Coveted - Book 3 in the Gwen Sparks Series

by Stephanie Nelson

  “Go ahead, hit me with your best shot.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice. I raised my hands and threw the magic towards him giving him everything I had. The magic washed over his body and vanished. Just…vanished.

  What the hell?

  “Your magic can’t save you this time.”

  I whirled around and tried to jump over the counter again but like before, the man ripped a handful of my hair backwards and I fell to the floor. He knelt in front me, the dagger pointed toward my face.

  “Man,” he snorted to himself. “Who’d you piss off to warrant a visit from one of us?”

  “Who are you….what are you?” I hadnever seen anyone able to withstand a hit of magic, except for Dorian and even it affected him a little. Not this guy. “Are you an angel?”

  That made the man laugh out loud, “The furthest thing from it.” The amusement was gone from his eyes in an instant. He was all business again; focused on me and the blade. My indecision was soul shattering. I had no clue how to escape this guy when my magic didn’t so much as leave a scratch on him. There was no way I was going to die in my shop, that much I did know.

  I kicked my leg out, my foot landing in the center of his chest. He stumbled backwards but held his balance; now more pissed than before. He swung the arm with the dagger in it backwards and then sent it downward. Everything was in slow motion as I watched the blade cut through the air and towards me. Out of instinct, I raised my arms to protect my face and was rewarded with a slash across my forearm. A bloodcurdling scream left my lips as I grabbed my arm and squeezed. It was no use though. The cut was too deep and the blood just kept flowing. The gash left my skin flayed open in two thick strips. Tears streaked down my cheeks as I continued to hold my arm and stare at the man. The scent of my coppery blood filled my nostrils. If I concentrated on it I knew I’d pass out.

  A crash sounded from behind me. I couldn’t tell what had happened because my back was towards the noise and I was not taking my eyes off of the psycho in front of me. The man stood with a sick sneer on his face as he greeted the new arrival. While my attacker’s attention was occupied I tried to stand up again. It was a bit difficult using one arm, but I managed.

  What I saw was the most beautiful site a dying woman can ask for—an angel. Dorian stood on the other side of the counter, his body so rigid it could have been carved out of stone. The temperature in the store dropped at least twenty degrees, and I could have sworn I heard his teeth crack under the pressure of his jaw.

  “Death has come to claim you,” the psycho said to me. “I’m not quite done with her yet and I do so love taking my time,” he told Dorian.

  “She won’t be dying today,” Dorian bit out.

  “No?” my attacker questioned. “She’s lost a lot of blood already.”

  I checked my wound and he was right. My arm, fingers, sweater and jeans were stained with blood. I thought the wooziness that swam through my head was a result of all of the blows to the head, but now I knew the real reason. I was dying.

  The man slipped behind me, either to block himself from Dorian or because he wanted to inflict more pain. He wrapped one arm around my throat while the other closed around my waist. The scruff of his jaw scrapped against the side of my face as he rested his chin on my shoulder. I shivered in disgust, wanting to remove every trace of him from my body.

  “Do you think you can kill me before I kill her?” He dragged his arm back so that the dagger rested against my jugular. The cold steel bit into my skin as my throat bobbed up and down with my sobs. I kept my eyes locked on Dorian, needing my last vision to be of something good. The guy pressed the knife harder when Dorian took a step closer. I held my breath, too afraid to move lest I force the blade to slice a sensitive area.

  “You have two choices here,” Dorian said.

  I could feel the man’s cheeks spread into a smile against my face. “Ooh, I can’t wait to hear them.” His voice was filled with mock enthusiasm.

  “You can let her go, answer a few questions and be on your way or I can kill you right here and now.”

  “Tempting,” my attacker said pretending to think about it. “I gather she means something to you. Death doesn’t save lives after all.”

  Only the slightest twitch of Dorian’s lips betrayed that the psycho was right. I didn’t know if the man had noticed it, but it didn’t matter. He was right—Death took lives, not restored them. As soon as Dorian defended me, my attacker knew something was fishy.

