Twice Bitten: An Argeneau Novel

by Lynsay Sands

  “Set it here.” Wyatt patted his lap.

  Elspeth hesitated, but there really wasn’t anywhere else to put it, so she shifted the tray to balance on one hand so she could let the bucket slide down her arm to her other hand. She then set the bucket on the floor next to the bed on Wyatt’s side and set the tray on his lap.

  “Come. Sit with me.” He patted the bed next to him and Elspeth caught her breath as the tray jiggled, sending the dishes clanking against each other. But the tray stayed in place and nothing spilled, so she moved quickly around the bed and climbed on to sit next to him. Elspeth then took one of the glasses of juice and set it on the bedside table next to her. When she turned back, Wyatt had taken the other glass of juice and was half-turned away, setting it on his bedside table too, so she quickly retrieved the knife she’d wrapped in the napkin and slid it under her pillow. By the time he turned back, she was reaching for the plate with one bagel on it.

  “I didn’t know how you take your coffee,” she said as she watched him now spoon sugar into his cup and then add a dollop of cream.

  “Regular,” he said, setting the cream and sugar on the bedside table with the juice. The coffee quickly followed after he stirred it. That left only the spoon, his napkin, and the plate with two bagels on it on the tray, and she relaxed a little, knowing the risk of making a mess of the bed had just been reduced.

  “Mmm,” Wyatt moaned as he chewed his first bite. Swallowing, he glanced to her and smiled. “Thank you. This is good.”

  “My pleasure,” Elspeth murmured, and then her gaze slid to his feet as she took a bite of her bagel. The blanket and sheet were covering him from his knees up to his chest, but his feet weren’t under the covers. She supposed the weight of the cloth on his injured feet might have caused him pain, so Rachel had left it off there. Even so, the wounds weren’t visible. Wyatt was bandaged up like a mummy from below his knees to the tips of his toes.

  “The coffee smells good too,” Wyatt commented and picked up his cup to take a tentative sip. He followed it with a second, much larger mouthful, and nodded happily as he swallowed. “Oh, yeah. That’s good.”

  Elspeth smiled, relieved that he liked it. Making coffee wasn’t something she normally had to do. She didn’t usually drink the stuff herself, so wasn’t expert at making it, but she was glad he liked it. Wyatt fell silent then, his concentration on eating. Elspeth turned her attention to her own food as well, but her mind was preoccupied with what Lissianna had said in the kitchen.

  When had she changed her mind and decided that she wasn’t ready for a life mate? Elspeth pondered that as she ate. While she now recalled being jealous of first Lissianna and then Jeanne Louise when they’d found their life mates, she couldn’t remember when that had changed. Both Jeanne Louise and Lissianna had found their mates before the time period during which Wyatt claimed they’d met. She did know that.

  “That was good.”

  Elspeth glanced to Wyatt and smiled faintly. He was leaning against the headboard, head back, eyes closed, one hand on his stomach, and looking completely satisfied.

  He opened his eyes, turned his head to eye her, and said, “Thank you. That hit the spot.”

  “My pleasure,” Elspeth murmured, slipping off the bed with her empty plate and walking around to set it on the tray with his. Then she took the tray away and set it on the dresser. She turned back then and headed for her side of the bed, stumbling and cursing when she stubbed her toe on the foot of the bed as she walked around the corner.

  “Are you okay?” Wyatt asked, straightening with concern as she limped up the side of the bed.

  “Yes,” she said with exasperation, irritated with herself for the clumsiness.

  “Hmm.” He relaxed back against the headboard, but added with a grin, “Maybe you should be the one not allowed out of bed.”

  Elspeth scowled at him as she sat on the bed again and picked up her juice. “Are you suggesting I’m accident prone?”

  “You? Nah,” he assured her. “You’ve just been stabbed, been run over, stabbed yourself, hit your head falling out of the shower, and nearly been burned to a crisp since we met again.”

