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Lance growled, shaking off his wolf form, and barked, “Get your phone and get Lewis and the others down here. I want him taken to the manor dungeons immediately.”
Lance gave Stan a good kick in the ribs just to be certain he was out cold before he rushed back into the house.
Kayla was still where she had been the whole time, sitting at the bottom of the stairs, trembling. Only this time her arms were not wrapped around her chest. She had reached up with one hand to wrap it around the side of her neck.
Seeing the crimson liquid that oozed between her fingers, he remembered the blood he had smelled as he entered the first time.
“You're hurt!” he gasped, noticing the bloodied knife that lay on the floor a few footsteps away.
Crouching before her, naked as the day he was born, Lance demanded, “Let me see!”
“It's nothing,” Kayla insisted, shaking her head, “Just a scratch.”
The amount of blood dripping between her fingers begged to differ. As did the paleness of her face.
Lance pursed his lips, about to demand she show him, but before he could do so, Kayla began to slump against the staircase.
She half-leaned backwards, half sideways, her head bouncing off the banister as her eyes rolled back in her head.
“Shit!”
As she passed out, her hand slipped from the wound at her neck. Though it looked as if she were right, it really was just a scratch, there was still a damn sight more blood than he would have liked.
Without thinking twice, Lance plucked her up into his arms. He paused only to turn and look out the door to see that Darius had one large foot planted square on the lion's chest, his cell phone pressed against his ear.
His man had that handled for now. What was important was seeing Kayla was okay. And so, he carried her swiftly up the stairs.
The scent of her blood was maddening. Just knowing that Stan had injured her made him want to go right back down there and finish what he had started, tearing his throat out.
But Kayla needed him more right now. And he wasn't going to leave her side, not until he knew she was okay.
He laid her on her bed, brushed back her long golden hair to get a proper look at her wound, and headed into the ensuite to grab some towels.
As he worked to wrap one around her neck, he tried his hardest not to think of what might happen.
It's just a scratch, he reminded himself firmly. Though it was quite a deep one, there wasn't enough blood for anything major to be hit. Lance had seen the amount of blood that caused. But still, after all he had been through with his late wife, his mind immediately became irrational.
What if I lose you too?he thought, gazing down at Kayla's pale face.
She looked peaceful, almost as if she were sleeping. If not for her paleness and the dark circles beneath her eyes, Lance might have believed she was. But even he could not fool his brain into thinking something like that when he knew the truth.
The urge to rush downstairs and tear Stan's throat out hit him all over again.
He was considering charging back down the stairs to do just that when Kayla stirred. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him with a dazed mistiness to her eyes.
“Lance, you're here,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I…I didn't think you…”
“Shh,” Lance said gently caressing her cheek. “Rest now. You've been through a lot. We'll talk when you're stronger.”
Kayla let out a little moan of relief that did terrible things to Lance's insides. Then her eyes fluttered closed once more.
Gently, Lance leaned over and pulled back the towel from her neck to check her wound. To his relief, the skin was alreadyknitting itself back together again and the bleeding appeared to have stopped.
Breathing a sigh of his own, he leaned down further and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Rest well, and I'll be here when you wake.”
All urges to go and finish Stan off were quelled by his need to remain close to her.
Grabbing a spare blanket from the end of the bed, he covered Kayla and slipped in beside her, covering his nakedness so not to spook her when she awakened again. He considered heading back toward the park to collect his clothes, but that would take him away from her. Besides, someone was bound to find them and return them to his office or even his home, maybe even the manor. Clothes left after a shift weren't exactly an unusual occurrence in Silverdale, and there weren't many thieves and scumbags, either. Lance still wondered how Stan had managed to slip through the net.