  The man snorted. “Death is sweet on a woman? Go figure. See, I think you’d do whatever you could to make sure this blade”—the man pressed the knife tighter against my throat—“doesn’t find its way into your lady friend’s neck.”

  I gasped as a searing pain burned along my throat and wet droplets fell against my chest. My body sagged from the exhaustion of the fight, blood loss and the impact my head had taken. It caused the knife to bite against my skin harder. The pain was almost non-existent now; my body was numb.

  “Enough,” Dorian growled. “Gwen, look at me.” I dragged my eyes up to meet his, fighting to stay conscious. My head felt too heavy for my shoulders. It took concentration that I didn’t have to hold it up.

  “That’s right—just keep your eyes on me.”

  Dorian’s body was blurry to my weary eyes, but I continued to stare at his outline, wishing I could just fall asleep and forget all about the nightmare I was living. The man grunted, his arms squeezing me tighter and cutting off my supply of oxygen. My head fell, swaying to the side and going limp with the rest of my body. If the guy wasn’t holding me up, I would have crumpled to the floor.

  “Gwen, look at me. Stay with me,” Dorian ground out. I couldn’t raise my head again, not when it weighed a hundred pounds, but I held onto his voice, allowing it to comfort me.

  My attacker grunted again, a deep rumble at first and then a screech that pierced my skull, causing me to flinch. His grip loosened, his hands slipping a little bit. I fought to keep my legs under me, but they wobbled beneath my weight. I heard a thump behind me, but it took me a moment to register that I wasn’t in the man’s arms anymore. He was sprawled on the floor, his eyes wide and lifeless.

  A new set of arms encompassed my body, the smell of leather filling the air around me. I was hoisted up against Dorian. There was another crash before he lay me down on something hard.

  “Gwen?” Dorian’s smooth voice flowed over me like silk. “Help is on the way, stay with me.”

  Stay with me. I clung to those words, promising that if I lived through this I wouldn’t take my feelings for Dorian for granted anymore. Cool lips brushed my forehead as soft fingertips caressed my cheek. It was the last sensation I had before my eyes fell shut and I drifted into oblivion.

  “I think she’s waking up,” I heard someone say. My eyelids were heavy, making it a great effort to get them open. Blinking, I saw glimpses of bodies hovering nearby. Their outlines were blurry figures in the distance that didn’t make sense to my jarred brain.

  “Gwen, you’re in the hospital,” a woman said close to me.

  The last thing I remembered was Dorian whispering in my ear, though I couldn’t remember what he had said. Someone slipped their hand in mine and squeezed while using their other hand to brush strands of hair out my face. The coolness of their skin on mine was refreshing. Giving it one more try, I strained to open my eyes. I managed three-quarters of the way but could now tell that I was in a white room. The air was stale and did nothing to help my dry throat. A beeping noise sounded next to me and when I tried to lift my arm something caught on the sheet. The longer I was awake, the easier it got to open my eyes and put a coherent thought together.

  The first face I saw was Penny’s. Her big brown eyes were puffy and red, and she smiled at me. I dragged my eyes away from her face and looked down at my hand that had someone else’s in it. Aiden sat in a chair beside my bed, his hair mussed as if he hadran his fingers through it over and over. His face held pain, sympathy
, love and anger all in one. Nearly tangible emotions radiated from him.

  “You’re going to be okay, my Gwen.” He squeezed my hand in reassurance. I tried to smile but it felt funny, awkward on my face. I’d just turned my head back straight when I saw another body leaning against the far wall. My eyes locked onto it, onto him. Seeing Death hanging out in your hospital room wouldn’t comfort most people, but I wasn’t most people. Tears filled my eyes, causing my vision to go blurry again. If it hadn’t been for him, I would be in the basement of the hospital.

  “Are you in pain?” Aiden got up to inspect me.

  I shook my head. “No. Just realization setting in,” I told him. “Could I have a moment to speak with Dorian?”

  Aiden’s jaw flinched, his right eye crinkling the tiniest bit before he wiped all emotion off his face.