  Elspeth grunted with disgust at the litany of injuries she’d had of late, and then murmured, “Again,” thoughtfully. It reminded her of their date and how it had ended. The promise she’d made to meet him the next day, and her never keeping the date. Setting her glass on the bedside table, she turned to him to offer solemnly, “I’m sorry I didn’t show up the next day . . . after our date,” she explained. “I’m sure I would have met you if I could have.”

  Wyatt peered at her silently for a minute, and then asked, “Would you?”

  “Of course. If I said I’d meet you, I would have,” she assured him, and then frowned. “Why would you think otherwise? You don’t believe that my mother—?”

  “Yes,” he interrupted her quickly. “I believe your mother prevented it at the time.”

  Elspeth relaxed a little, but frowned and asked, “But . . . ?”

  “But maybe if she hadn’t intervened you would have rethought and still not shown up . . . because you aren’t ready for a life mate,” he said gently. “You said so yourself, and G.G. said something about your probably fighting being life mates too.”

  “Oh.” She shook her head and then muttered, “But is that true?”

  “Isn’t it?” Wyatt asked with interest.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted unhappily. “When Lissianna met her Greg, I was jealous and wishing I’d met my life mate. That was more than a decade ago. A couple years after that I felt the same way when Jeanne Louise met her mate . . . and then I certainly didn’t seem to have an issue with finding my life mate four years ago when I met you,” she pointed out. “We went on a tour, out to dinner, to a play, slept together, and then I promised to meet you again the next day.” She shrugged helplessly. “That doesn’t sound like I was fighting it.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” he agreed.

  “So, when did this I’m not ready for a life mate business start?” she asked. “What if it isn’t my idea at all? What if my mother simply put that thought into my head over and over again for the last four years until I got so used to the idea that I started to take it on as my own?”

  “Ah. I see.” Wyatt nodded. “You don’t trust your own thoughts anymore.”

  “No. I don’t,” Elspeth agreed with dismay as she realized it was true. She didn’t trust her own mind and memories anymore. “I mean, I think I wanted to enjoy some autonomy and freedom, but . . . a life mate?” She shook her head. “Every immortal wants one, and apparently I wanted one too four years ago when we first met.”

  “So . . .” Wyatt raised his eyebrows. “Do you want one now?”

  Elspeth peered at him silently, her gaze sliding over his perfect eyes and sexy lips before gliding to his short but incredibly soft hair, and she shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know. I want you, but do I want a life mate? I just—”

  “You want me?” Wyatt interrupted with a smug grin.

  Elspeth scowled. “That should be pretty obvious from what happened in my bathroom.”

  He shrugged. “It could have been a one-off. A passing fancy.”

  Elspeth rolled her eyes. “Yes, because my first thought when I realized the house was on fire wasn’t that the sex was so hot between us we set the house on fire.”

  “No,” he said, and then widened his eyes. “Really? You thought that?”

  “In my defense, I was half-asleep at the time,” she said with amusement, and then added, “but yes, I did, and of course I want you. You’re gorgeous, smart, commanding, sexy . . . Who wouldn’t want you?”

  “Commanding, huh?” he asked with a grin. “I like that.”

  Elspeth rolled her eyes.

  “Okay,” he said, becoming more serious. “You want me . . . but?”

  “But do I want a life mate?” she asked, and answered the question herself. “I don’t know. I didn’t think I did. I mean,
I’ve spent more than a century under my mother’s thumb and not allowed to go anywhere. She controlled what I could eat and drink and when. Sent me to bed when she thought I should go there, like I was a child.” Chin lifting, she said, “I want to stay up all day if I want to, and I want to go to movies and eat popcorn, and go dancing, and see museums and eat what I want when I want. But . . .”

  “But you want me too,” he said with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  Elspeth nodded solemnly. “I’m very confused, Wyatt.” Grimacing suddenly, she added, “And I’m being very egotistical. I mean, maybe you don’t want to be a life mate.”

  “Maybe I don’t,” he agreed, and for some reason that made Elspeth’s heart stop in her chest. Then he added, “But we’ll get to that. First, I think you’re a little confused about what a life mate is.”

