Lost (15 page)

I did the only
other thing I could do. I wrapped my left hand around a couple of his
ribs, and then I pulled myself up with my arms far enough that I
could whip both of my legs forward and sink both sets of talons into
the meat of his calves.

He was strong
enough to bear my weight along with his own, but the force of me
pushing on his right leg as he tried to pick it up was enough to trip
him up and both of us went crashing to the ground. Fortunately I was
on top this time and I scrambled forward, repositioning to where I
could get at his neck.

Less than five
seconds later he was dead.

Isaac Nazir
Unknown Bayou
Eastern Louisiana

I stumbled away
from the corpse of the lamia I'd been fighting and looked over to
Set, trying to judge his reaction.

"An
honorable fight. We will take your group into the enclave so that you
may wait upon the queen's pleasure."

Set drew in
another breath as if he was going to say something else, but before
he could do so Celeste yelled for me.

"Isaac,
it's Ash. His pulse is getting weaker; I think he's bleeding
internally."

I sprinted back
over to the boat, shifting back down to human form as I arrived at
the boat.

"Can you
save him?"

I shook my head
as I tore open the first-aid kit and grabbed the needle. "I
don't know. If we had blood for a transfusion then I'd say yes, but
he's already lost so much blood that I'm not sure he'll make it."

Set glided
forward to within two feet of the boat. "You seem distressed. If
you are not confident in your ability to save him, may I suggest an
alternative?"

I'd been busy
pulling off the long strips of tape I'd used earlier to hold Ash's
wounds closed. "You have a way to keep him from dying?"

"I believe
so. Your victory in the challenge entitles you to ask a boon from our
enclave over and above the normal requirements of hospitality. If
your request is that I do my best to keep your companion in arms
alive, then I will do so."

"Yes, heal
Ash, that is how we want to use the boon!" Celeste's voice was
desperate. Despite her tough show back at the hospital, she didn't
want to lose her brother now that she'd found him again.

Set turned
towards her with an expression of distaste. "It is not for you
to decide. Your consort has won you the right to petition my queen
for an audience, but the boon is his and his alone. You may not usurp
his rights in this area without declaring yourself…unclean."

Celeste swelled
up like she was ready to give Set a piece of her mind, but I waved my
arms at the two of them.

"That is
my choice, made of my own free will, to save a friend—a
companion in arms. If there is anything you can do to help Ash, then
please do so."

Set examined me
for a second and then nodded. "Very well."

He took one
more step forward and then placed his hand over Ash's wound. His
hands looked like they always had, but out beyond the ends of them,
Ash's skin dimpled slightly as though the tips of invisible claws
were resting on him.

It was a
disturbing sight on several levels and I found myself wondering if I
would ever see the lamias' real form. The thought of seeing them with
their illusions stripped away was simultaneously tempting and
repulsive. I got the feeling that I wasn't ready for the sight of
their actual form, that I might not ever be ready.

Set closed his
eyes and a second later his hand got hot enough that I could feel the
heat radiating off of him from several inches away. That meant he was
hot enough to burn unprotected flesh and it was all I could do not to
tear his hand away from Ash's back. Only there wasn't any need. Not
only was Ash not being burned, it almost seemed like he was radiating
the same kind of heat.

Nearly a full
minute passed and then Set pushed on Ash's wound with one side of his
hand, compressing the flesh underneath with an exactness that was too
precise to be happenstance. I tried to visualize the effect the
pressure would have on the organs underneath Set's hand and decided
that he'd just pushed the edges of the tear in Ash's renal artery a
little closer together.

Two minutes
later Set stepped back. "It is done."

I picked up
Ash's wrist and checked his pulse. It still felt weak. "Would it
be considered impolite for me to ask what it is that you did to help
him?"

Set cocked his
head to one side. "Such a question does not violate the
guidelines of honor, but this language does not have all of the words
necessary for a proper explanation."

I nodded my
understanding as I realized that I'd been overlooking the most
exciting aspect of meeting the lamia. They had a language of their
very own, the first known non-human language anyone had ever
encountered. It was enough to make me salivate.

Satisfied that
I really did understand the difficulty of what I was asking for, Set
pointed to Ash. "His life-fluid…the blood, as you call
it, was leaking out of its proper pathways. Once too much blood is
lost, he would have moved on…he would have died, so I took
steps to stop the leak."

My mind was
whirling at the possibility. Celeste had said that Ash was bleeding
internally, which was one piece of evidence that Set hadn't diagnosed
Ash without seeing inside of him, but he'd compressed Ash's renal
artery, which I was pretty sure had been the source of the internal
bleeding.

"You were
able to see the leak, the tear, in his artery without opening him
up?"

"Yes, one
merely follows the circulation of the life-fluid and looks for places
where it pools instead of continuing back to the throne…the
heart."

"And then
you were able to stitch it together from outside of his body?"

