Twice Bitten

by Lynsay Sands

  "I'm not sure," Rachel admitted, her narrowed gaze sliding over his bare chest. "I don't see a gunshot or any other kind of wound."

  "Could it be his feet?" Sam asked, getting out of the SUV now that she'd shut off the engine.

  "His feet?" Rachel glanced down toward his feet, and then stood to move down and kneel behind them for a better look.

  The way the woman drew air in on an alarmed hiss didn't bode well, Elspeth decided with concern. "Are they very bad?"

  "I'd say so," Rachel said grimly. "I'm not surprised he passed out if he tried to walk on that."

  "He walked to the SUV okay," Elspeth said with a frown. "He limped a little, but seemed fine."

  "Adrenaline," Rachel guessed. "Or shock. We'd better get him inside."

  Nodding, Elspeth bent and scooped him up. She was carrying him around the SUV when she remembered Meredith. Pausing, she turned toward the back passenger door.

  "I'll get her," Julianna said at once, seeming to recognize the problem.

  Elspeth waited until her sister had opened the door and leaned in to pick up Wyatt's grandmother, before turning to carry Wyatt inside.

  "Mom's on the phone putting in an order for extra blood. Follow me and I'll show you which room to put him in," Lissianna said, slipping past her to lead the way.

  Elspeth followed silently, her attention shifting between Wyatt's face and the stairs she was mounting. He was awfully pale, and even unconscious his face showed signs of pain. It made Elspeth wonder just how bad his feet were.

  "Do you want me to show the others to rooms, Liss?"

  Elspeth glanced back at the people crowded into the entry, her gaze sliding over them briefly. Aside from Sam, Alex, Victoria, and Julianna carrying Meredith, she recognized her cousin Christian's wife, Carolyn, Lissianna's husband, Greg, Rachel's husband, Etienne, and Marguerite's husband, Julius. It was Carolyn who had asked the question, and Lissianna nodded. "Yes, please, Caro. Thanks."

  They reached the top of the stairs then and moved much more quickly up the hall, leaving the others behind.

  "We didn't know whether to put you and Wyatt in the same room or not, so gave you connecting rooms," Lissianna said as she opened a door halfway up the hall and stepped aside for her to enter.

  "Thanks," Elspeth murmured, slipping past her to carry Wyatt to the bed. She had no idea what else to say. She didn't know herself if they should have been given one room or two. She didn't know much of anything at that point except that Wyatt needed tending.

  "Do you have anything for pain?" Elspeth asked as she watched Rachel hurry ahead of her to pull back the sheet and duvet for her to lay Wyatt down.

  "Not for mortals," Rachel admitted with a frown as she watched Elspeth set him gently down and straighten.

  "I'll call Bastien and see if he can have something sent over," Lissianna said, heading for the door.

  "You'd better ask for antiseptic, antibiotics, and bandages while you're at it," Rachel called after her.

  "Will do," Lissianna responded, but Elspeth barely heard her. She'd moved to the foot of the bed to look at Wyatt's feet, and the sight of them shocked the breath right out of her.

  "You looked worse after you were run over," Rachel said as she bent to lift one of his feet and look it over. Setting it back to pick up the other, she grimaced and said, "Or at least as bad."

  "I'm immortal. Wyatt's not," Elspeth pointed out and then leaned closer. "Is that glass?"

  "Yes, it's ground into the burns and . . ." She shifted his foot, and frowned. "It looks like he was burned, ran through glass, and then was burned again. Some of the blisters formed around the glass." Turning to Elspeth, she asked, "He ran through fire?"

  She nodded solemnly. "Carrying me. I suppose the glass would have come from the French doors. It had to have been broken for the Molotov cocktail to be thrown through, or would have been broken by the firebomb itself, I suppose."

  Nodding, Rachel set Wyatt's foot down and straightened. "I'm going to go see if Aunt Marguerite has something to help me clean his feet. If not, I'll have Bastien arrange for that to be sent over as well."

  "Will they have things like that at Argeneau Enterprises?" Elspeth asked dubiously.

  "If not, he'll send someone to fetch them," Rachel assured her. "And it's better than harassing Mortimer to look into it. He has enough on his plate."

