Slade

by Sarah McCarty

  Oh God! Had they been found?.

  Don’t see us. Don’t see us. Don’t see us.

  With a shaking hand, she rested her palm on his stomach. She could see his intestines through the hole.

  “What were you doing so far from everyone else?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “It’s just your bad luck that I’m the one that found you. I don’t know what to do to help you.”

  She tried probing his mind, but it was as if he’d already left his body. The anguish that struck her was unimaginable. She felt as if her soul were being shredded. Placing her palm over the gaping wound, she tried to hold him together. She wouldn’t lose him like this. Not like this.

  Then you need to make another choice.

  Creed’s words came back to haunt her. She’d been so confident in her decision, so focused on what she wouldn’t be she hadn’t realized what she would be without Slade. A woman without her soul.

  Bracing her hands on either side of Slade’s chest, she angled up, placing her lips on his cold unresponsive ones. “You don’t get to be right at the expense of us.”

  Focusing all her energy, she sent one thought into his mind. Live.

  His mouth felt foreign beneath hers. Like a stranger’s. With her sleeve she wiped the smear of sunscreen from her lips. Leaves rustled in the breeze. A crow cawed. There were no sounds of battle, but beyond the one that had woken her up, there really hadn’t been any. At any other time, she would have been impressed that so vicious a war could take place so far below human radar. But right now she was just panicked. And she needed help.

  Slade needed blood. Vampires self-healed if they had enough blood. That’s what all the best movies decreed. She rubbed her neck and then her wrist as she considered her options. Her stomach heaved as she knelt beside his head. Fear raged right alongside hope. She really wasn’t GI Jane, and she really wasn’t good with pain. She hated it. “Don’t bite my hand off.”

  Closing her eyes, she put her wrist against Slade’s mouth and raked his fang against her skin. Biting her free hand, she smothered her gasp. It didn’t just hurt, it burned like acid.

  She kept her hand there, letting her blood drip on his tongue, horror and determination vying for dominance.

  Slade didn’t take the bait.

  “Goddamnit, Slade, drink.” There was no flux in his energy or his muscles. “I don’t know how long I can hold them off.”

  Just saying it freaked her out. She wasn’t Wonder Woman. She didn’t have supernatural powers, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was the one making them invisible. It could be yet another residual delusion courtesy of whatever Slade had used to knock her out, but there was comfort in thinking she had some control, so she didn’t completely dismiss the notion.

  Pressing her hand against his mouth, she tried again to get through to him. “I’m not an outside kind of girl, you know. I’m more the kind that sits back and asks someone else to fix things. But, seeing as there’s no one else around, you’re going to have to help out here, Slade, because I don’t know what I’m doing and you’re dying.” Tears clogged her throat. “And I can’t live with that.”

  “But you expect him to go through forever without you.”

  Tobias. Jane never thought she’d be so happy to see the enigmatic werewolf. Wiping her tears on her sleeve, she sat back. “He’s dying.”

  “I know.”

  Catching her arm, he lifted her away from Slade and turned her toward him, keeping her arm elevated so she couldn’t catch her balance. Men come out of the woods, forming a solid wall between her and Slade. Those strange eyes of his studied her from head to toe.

  She yanked at her arm. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Like what?”

  “Like I’m some strange species of bug you’ve just discovered.”

  He let her go. “You definitely have hidden talents.”

  Rubbing at her arm, she muttered, “That wouldn’t come as a surprise to you if you didn’t automatically assume you knew everything.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Try as she might Jane couldn’t see what the men were doing. She wanted to pick them up and hurl them aside. She wanted to scream at them to move. More than anything she wanted to see what they were doing.

  “You don’t need to see.” Tobias had been reading her mind.

  “You don’t know what I want.”

  “You want him to live.”

  Duh! “Will he?”

  Tobias shrugged. “He’s still alive.”

  “How do you know?”

  Instead of answering, he knelt beside Slade. Men moved aside, giving him room. It was a gesture of faith and trust. She wished Tobias didn’t irritate her so. She could use a bit of that confidence right now. Tobias ran his hands slowly over Slade’s torso and legs, searching for something. Whatever it was, she hoped he found it. The men fell back in around Slade, blocking her view. She needed them to move. Inside, the energy built.

  “Don’t interfere if you want him to live,” Tobias ordered.

  “I’m not doing anything.”

  His head cocked to the side. “You don’t know, do you?”

  She just shook her head.

  “That means it’s new.”

  “What’s new?”

  The only response he gave was a cryptic. “Interesting.”

  “I can’t even feel his energy,” she whispered.

  “He’s got it blocked,” Tobias answered, his tone as even as always. Reaching into Slade’s pocket, he pulled out a small metal device with a green light on the tip.

  “Brace yourself.”

  Before she could ask “For what?” he pressed a button. The light died out. Energy blazed into her mind. Slade. She almost sobbed as the void filled with Slade’s pain, Slade’s confusion, Slade’s worry. She covered her mouth. Even stretched out within kissing distance of death, the man was worried about her. And he was alive.

  Tobias passed the device to her. “Hold this.”

