by Lynsay Sands
“What?” Marcus asked with disbelief, sitting up again.
Vincent pushed him back down almost automatically, his attention on his thoughts and trying to express them. “She has a very . . .” He paused, hesitated, and then tried again, “Her mind is rather . . .”
“Rather what?” Marcus snapped impatiently, sitting up again, only to have Vincent absently push him back flat in bed again as if it were little effort at all. He might be healed, but he obviously hadn’t regained full strength yet if Vincent could handle him so easily, he thought with disgust, and then glanced sharply at Vincent as the man started to speak again.
“I’ve never been able to read someone as old as Divine appears to be,” he said finally. “Her mind is . . .” Vincent grimaced and then said, “Well, frankly, it’s a weird combination of almost anal organization and complete disorganization at the same time.”
“How could she be both organized and disorganized?” Marcus demanded impatiently, sitting up again.
“It’s weird, I’ll admit,” Vincent said, pushing him back in the bed once more, and then sitting down on the edge of the bed beside him and leaning his weight on his elbow on Marcus’s stomach as if it were a pillow. The move ensured Marcus wouldn’t rear up again, which was apparently the man’s intent. But he looked damned pleased with himself as he did it. “But I think it might be a result of the length of her life.”
“The length?” Marcus asked with a frown. “How old is she?”
Vincent shook his head. “Not sure, but she’s old. There are memories in her head dating way back. She’s spent her life always moving from one place to another, always amongst nomadic, mortal tribes. She’s traveled with the Wu Hu, Huns, Magyars, Romani, carnies.” He gave a crooked shrug, his elbow digging into Marcus’s stomach. “There are far too many to list them all.”
“Try,” Marcus said dryly.
“What’s more interesting,” Vincent went on as if he hadn’t spoken, “is that in every section or chapter of her life, she’s had a different name that was her name. Now, and since she began traveling with carnies, it’s been Madame Divine and the moment she became Divine, she was no longer whoever she was in the previous chapter of her life. With the Romani it was Nuri, which means Gypsy, which is what the Romani are and how she’s lived her whole life as far as I can tell.”
“Nuri,” Marcus murmured.
Vincent nodded. “As far as she was concerned that was her name while she traveled with the Romani and her previous name and life no longer existed.” He pursed his lips and then commented, “It’s almost dissociative.”
Marcus scowled at the comment. “When did you get your psychology degree, Dr. Freud?”
“No degree yet,” Vincent admitted cheerfully. “But I’ve been taking some night courses the last year or two and have a little psychology under my belt.”
“There’s nothing more dangerous in this world than ‘a little’ knowledge,” Marcus growled.
Vincent heaved a dramatic sigh, showing his acting roots, and then perched his chin on the heel of his palm and arched one eyebrow. “Since you’re obviously cranky, I shall skip to just the facts. She’s in the next bedroom sleeping after her own bout with healing.”
“What?” Marcus sat up abruptly, despite Vincent’s weight on him. “Healing from what?”
“You shouldn’t be up yet,” Vincent said with a scowl as Marcus tossed his sheets and blankets aside and sat up on the side of the bed.
“Screw you,” Marcus snapped, looking around for his clothes. “What is she healing from?”
“The wounds you gave her,” Vincent said grimly as Marcus stood up.
That brought him up short and Marcus turned to stare at him wide-eyed as Vincent walked around the bed toward him. “Wounds I gave her?”
Nodding, the younger man gave him a push that sent him toppling to sit on the side of the bed again. Bending then, Vincent grabbed his now unresisting legs and lifted them onto the bed, turning him on it as he did. He then covered him up and announced. “You gouged out some nice striations on her chest after drinking the blood when you got here. I gather from what I read of her mind, those weren’t the first injuries you gave her. While you were out of your head healing in the SUV, you did some serious damage. She was suffering and in serious need of blood herself, though we didn’t realize that at first.”
Finished tucking him in, Vincent sat on the side of the bed again, eyed him solemnly, and said, “The woman is very good at hiding her pain. And judging by some of the memories I caught glimpses of, it comes from practice.”