  Elspeth nodded, but didn't take her eyes off Wyatt's feet, very aware that he'd got injured saving her. She'd come out without a scratch while his feet had been butchered. And it wasn't just the bottoms of his feet that had suffered for his heroism. The tops of his feet, his ankles and his lower legs were black and blistered from the flames as well.

  Wyatt's body jerked and Elspeth glanced to his face to see that his eyes were open. He'd woken up. Judging by his expression, it wasn't a pleasant awakening. He hid that quickly behind a crooked smile, though, and managed to croak, "Hi."

  "Hi yourself," Elspeth murmured, moving up to the head of the bed as he frowned at the weak sound to his own voice and cleared his throat. "How bad is the pain?"

  "I've had worse," he said with a shrug.

  Elspeth didn't question that. She could see a thin line on his stomach, an old scar, and she'd felt more on his back as she'd carried him in. There had been a large swath of ridges and puckered skin that suggested he'd suffered a serious injury at some time.

  "A knife wound," Wyatt said, noting that she was looking at the scar on his stomach. "I got it as a bodyguard, not as a soldier."

  "And the scar on your back?" she asked.

  "Which one?" he countered with wry humor and then shrugged and said, "One's a gunshot wound. One's from an explosion. All of my scars are from my work as a bodyguard. It might seem ironic that I managed to make it through all those dangerous missions in JTF2 without a scar, but I always had good backup in JTF2."

  "Not as a bodyguard?" she asked.

  "No. Not so much," he said with a wry smile. "Many bodyguards are hired because they're big and look tough. A lot aren't trained properly, if at all. Others just don't really give a shit. They're there to pass the time and collect a paycheck. Those do half-assed or sloppy jobs, and get themselves and others hurt or killed."

  Elspeth frowned. It sounded dangerous to her. "Then why do it at all?"

  "Because I'm good at it," he said solemnly. "I do care, I don't do a half-assed or sloppy job, and every once in a while I get to make a difference and save a life."

  Elspeth nodded silently.

  "Sit with me," he said softly, and held up his hand. When Elspeth took it and settled carefully on the side of the bed, he asked, "Why did you take criminology?"

  Elspeth smiled faintly. "I didn't intend to. Originally I was taking accounting."

  "You don't seem like the accountant type to me," he admitted with a slight smile.

  "No," she agreed. "But it's what my mother wanted me to take. She wanted me to work for my father's company."

  "Ah," he murmured, rubbing his thumb back and forth over the top of her hand. "So, how did you end up in criminology?"

  "I had to take classes from the different fields to get my degree. I chose criminology as one of them my first term and . . . I liked it," she admitted with a grin. "I took a couple more criminology classes the second term to test the waters and . . ." She shrugged. "I changed my major after that."

  "I bet your mother didn't like that," he said with amusement.

  "I didn't tell her," Elspeth admitted, her grin widening. "She used to check my schedule at the beginning of each term to see the times and days I would have to be in class, but she never looked at the class names themselves, so didn't know until I told her . . . the day before I received my doctorate."

  Wyatt chuckled softly. "I bet she didn't take that well."

  "The understatement of the year," Elspeth said with amusement. "I thought she was going to kill me. I swear I saw steam coming out of her ears."

  "So, you got your doctorate and decided to teach," he said thought
fully.

  "No. I got my doctorate and Mother insisted all it was good for was teaching. No daughter of hers was hanging out with mortal criminal trash." Elspeth grimaced. "The way she talked about it, you'd think I would be joining a gang or something if I did anything with my degree but teach."

  "But you want to use it with the Enforcers," he suggested.

  Elspeth nodded solemnly. "Of course. Although I might have done better to take psychology to do that. Most rogues are crazy."

  "Is that the technical term?" he teased.

  Elspeth smiled and opened her mouth to respond, but paused and glanced toward the door when it opened.

  "Sorry I took so long," Rachel said, striding into the room, carrying a tray with several items on it. "Marguerite didn't have any antiseptic or antibiotics so I had to mix up my own using honey, tea tree oil, and--Oh! He's awake."

  "Yes, I am," Wyatt said with a smile. "Nice to see you again, Dr. Rachel. Sorry to be the patient this time, though."

  "I don't blame you," she admitted, carrying her tray to the foot of the bed and setting it down next to his feet. "You really did a number on yourself. How bad is the pain?"