  Elspeth stared at him with amazement. She was the immortal, after all. He’d never even heard of life mates before meeting her. She knew what a life mate was.

  “I think maybe you’ve been living with your mother as your jailer for so long you’re confusing a partner with just another jailer. Someone who will tell you what to do and when.”

  Elspeth blinked and sat back slightly as she realized that was exactly what she’d been doing. Thinking that claiming a life mate would mean trading her mother for someone else who would tell her what she could and couldn’t do all the time.

  “But,” Wyatt continued solemnly, “I wouldn’t think that was a life mate. When I think of the term, I think of a partner, someone to stay up all night watching movies and eating popcorn with. Not someone who tells you what you can or can’t do. I have no desire to be a parent to my partner. Or a jailer.”

  Elspeth breathed out slowly, her body relaxing as she considered his words. He was right. She’d been thinking of a life mate as a replacement for her mother, someone else who would try to tell her what to do. But he was saying he had no interest in doing that. That was good, she thought, and then frowned as she recalled his saying “Maybe I don’t” to her suggestion that he might not want to be her life mate. Elspeth bit her lip briefly and then turned the subject to that by reminding him, “But you said you might not want to be my life mate.”

  “That’s true,” he agreed easily, and then grinned and added, “But we mortals have a certain tradition that might help us both sort out what we want.”

  His smile made her relax a little, and Elspeth raised her eyebrows. “A tradition?”

  Wyatt nodded solemnly and raised a hand to run his fingers lightly down her cheek. “It’s called dating.”

  “Ah,” she murmured with a wry smile as she relaxed completely.

  “Mmm-hmm,” he said gently. “When dating, we mortals do things like go to movies and eat popcorn. With double butter.”

  “I like double butter,” she told him solemnly.

  “So do I,” Wyatt admitted, taking her hand before continuing, “Dating couples also often go to museums, or flea markets, the beach, loads of places they’re both interested in. But they also have friend nights, girls’ nights for her, and buddy nights for him, and then they get back together and maybe go dancing.” Squeezing her fingers, he tugged gently, drawing her against his chest as much as he could on the bed as he murmured, “I’d like to dance with you.”

  “I’d like to dance with you too,” she admitted softly, leaning her head on his shoulder.

  Urging her back slightly, he eyed her solemnly. “Then, Miss Elspeth Pimms, would you date me?”

  “I think I’d like that,” she admitted on a whisper.

  “So would I,” he assured her and then bent his head to kiss her lightly on the lips. At least, Elspeth thought he probably meant for it to be a light kiss. But that was impossible between life mates. The moment his mouth met hers, they were both lost.

  Elspeth moaned as passion shot through her, and opened for him before he even requested entrance. Wyatt accepted the invitation at once, though, his hands drawing her tighter against him as he kissed her with a passion and need that paralleled her own.

  Gasping when his hand found and squeezed one breast through the soft linen of her borrowed nightgown, Elspeth arched into the caress and stretched, her legs shifting restlessly and bumping against his leg. Breaking their kiss at once, she glanced down, relieved to see she’d hit him just above the knee rather than below. Then Wyatt tugged the neckline of the nightgown aside, freeing one breast. She groaned and closed her eyes as his lips closed over it, drawing the nipple into his warm, moist mouth and flicking it with his tongue as he suckled.

  “Oh God,” she gasped, clutching at his shoulders and arching and shifting. When her foot bumped against him again, Elspeth groaned and shook her head. “Your feet.”

  Wyatt didn’t stop laving and suckling her nipple, he merely reached down with one hand to shove the blankets and sheets aside. Her attention caught by the motion, Elspeth glanced down, her eyes widening when she saw that he had been naked under the coverings, and then he lifted and shifted her to straddle him. They both groaned as she came down on top of his growing hardness, their bodies rubbing together with only the thin linen of her nightgown caught between them.