  She took it. It felt oddly heavy.

  “Now turn it on.”

  “Why?”

  “Humor me.”

  She did. Her eyebrow cocked up.

  “Interesting,” Tobias said again.

  Jane shot him an angry look. “You need to be helping Slade, not irritating me.”

  “Am I irritating you?”

  “Yes. And enjoying it if your expression is anything to go by.”

  “You don’t read people well, do you?”

  “I do fine with people. It’s werewolves that give me trouble.”

  As if on cue, Derek stepped into the little clearing. Like Tobias, he had presence. And like Tobias, he was intimidating, but unlike Tobias she knew he loved Slade. Tobias stood and made room for him. She watched as he knelt beside Slade. Sunlight gleamed off his blond hair. She reached for his energy. And found nothing. So either he had a device or he could block her, too.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood,” she called.

  “They can see that,” Tobias interrupted.

  “I told you before, leave me alone.”

  “You don’t have to worry. We won’t let him die.”

  “Pardon me if I don’t take your word for it.”

  Derek rolled up his sleeve. The men leaned in, Slade’s pack, Slade’s family all gathered around him. There was room for all of them at his side. But not for her.

  She blew out a breath. “I hate this.”

  To her surprise, Tobias took her hand. “I know.”

  Comfort flowed over her, dampening her panic and replacing it with a sense of... calm. She left her hand in his.

  “Are you sure he’s going to be all right?”

  “We got here in time.”

  “Good.”

  Again he gave her that strange look. “What are you thinking?”

  “That I don’t do Wonder Woman well.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. I was just thinking
you had potential.”

  She pulled her hand from his. “Then you’d be wrong.”

  Because, once again when it had mattered, she hadn’t been able to do a damned thing.

  16

  THEY were picked up by a convoy of heavily armored vehicles. No one spoke, which was fine with her. She was exhausted, shell-shocked. She’d killed two men—things. Almost lost Slade, and had a few home truths shoved down her throat by the events of the day. If she were an ostrich, she’d be standing with her head in the sand. Instead she was riding on the floor in the back of one of the vehicles, holding Slade’s hand, pretending she didn’t feel the censure of the others. She wasn’t alone in her assessment that she’d failed Slade.

  By the time they were halfway back to the compound, Jane realized everybody was also looking at her strangely. She didn’t care. She was too worried about Slade. He lay across the backseat too quiet. Too pale. His energy a mere echo of the force she was used to. She brought the back of his hand to her lips.

  Live, damn you.

  Tobias turned around from where he sat in the front. “You know a Johnson is too damned stubborn to die from a flesh wound like that.”

  “Two attempts at consolation in one day? Be careful, Tobias, or I might start thinking you’re a good guy.”

  “We wouldn’t want that.”

  She threaded her fingers through Slade’s unresponsive ones. “What was he doing out there alone so far from everyone else?”

  Leather creaked as Tobias shifted position. “He was pretending to be you.”

  “Please.”

  Tobias ran his hand through his hair. “Your mate is a very intelligent man, capable of many things. And what he’s not capable of physically, he finds a way to do mechanically.”

  “In other words,” Jace said from the far back, “he was able to project your presence.”

  “How would something like that work? I mean, as soon as somebody got close enough to ...”

  “See,” Tobias finished for her. “Yes, but we didn’t need them to believe it forever.”

  “If they thought we were sneaking you out, it would bring them all to one place,” Jace explained.

  “And give you the advantage you lost by being outnumbered,” she finished.

  “As I said, your mate is a very intelligent man.”

  And devoted to those he loved to the point he’d sacrifice his life without batting an eye. Stroking the backs of her fingertips across his forehead, she whispered, “He’s a scientist. He shouldn’t have been out there at all.”

  As soon as she said it, she knew it was wrong.

  I’m the badass vampire who can kick Sanctuary’s butt.

  Tobias snorted. “He’s a Johnson. They’re more outlaw than anything else.”

  Outlaw. Such an old-fashioned term. But then again Slade had been born one hundred and fifty years ago, and the majority of a person’s personality was formed in their first years of life. Slade’s had been formed in the Wild West where survival depended on a person’s ability to adapt. Slade was a master of adaptation.

  “I don’t really know him, do I?

  “You know what you need to.”

  “Which according to you is that he’s my mate.” She waved her hand in the air. “This mythical concept that disregards reality, circumstances, and events.”

  “Comforting, isn’t it?”

  She shook her head. “Not if you don’t believe in mates.”

  “A month ago you didn’t believe in vampires,” Jace offered quietly.

  “Has anyone ever told you that being logical during an emotional moment is irritating?”

  “Not recently.”

  “Well it is, and I can’t make a decision when I don’t agree with the concepts.”

  “I thought your decision was already made.”

  The SUV hit a bump. She jumped right along with it. Even though she was surrounded by Renegade soldiers, she still couldn’t shake the feeling that Sanctuary would be on them at any minute. With a trembling hand, she smoothed back the lock of hair that fell over Slade’s forehead.

  “I can’t do this, Tobias.”