“What does that mean?” Marcus asked with concern. “What did you see?”
The door opened then and they both glanced toward it to see Jackie walking in with a tray in hand. Marcus raised his head, his nose sniffing the air.
“I thought you’d be awake by now, I—” She paused abruptly, her gaze shooting to her husband as an alarm suddenly sounded in the house.
“What’s that?” Marcus asked, sitting up abruptly.
“The security alarm. Someone’s breached the gate,” Jackie said grimly, turning toward the dresser with her burden.
Marcus didn’t stay to watch her set it down, but leaped off the bed, and strode out of the room with Vincent hard on his heels.
“Where is she?” he growled, once in the hall.
“This one,” Vincent said, leading him to the next door on the right. The man wasn’t stupid enough to get between him and the woman in the room. He merely turned the knob and pushed the door open. Vincent then stepped back to allow Marcus to enter. It was a good thing too, since Marcus would have charged right over him in his bid to see that Divine was okay.
“Stay with her,” Vincent said after glancing to the unconscious woman in the bed. “Jackie and I will check out the breach. We’ll come back either when we catch someone or when it’s all clear.”
Marcus merely grunted, his attention on the restless woman in the bed. She wasn’t screaming or thrashing, but she wasn’t still either. Soft moans and murmurs of pain were leaving her lips and she was shifting this way and that in the bed, obviously still healing.
Vincent had said Marcus had hurt her, and the knowledge made him peer carefully over her face. When he didn’t see anything there, he reached for the top of the blanket covering her and tugged it down, revealing the peasant blouse she still wore. Like the one from that morning, this one was stained with dry blood, but more disturbing to him were the scars on her chest. They were fading even as he watched, but were obviously from deep scoring. It was as if he’d tried to dig deep trenches in her chest. Marcus could only imagine how much pain he’d caused her. It made him wonder about the other injuries Vincent had mentioned his having caused her. What had he done to the poor woman while out of his head after the fire?
The question made him tug the blanket lower. He’d intended to get a look at her arms that rested at her sides under the blanket, but instead his attention was caught by an even larger bloodstain below her left breast. It was dry now but had blossomed around a hole through the material there. She’d obviously been stabbed with something.
How the hell had he missed this earlier and not questioned her? he wondered with dismay, and then, thinking back, recalled that she’d been wearing a leather jacket over the top when he’d woken up. His leather jacket, he thought now. The desert got chilly at night and she may have donned it for that reason, but it had done a fine job of hiding all of this too.
“All clear,” Jackie announced, suddenly appearing in the door.
“Video shows two men climbing the fence and then fleeing when the alarm sounded. Good thing Jackie insisted on alarming the fence and yard as well as the house after that business when she was turned,” Vincent added, pausing behind her, one hand on her shoulder.
Marcus glanced to the couple and nodded. He had been there for “that business” and wasn’t surprised that Jackie had ramped up the security since then. The culprit who had attacked her might now be caught and
taken care of, but an experience like that could haunt a person and make him more cautious. His gaze slid back to Divine, and he asked, “Did I do this to her?”
“You were out of your head,” Vincent said at once, slipping past Jackie to move to his side. “She doesn’t hold you responsible.”
She might not, but he felt guilty as hell for it and asked grimly, “What did I stab her with?”
“I gather it was an arrow, or a bolt I guess,” Vincent said, peering at the wound and then bending to tug the peasant blouse out of her skirt and up so that he could get a look at the wound. It was further along in healing than the striations in her chest.
“Where the hell did I get— Oh,” Marcus ended on a mutter as he recalled the weapons box built into the floor beside the refrigerator. Every SUV had one; his held a gun, knife, and bows with specially made bolts, the tips painted with a drug strong enough to knock out an immortal, if only temporarily.
