a serious possibility, Havers hesitated, his bag wide open, all those treatment supplies the kind of thing that he seemed compelled to use like the gauze and tape had an expiration date. And great, now there was some more discussion about surgery, although not that much more—which wasn’t really a surprise. As much as Havers took his job seriously, he was a member of the glymera, and as such, he wasn’t comfortable slumming in a human’s house.
He was probably going to pull a Silkwood when he got home. And didn’t the disrespect make thoughts of scalpels appeal.
“It does appear to have missed your vital organs,” the healer hedged.
“Lucky me,” Darius muttered as he looked over to Anne.
She was just sitting in her chair, her shoulders slumped, her eyes barely blinking. Every once in a while she glanced over, but it was as if she couldn’t stand the sight of him. Not that he blamed her.
When Havers finally left, Darius pushed himself up higher on the oven door and moved his legs out straight. The fact that there was black and red blood on her linoleum was as stark a commentary on their relationship as it could get.
“I didn’t tell you,” he said roughly, “because you wouldn’t have believed me. And if you had, you wouldn’t have given me a chance.”