  “We’ll be in the waiting room.” He kissed the top of my head. He and Penny left the room, but before exiting he exchanged heated glares with Dorian.

  I tried to sit up but every bone in my body felt like it’d been broken and glued back together. I hoped the doctors had better luck with me than the townsfolk did with Humpty Dumpty.

  I brought my attention away from the pain ricocheting throughout my body and looked at Dorian again. His arms were across his chest, and his head was hung as he studied the floor.

  “Thank you,” I began, swallowing around the dryness in my throat.

  “Don’t,” Dorian snapped, looking up.

  I was taken aback by the abruptness of his comment. “You saved me,” I said like some grateful damsel who’d been rescued from her distress. “I mean…thanks.” Every word came out sounding unintelligent as I stumbled over my tongue for the right words. When someone saves your life it kind of warrants a fantastic “thank-you” speech: one that shows the savior just how grateful you are. Dorian was getting gypped.

  “Do you have any idea how close you came to dying?” Dorian’s words were cold and clipped, unlike the normal smooth masculine tone I was so used to. I couldn’t speak so I just shook my head.

  “You lost a lot of blood from the cut on your arm. If it’d been a quarter of an inch deeper it would have hit bone.” He pushed off of the wall and stood at the foot of my bed but kept his eyes looking anywhere but at me.

  “I don’t know what he did to you, but you had blood on your skull plus a fracture. Your face looks like it was used as punching bag and your clothes were coated in so much blood the doctors thought you were dead when they brought you in.” Dorian curled his fingers around the footboard and squeezed so that his fingers turned white.

  “You were knocking on Death’s door and I didn’t even hear it,” he mumbled. “If it hadn’t been for Eddie…you’d be dead.”

  A bottomless pit of unease opened up in my stomach. If I had caught Eddie and ordered him away then I would be dead. I swallowed around the lump in my throat and looked down at the arm that had been slashed. A row of stitches ran from my elbow and stopped two inches before my wrist. The skin was raised in red puckers from where the doctors had pulled the skin tight. I ran my fingertips over my face with care. My right cheek was swollen so much that I could see its puffiness when I looked down. I couldn’t imagine what I looked like.

  “Are you saying that you couldn’t see my name on your death list?” I wasn’t sure how Dorian’s job worked: if names of the people about to die just popped into his head or if it were something more complicated. He didn’t talk about that aspect of his life very much.

  “You’re blocked from me,” Dorian said, almost in awe.

  “Why?” So much for having Death on my side…

  “I have no fucking clue,” Dorian snapped, turning around as he began pacing the room. I watched as he walked back and forth staring at the ground. I assumed he was so angry because this had never happened to him. He wasn’t used to not having the upper hand in the fate department. The thought that I was the exception to the rule did nothing to help my unease.

  “Hey,” I said and Dorian stopped to look at me. “I’m okay. I survived and it was because of you.” I smiled. “Whether you saw my death or not, you still saved me.”

  Dorian snorted, a smile replacing his scowl. “It’s just like you to try and get Death to look on the bright side. The only silver lining I’ve ever seen is…” Dorian didn’t finish his sentence. Instead he stood there and stared at me, allowing his silence to speak for him.

  A hard knock brought our attention away from each other. Aiden stood in the doorway, looking from Dorian to me.

  “I’d like to speak with Gwen,” he said.

  “Too bad,” Dorian said matter-of-factly.

  “Dorian, it’s okay,” I told him.

  Both men glared at each other. The tension in the room was so thick it was suffocating. My already sore muscles tightened.

  “I’ll be right outside the door,” Dorian warned as he passed Aiden.

  “He’s pretty protective of you,” Aiden noted as he walked over to my bed and sat in the chair. I nodded, unsure how to respond. “That’s the only thing I like about him.”

  A nervous laugh escaped my lips, and Aiden smiled. Reaching his hand out, he clasped mine and squeezed. I noticed his skin was a lot warmer than it had been before.