  "I'll survive," he said with a shrug.

  "That's not an answer," she said in a dry voice, and then tried again, asking, "On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain?"

  "Five, maybe," he said.

  "Uh-huh," Rachel said with disbelief, and knelt at the end of the bed. She picked up a pair of tweezers off the tray, did something to his foot, and then asked, "And now?"

  Elspeth turned her head quickly back to Wyatt when his body jerked stiff and he spat out a vile curse.

  "That's what I thought," she said dryly. "We'll have to wait for Lissianna to get here. She can keep you from feeling the pain until the painkillers arrive."

  "Go ahead and start," Wyatt said through gritted teeth. "I can take it."

  "I'm sure you can," Rachel said with dry amusement. "But I don't think I could, so we'll wait for Lissianna."

  "I'm here," Lissianna said, joining them now. "Bastien is sending a delivery over right away. The pain meds should be here soon."

  "Great, thanks," Rachel said, and then glanced to Elspeth. "You might not want to be here for this."

  "I put a couple of nightgowns and some clothes in the room next door for you," Lissianna said as she settled on the opposite side of the bed to sit next to Wyatt, with her back against the headboard. "And you might want to take a shower too, or at least wash your face."

  Elspeth's eyebrows rose at the suggestion, and when she glanced down at Wyatt he grinned. "You look adorable to me."

  Grimacing, she stood up at once and started toward the door to the connecting bathroom. "I'll go wash and change."

  "Right," Rachel said, her tone all businesslike. "Put him under, Lissi."

  Pausing abruptly, Elspeth turned back with a frown. "I thought Lissi was just supposed to help with the pain, not put him under altogether?"

  "It's because of what Dr. Rachel has to do," Wyatt said solemnly when both women looked at each other and didn't answer at once.

  "You know?" Rachel asked with surprise.

  "Been through it before," he told her solemnly. "My back. Got caught too close to a car explosion, sustained second-and third-degree burns," he explained. "And my shirt and jacket were melted into my skin."

  When Rachel winced and nodded, Elspeth asked, "What do you have to do?"

  "Remove the pieces of glass and clean his feet and lower legs," Rachel said quietly.

  "By clean she means peel away the burnt cloth, as well as the worst of the burnt skin," Wyatt explained, his voice resigned.

  Elspeth's eyes widened with dismay as she recalled a conversation she'd once had with Rachel. She'd asked if she ever wished she worked with living patients rather than the dead she dealt with in her job at the morgue, and Rachel had smiled wryly and admitted, "Every once in a while I do . . . but then I just pop up to the burn unit and listen to the agonized screams coming from the 'tub room' for a minute or two and I leave knowing I made the right choice. I'm too empathetic. I can't handle seeing or even hearing people suffer."

  "What is the tub room?" Elspeth had asked.

  "It's where the nurses scrub the wounds of the burn victims and peel away their dead skin," she'd explained. "And the screams from that room . . ." She shook her head. "It sounds like you've stepped through the gates of hell."

  "Or, you could turn him."

  Pulled from the memory, Elspeth glanced to Rachel with wide eyes. "What?"

  "Well, he is your life mate," she pointed out. "If you turn him now it would speed the healing, save him this pain at least, and I wouldn't have to spend hours torturing the man."

  Elspeth frowned at the suggestion. Everything was moving so fast. She wasn't ready to claim a life mate. She wanted to enjoy some freedom first. But she didn't want Wyatt to suffer either. In fact, the very thought was unbearable to her. There really didn't seem to be a choice here, Elspeth decided, and started to nod.

  "No," Wyatt said firmly, startling her. When Elspeth glanced to him with surprise, he shook his head. "I don't want you to turn me just to save me pain. If you do it, it will be for the right reason. Not because you feel sorry for me."

  "Right." Rachel sighed and shook her head, obviously thinking them both idiots. "Go shower, Elspeth. You don't need to be here for this."

  Elspeth hesitated and glanced to Wyatt, but his face was now blank while Lissianna's was concentrated. She'd put him under, Elspeth realized, and hesitated another moment, but then turned and headed into the connecting bathroom. Wyatt had taken the decision from her. She couldn't turn him against his wishes. She should have been relieved at not being forced into accepting him as her life mate and turning him. Instead, she was oddly disappointed.