“I gather the two of you were struggling and you opened the weapons box, grabbed the first thing, and stabbed her. Fortunately, you stabbed her with the wrong end, and accidentally stuck yourself with the drugged tip while doing it,” Vincent announced, straightening. “Which is probably a good thing. You passed out and she was able to get into town and buy chains, then chain you down before you came to.”
Marcus grunted, and then muttered, “I’m surprised she didn’t use them to stake and bake me out in the desert if I did all of this to her.”
Vincent actually smiled faintly at the suggestion, but shook his head. “She doesn’t seem the type.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Jackie agreed, and when Marcus glanced to her, the woman added, “She was very caring with you when you passed out and we brought you up here. And the memories we can read suggest she’s like that with everyone. Divine’s a mothering type, taking care of and helping everyone she encounters.” She paused briefly to peer at Divine’s face and then frowned. “If she is Basha Argeneau, than I think Lucian must be wrong about her being rogue.”
Marcus had been coming to the same conclusion himself, but had feared his decisions were biased by the fact that she was probably his life mate. Still, a woman who did what she could to help pretty much every mortal she encountered just didn’t seem to be the type to hang out with and harbor an animal like Leonius Livius. She wouldn’t align herself with a man who brutally sliced up and slaughtered whole families. Perhaps she wasn’t Basha. That was a good thing.
They were all silent for a moment, each of them peering at Divine, and then Jackie said quietly, almost apologetically, “We need to sort out what is going on here. Who set the RV on fire? Were they after you or her? Is it likely it was the same people who broke in here? Could they have followed you?”
When Marcus frowned but didn’t respond, Vincent said. “She’s right, my friend. We need to know what we’re dealing with here. Whether we need more people, more security, more weapons.”
“Yes, yes, and yes,” Marcus said at once. He definitely wanted anything and everything they could get here to keep Divine safe. Running one hand through his sleep-ruffled hair, he dropped to sit on the side of the bed and quickly began to recount everything that had happened since arriving at the carnival. He faltered, however, when he got to the part about his taking bagged blood to Divine, and barging into her RV with his offering without waiting for her to invite him. Just recalling what had happened then was enough to make him want to moan in remembered agony.
It was Vincent who said what he couldn’t. “But she went at you with a mop for not waiting for permission to enter and burst one of your baby makers.”
Marcus winced at the memory. “Yeah. Hurt like hell too.”
“I can imagine,” Vincent said, and Marcus noticed that he unconsciously squeezed his legs together as if his own baby makers were shriveling in sympathy.
A choked sound, suspiciously like a laugh, came from Jackie, and both men turned to glance at her with matching expressions of outrage.
“Having your ball busted is no laughing matter, Jackie,” Vincent said with a frown.
“I’m sorry,” she said at once, her expression truly apologetic, but then that expression slipped away and she gave a little laugh and said, “It’s just—I mean, men are always calling women ball busters, and usually when they don’t deserve it, and now Divine has actually earned the title and it’s just . . . not funny at all,” Jackie ended solemnly when she noted their expressions. Shaking her head, she added, “Definitely not funny.”
“Hmm,” Vincent muttered, not appearing mollified.
Jackie cleared her throat and said, “But she didn’t mean to . . . er . . . bust your ball.”
“No,” Marcus acknowledged. “I don’t think she did.”
“And she took care of you afterward, putting you in her bed to heal,” she pointed out.
“Yes, she did,” Marcus agreed. “And that’s where I was when a man entered the RV. At first I thought it was Divine and just laid there waiting for her to say or do something, but then I caught a whiff of the person and knew it definitely wasn’t Divine.”
“Did you see who it was?” Jackie asked, moving closer to the bed.
Marcus shook his head. “I opened my eyes when the door closed but they had gone. I got up to go after them then, intending to find out who it had been, and that’s when the RV went up in flames.”
“But they saw that it was you in the bed not Divine?” Jackie asked with a frown.
“I don’t think so,” Marcus said at once. “I was burrowed into the covers, most of my face even under it. Only my forehead and hair stuck out a bit and it was dark in there.” He shook his head. “I’m pretty sure they didn’t know who was in the bed. They probably noted the lump under the covers, presumed it was her, and left to set the fire.”