  “Gwen, I want you to drink from me,” Aiden announced, causing the smile to fall from my lips. “You’re still not out of the woods. You have a fractured skull that’s causing bleeding on the brain. The doctors are waiting until the swelling goes down to make a decision on whether you’ll need surgery. They’ll offer you vampire blood, but all of their donors are young vampires. My blood will heal quicker.” Aiden took a deep breath, his eyes burning into mine. “Please let me do this for you.”

  The supernatural towns kept a supply of vampire blood on hand to heal severe cases but needed the patient’s approval to administer it. Once the vampire’s blood was running through a person’s veins, that vampire could sense them. I couldn’t imagine how many emotions the donating vampires felt with their blood coursing through multiple people’s bodies.

  I thought about whether it was a good idea or not. There wasn’t any harm in drinking from Aiden. It wouldn’t form a bond like I shared with Ian, but I was still wary. And I would be drinking blood. I could barely look at the stuff without fainting.

  Aiden must have noticed my discomfort because he said, “I can mix it in with tea or something to help hide its taste.”

  “I think you should do it, Gwen.” Dorian stepped into the room. “I don’t trust this bastard for a second, but his blood would heal you. The quicker you’re on your feet the safer you’ll be.”

  It didn’t surprise me he had been listening to our conversation. What surprised me was that he agreed with Aiden. Had the world been knocked off of its axis? Was up down and down up?

  “Jealousy is an ugly trait,” Aiden said to Dorian. Once again they were in a glaring match and all was right in the world.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it. I don’t want to spend the next week in the hospital, not when more thugs might be coming after me.”

  Aiden looked at me and smiled. “I’ll get something to put it in.”

  “No, I’ll drink from you.” If I thought about it too long then I would change my mind. The faster we got it over with the better.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Aiden unbuttoned his cuff and rolled his sleeve up to his elbow. Dorian walked around to the other side of the bed and crossed him arms like some bad-ass sentinel. I tried not to pay attention to him too much. Drinking blood from a vampire tended to be a bit sexual, at least for the vampire. Having Dorian witness such an intimate moment between Aiden and me made a blush heat my cheeks.

  I tried to sit up so that I could lean over Aiden’s wrist, but my body screamed in protest. I sucked in a sharp breath as I waited for the agony to subside.

  “Just lay back, my Gwen.”

  Slowly I lowered my body back onto the mountain of pillows, closin
g my eyes for a moment as the last waves of anguish disappeared.

  “I want to see myself,” I said, and both men looked at me with confusion. “I need to see the damage. I want to remember how close I came to the coffin so that next time I’ll fight harder to keep it from happening again.”

  The stitches on my arm weren’t enough. Though the gash was extensive in itself, I knew that seeing the abuse my head had taken would shake me to my core. Aiden opened the drawer to the small table next to my bed and gave me a handheld mirror. I squeezed the handle with both hands, the pressure turning my fingers white, before raising it up to see my reflection.

  I’d been right about being shocked. All I could do was stare at the stranger looking back at me. She couldn’t be me. She was weak, defeated and broken. Her long dark hair hung in limp, stringy strands and her skin was almost as white as the sheet covering her. Purple and blue bruises decorated the right side of her face like grotesque body paint. Her cobalt eyes were lifeless and lost, brimming with tears. I couldn’t hold her gaze without her hopelessness consuming me. A long red band circled her neck where the blade had taunted her life, digging deeper and threatening to end it all.

  I chucked the mirror across the room to get rid of the broken girl trapped within it. It crashed against the stark white wall as shards of glass rained onto the floor. Tears splashed against my swollen cheeks.

  “Give me your wrist,” I said with a harsh whisper. I would not be defined by the sad girl in the mirror. My life was teetering on the edge and I was going to do everything in my power to not fall.

  “Gwen—”Aiden began and I glared at him. I didn’t want to be consoled into thinking everything would be all right. It wouldn’t. Not until I took Holly and her followers down.

  “Wrist,” I said through clenched teeth. The first step to gaining the strength I needed was in Aiden’s veins. I’d drink as much as he would give; relish in the newfound power of his six-hundred year old blood coursing through my body.