  Strange, Elspeth thought as she closed the door behind her, and then she turned and spotted her reflection in the mirror, and her eyes widened incredulously as she took in the circle of soot on her face and the way her hair was standing up in all directions.

  "Adorable my foot," she muttered, swinging toward the tub and turning on the taps.

  Elspeth was sleeping fitfully when a knock sounded at the door, waking her. Sitting up, she pushed the covers aside just as it opened and Lissianna poked her head in.

  "Is it done?" Elspeth asked, slipping her feet off the bed and standing up.

  "Yes." Lissianna smiled wearily. "Rachel managed to remove all the glass, peeled away a lot of the dead skin, and then bandaged him up. She's given him some painkillers and antibiotics to prevent infection and now we're going to lie down for a bit."

  Nodding, Elspeth walked toward her. She'd returned to the room after taking a bath and dressing in the white linen nightgown Lissianna had left on the bed for her. But Rachel had suggested she sleep so that she could sit with Wyatt once they'd finished tending him. As it turned out, tending him had taken all night, Elspeth noted, glancing back at the clock on the bedside table. It was now seven o'clock in the morning. Everyone would be sleeping by now. Except perhaps Meredith, she thought with a sudden frown.

  "Meredith will sleep for a while. She woke up about three hours ago and Mother gave her a sleeping pill," Lissianna said, obviously having read her thoughts. Backing out of the doorway for her to leave the room, she added, "Wyatt is hungry. I was going to toast him a bagel or something, but thought I'd see if you wanted something too."

  "Yes, actually," Elspeth said with a smile of relief. If he was hungry, he must be feeling all right, and she was hungry. "But I'll make it for both of us. You're exhausted. Why don't you go on to bed?"

  "I am exhausted," Lissianna admitted on a sigh. "Keeping him under while not feeling his pain was a lot more exhausting than I expected."

  "Then go to bed," she said sympathetically.

  Lissianna shook her head. "I want a drink first."

  "Oh." Elspeth frowned to herself as they walked up the hall to the stairs. She should have thought of that and taken t
he two women drinks and food after the first couple of hours.

  "No, you shouldn't," Lissianna said as if she'd spoken aloud. "The idea was for you to sleep so you could sit with him when we were done. You couldn't sleep and fetch us snacks."

  They fell silent as they descended the stairs, but as they started up the hall toward the kitchen, Lissianna said, "Rachel says G.G. told her that you aren't ready for a life mate, that you want to date and experience life before settling down."

  "Yes," Elspeth murmured and grimaced. "I'm young yet to have to settle down with a life mate. I want to do things, go places, and experience stuff before that."

  "Interesting," Lissianna murmured.

  Elspeth arched an eyebrow. "What's interesting?"

  "Well, you didn't seem to feel that way when I met Greg," she said solemnly. "In fact, you said you were jealous and couldn't wait to meet your life mate."

  "Did I?" she asked with surprise, not recalling that.

  "Yes. Right here in this kitchen, in fact," she said with a smile as they entered the room. "I was making a snack for Greg and me, and you came in to get a drink and said you thought I was very lucky, and only hoped you got so lucky soon."

  Elspeth frowned as she moved to the coffeepot and started to make a fresh pot. She actually had a vague recollection of what Lissianna was talking about . . . now that she'd mentioned it.

  "So, what changed your mind?"

  Elspeth glanced to her uncertainly as she finished with the coffee and opened the bread box to retrieve the mentioned bagels. "What do you mean?"

  "Well, something must have happened to change your mind about wanting a life mate. What was it? And when did it happen?"

  Elspeth frowned and took three bagels out of the bag as she admitted, "I'm not sure."

  "Well, it must have been after Jeanne Louise met her Paul," Lissianna said now. "Because you said pretty much the same thing at the wedding shower we held for her. That you were jealous and eager to meet your own mate."

  "Yes, I did, didn't I?" Elspeth murmured thoughtfully, as she pulled a steak knife from the knife block and sliced the bagels. She remembered that as well now that Lissianna mentioned it, she thought as she set the halves of the first two bagels in the four-slice toaster. Elspeth distinctly remembered saying she was jealous of Jeanne Louise finding her life mate so young, and she'd meant it.