“So two attacks on her in one day?” Vincent said thoughtfully.
“Two attacks in two nights,” Marcus corrected. “I’m pretty sure she must have taken the head wound right after we returned from town Thursday night.”
Jackie didn’t look certain about this. “So you think what? That she was attacked on returning and somehow rode off on her motorcycle? You said she returned on it the next day, right?”
“Yeah.” Marcus knew it didn’t make sense. The amount of blood in the RV and dried in her hair had suggested a terrible wound. One she wouldn’t have been able to walk away from, let alone jump on a motorcycle and ride away from. Besides, where had her attacker gone? What had they done while she was escaping? The motorcycle had been gone and the RV dark and silent when he’d got to it intending to return her helmet. It couldn’t have taken him more than ten or fifteen minutes to get to her RV after she’d dropped him off. That wasn’t a lot of time. Whatever had happened, had happened quickly. Glancing from Jackie to Vincent he asked, “Did you see anything about the attack in her memories?”
“No,” Vincent admitted. “But then I wasn’t really looking for anything specific, and as I said, her thoughts and memories are sort of organized and disorganized at the same time. She . . .”
When his voice trailed off, Marcus followed the man’s gaze to Jackie to find her staring hard at Divine with concentration. She was reading her now, he realized and almost protested, but the donning horror on Jackie’s face stopped him. He watched with a sickening knot growing in his stomach as Jackie paled, then flushed, then paled again, this time actually going a bloodless gray before she suddenly turned away and rushed for the bathroom.
“Well, that can’t be good,” Vincent muttered, hurrying after her as they heard her retching.
Marcus glanced back to Divine and then followed the couple. He watched silently as Vincent held Jackie’s hair back as she lost whatever meal she’d last eaten. He waited as Vincent murmured soothing words and dampened a cloth to wash her now flushed face, then just as he was about to ask what she’d seen, Jackie glanced to him, swallowed, and, voice husky, said, “She isn’t harboring Leonius. She’s one of his victims and the man is an anima
l. Worse, a monster. The things he did to her, at least the little bit I saw . . .” She shook her head. “She’d never harbor someone like that. He—”
The rest of what she would have said was lost as she turned and retched into the toilet again.
Vincent immediately dropped the cloth he’d used to wipe her face, slid his arm around her shoulders again, and murmured soothingly as he held her hair back. Marcus turned away from the scene to peer at Divine in the bed, wondering what the hell Jackie had seen.
Twelve
Divine woke up making a strangled sound she recognized at once as a scream caught in her throat. She’d woken up like that many times over the years. She used to wake up like that daily, surfacing from nightmares that claimed her while she slept. But they’d waned over the centuries and millennia. She rarely had them anymore. She supposed it was the pain of healing that had brought them back now.
Pushing the dark memories determinedly from her consciousness, Divine concentrated on the here and now instead, taking careful note of the room she was in. It was the same rose-colored room Jackie and Vincent had shown her to before chaining her down so she wouldn’t hurt herself and giving her the bagged blood. The chains were gone now, she noted, probably removed once the worst of the healing had ended.
That was a good sign, she decided. It meant they had no idea she was the Basha Argeneau they were looking for.
Sighing, Divine sat up, pushed the sheets aside and grimaced at her bloodstained clothes. She looked like a two-year-old wearing her last meal. Wrinkling her nose with distaste at the nasty dry stuff, she slid out of bed and then headed for the bathroom Jackie had pointed out earlier. She’d considered showering and stripping then, but it had seemed a waste of time at that point when she knew that the healing would leave her feeling slimy and dirty anyway. It always did as impurities and damaged tissue were broken down and pushed out through the pores.
Jackie and Vincent would probably have to throw out the linens and beds she and Marcus had lain in while healing . . . unless they had really good bed protectors. She hoped they did. She’d hate to think she’d cost them anything. Maybe she should give them money for their trouble, Divine thought as she turned on the shower and stripped off her clothes.