  “Do what?”

  Again, she made a wave of her hand. The car hit another bump. She felt the touch of Slade’s energy. Stroking her fingers down his cheek, she debated turning off the energy masker that was still in her pocket.

  “They’re never going to stop coming after me, are they?”

  “And we won’t stop stopping them.”

  War. Never-ending war and always at the end of it the potential for destruction of an entire species. Because of her.

  What could she say except, “Thank you.”

  CALEB was waiting for them as they came into the yard. The look he gave her as he opened her door wasn’t strange, it was flat-out angry. It made for a refreshing change. Jane could deal with hostility.

  “What is it?”

  He held out his hand. She put hers in it. He half hauled, half helped her out of the SUV Then he reached for Slade. A muscle in his jaw bunched as he worked his hands under his brother and then slid him across the seat. Standing, he cradled Slade in his arms, his love for his brother etched in the anguish on his face. It was such a human moment, one that had been captured on camera time after time by war correspondents. And here it was playing over again. With vampires. More proof love wasn’t species specific. A horse in the paddock whinnied uncertainly.

  With a sharp nod of his head, Caleb turned on his heel and carried his brother toward his house. When Jane would have followed, Jace caught her arm.

  “Joseph is worse.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she could see Caleb reach Slade’s porch. In a minute she’d hear the squeak of the screen door.

  “How do you know?”

  “Allie just sent it over the system.”

  Clenching her fists against the need to bolt after Slade, she snapped, “I want one of those transceivers.”

  “You’ll have to ask Slade.”

  She couldn’t ask Slade anything. The screen door squeaked. They’d taken him away. “How bad is Joseph?”

  “Bad.”

  She stood there torn. Her heart said she needed to be with Slade. Her conscience pushed her toward Joseph.

  Jace’s tone softened. “Caleb will take care of Slade. He just needs time to heal.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Joseph needs you now.”

  Triage. She understood the concept of treating the most severe cases first. She was just having a hard time accepting it.

  “Joseph is dying.”

  The anguish in that statement brought her head up. Looking into Jace’s hazel eyes, she was struck by the realization that there was more than the warrior to the man. He was also an uncle. “You love him.”

  His head jerked back with surprise. Looking down his straight nose, he informed her, “Of course. He’s my nephew.”

  It was easy to see Slade in that gesture. “I’m sorry.” Running her fingers through her hair, she massaged the tension in her neck. “I’m just more used to seeing you as a soldier.”

  “Soldiers have families, too.”

  Yes, they did. And Jace and Joseph were Slade’s family. She really didn’t have a choice.

  “Take me to Joseph.”

  With a jerk of his chin, Jace indicated she should follow him up the path to the main house. She did, feeling that sense of déjà vu as a horse whickered a greeting from the corral. Her sneakers made little noise crossing the big porch. By the door, a board squeaked. Opening the front door, Jace waved her in.

  As the door closed behind him, Jace said, “Joseph is in the nursery.”

  The nursery was the third door on the right at the top of the curved stairway. She knew that from her previous visit. Stopping just inside the high-ceilinged foyer, Jane stood motionless and absorbed the energy of the house, mentally preparing herself for what was to come. “I just need a minute.”

  “I’m not sure Joseph has it to spare.”
r />   She forced a smile. “Then let’s get going.”

  Jace caught her arm. “Do me a favor.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t smile like that in front of Caleb and Allie.”

  “Not coming off confident?”

  “Not at all.”

  She nodded. “Then maybe we should nix the smiles.”

  “I would.” He led the way up the stairs. Caleb’s comfortable house. A house built for laughter. Joseph’s room was no different. Painted in pale yellow with accents of white and blue and a gingham crib set, it was a room reflecting the hopes of proud parents. But there was no laughter here. Just sadness. It echoed in the walls and from the rocker by the big windows. Allie sat in the rocker with Joseph, her cheek resting on his head. Looking completely normal in blue jeans and a pale blue tank. On the table beside the chair was an untouched bottle. Not looking up, Allie whispered, “He’s dying.”

  Yes, he was. Jane could feel it in the uneven fluctuation of his energy. “I’m sorry.”

  “Can’t you do something?”

  Controlling the anger at the pointlessness of this life leaving too soon, and the fear that she wouldn’t be able to stop it, Jane crossed to Allie’s side. Kneeling beside Allie, she pulled the blanket back from the baby’s face. His parents loved him so much, were going through so much to keep him alive, and he was over here in his own corner of the world fighting his own private battle. And he was losing.

  The old anger came back. She’d seen too many babies die, seen too many mothers look at her as Allie was right now in that warring combination of fear and hope. She’d felt this anger too many times. She didn’t know what to say. She touched Joseph’s cold little cheek. So pale and sunken, as if death felt the need to advertise its imminent arrival. Jane stood. Allie looked at her, the hope she couldn’t relinquish filling her gaze. No mother could give up that hope. Vampire or human, it didn’t matter. Jane couldn’t find the words Allie needed to hear. Turning on her heel, she left the room.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Jace demanded as she passed him at the door.