  Wyatt released her breast then, and raised his head to claim her lips. Caught up in that kiss, Elspeth slid her arms around his shoulders and shifted her hips, rubbing herself eagerly against him as he fussed with the buttons of the nightgown to get full access. When cool air suddenly slid across her shoulders and breasts, she knew he’d got the nightgown undone. Still she gasped into his mouth when his warm, calloused hands closed over first one breast and then the other.

  “Elspeth Argeneau Pimms! Get off that man and come here now!”

  Caught up in what was happening, Elspeth couldn’t at first make sense of hearing her name from the door, but when Wyatt broke their kiss and turned his head to look that way, she did as well and blinked in confusion when she saw her mother standing there. Recognizing the concentration on the woman’s face, Elspeth knew she was trying to take control of her. However, it seemed passion was as much of a deterrent to her mother being able to control her as pain was, and she couldn’t make her do what she wanted. Elspeth could tell that by the frustration creeping over her mother’s expression.

  Unfortunately, the passion was waning now that they’d been interrupted and she could already feel the ruffling inside her head as her mother sought to gain control. Panic assaulting her, Elspeth rolled off Wyatt, reaching under her pillow for the steak knife as she did. Her hand came out with the knife as her back hit the mattress, but she kept going, rolling right off the bed as she brought the knife around. By the time Elspeth landed on her knees on the floor, the knife was imbedded in her upper leg.

  Thirteen

  “Elspeth!”

  Gritting her teeth against the pain shooting through her from the wound in her leg, Elspeth pulled the knife out. She then had to bite back the gasp of pain that tried to slip out at the action.

  “What have you done, you stupid girl!”

  Elspeth ignored that furious growl from her mother, and took a moment to let the pain recede enough for her to catch her breath. She then grabbed the edge of the mattress next to her and used it to help pull, then push herself to her feet.

  Clutching the bloody knife in her hand, Elspeth turned to face Martine and in a voice devoid of emotion, asked, “Did you want something, Mother?”

  There was no mistaking the fury on Martine’s face as she glared at her. Elspeth could actually hear her grinding her teeth. Then her expression set, and she said coldly, “I will speak to you later.”

  Her mother whirled away to storm out, but came up short, and snapped, “Get out of my way!”

  It was only then that Elspeth saw Sam and Alex standing outside the open door. The two women parted for Martine to pass, then watched her walk up the hall before turning to look into the room.

  “Damn!” Sam said at once when her gaze landed on Elspeth’s leg, and then she rushed inside with
Alex on her heels.

  Grimacing, Elspeth set the steak knife on the bedside table, and then turned back with surprise when she felt something touch her leg. Wyatt had dragged himself across the bed and was now lifting her nightgown to examine her leg, she saw with a scowl.

  “You’re not supposed to—”

  “Stand up,” he finished for her tersely. “And I’m not.”

  Elspeth swallowed down the rest of her concern, and glanced at Sam and Alex as they paused beside her and bent to look at her leg as well.

  “Why is there so little blood?” Wyatt asked with a frown, running one finger lightly down her leg next to the path of blood dribbling down toward her knee. Glancing up with an expression of realization, he said, “There wasn’t a lot of blood the last time she stabbed herself either.”

  “The nanos close all wounds as quickly as possible,” Sam told him solemnly. “They don’t like their host to lose blood, so do whatever is necessary to hold on to as much as possible when something like this happens.”

  Wyatt’s eyebrows rose at this news and then he lifted his gaze to Elspeth’s face. “Then why was there blood all over your car seat the night we had dinner with Violet and Oscar? There was a lot of blood then.”

  “Oh,” Elspeth said with surprise. She’d thought she’d sat on it quickly enough to keep him from seeing it the night he’d followed her to her car. “That was because the guy who stabbed me twisted the knife like he was coring an apple. He left a big hole rather than just a deep cut like this one. The nanos had to close the wound to stop the blood loss, but a lot got out before they could do that.”

  “We have to do something about Martine,” Alex said suddenly, and when they all looked at her she met Elspeth’s gaze and said, “This is ridiculous. You can’t keep stabbing yourself, Ellie. Besides, I suspect next time she’ll sneak up on you and take control before you even know she’s there.”