That earned me
a frown. "No, I did not heal it. I merely slowed the leak. The
breach is still there, blood still leaves through it, but much less.
His body now has time to replenish what was lost, but there is danger
still. The breach is still healing itself, but it has been likewise
slowed. The…change is not stable or…permanent. When it
lapses he will resume bleeding and if his body cannot seal the leak
quickly enough he will still move on."

It almost
sounded like he was saying that he'd slowed down
time
, which
was impossible—except that Ash hadn't died yet. His pulse was
still weak, but it hadn't gotten any weaker and given just how much
blood Ash had lost, even a small tear should have killed him by now.

Ash was a shape
shifter, so his body healed faster than a normal human's, but he was
one of the weakest wolves I'd ever met. He was fast and deadly with
the weapons he'd spent so much time mastering, but his makeup lacked
something that most of the rest of us took for granted.

His beast was
so quiet that I wasn't sure he really believed the rest of us when we
described how hard it was to master the being that took up residence
inside of us the first time we shifted forms. There were times that I
envied him in that area, but it seemed linked to the fact that in
human form he was only slightly stronger than someone with his
general build normally would have been, and his constitution was
unusually weak by shape shifter standards.

If it had been
Jasmin lying there with a time bomb inside of her I wouldn't have
worried. Assuming that she started with a normal amount of blood in
her, her body, especially now that she was a hybrid, could have
easily healed a small tear in an artery before she bled out. It was a
completely different ballgame when it was Ash lying there.

There wasn't
anything to do but hope that Set's solution would work. I couldn't
open Ash back up right now without killing him. Maybe in a few days I
could go in and sew the hole closed if Ash made it that long.

"Thank
you, Set. I appreciate you doing that."

"It was no
more than your successful challenge had earned you."

"That may
be so, but I'm thankful nonetheless."

The massive
lamia bowed his head in acknowledgement. "Very well. Come, we
should be going now if we're going to make it to the enclave before
the entrance moves."

Isaac Nazir
Unknown Bayou
Eastern Louisiana

Two of the
smaller lamias wordlessly helped me drag Celeste's silver boat
further up onto the island. Based on the waterline on some of the
nearby trees, it looked like we'd pulled it far enough up to avoid
having it wash away. I hoped that was the case. I hated the thought
of having to wade back to civilization through thirty miles of
alligator-infested, chest-deep swamp water.

None of the
lamias seemed to think it odd that Celeste didn't help move the boat.
Apparently queens weren't expected to get their hands dirty with
manual labor any more than they were expected to deal with
challengers.

I'd shifted
forms to help move the boat, but once the boat was safely tucked away
between two large trees, I wasn't particularly excited about the idea
of shifting again. I'd already worn far too many forms over the last
forty-eight hours.

I'd resigned
myself to the fact that I was going to be dealing with a horrific set
of cramps in my arms and legs within the next few hours, but I was
hoping to put off dealing with them until we'd made it to the lamias'
enclave. Another shift back to human form and then again to hybrid
form so that I wasn't walking through the bayou in human form would
almost guarantee that I wouldn't make it through the next hour
without writhing around on the ground in agony.

Celeste saw me
looking at the bags and understood the quandary I was faced with. She
came over to the boat and picked up one of the large, black duffle
bags.

"Here,
bend down and I'll loop it across your chest."

"I don't
want to have you do anything to undermine your position with our new
friends."

"I'll be
fine, Isaac. Bend down so we can get moving. I don't want to have to
march halfway through the bayou looking for a new portal."

My beast was
apparently adjusting to the presence of the lamia enough that he was
ready and willing to expend energy fighting over more mundane
offenses. He took a run at the mental cage where I'd locked him away
and gave it a good shaking. It was an unsubtle reminder that we still
needed to settle the issue of who was the top dog around here.

If we'd been
somewhere else where I didn't have to worry about what the lamia
would consider lèse-majesté, I
would have reminded her that she didn't have any place giving me
orders. That wasn't an option, so I just shot her a dirty look and
then did exactly as she'd ordered.

About
the time she got the first bag situated across my shoulder, two of
the smaller lamias stepped forward and took up positions to either
side of me with their heads bowed.

"Bearers
for you to use as you see fit, Eminence."

Set's
voice had an edge of something that I thought might be impatience.
Once the first of the bearers had the second black duffle slung
across his back, he bent down and carefully lifted Ash. The lamia
cradled Ash against his chest like he was worried any sudden move
would break him.

Satisfied
that the lamia was going to do his best to avoid reopening Ash's
wounds, I reached down and picked Kristin up. Part of me wanted to
leave her for the other lamia—my beast most definitely didn't
like the idea of having my arms full around creatures like the one
that we'd been fighting just minutes before—but I knew how I
would have felt if Ash and I had swapped positions and it had been me
unconscious and unable to watch over Jess.

I
would have wanted for Ash to carry my girlfriend rather than leave
her in the arms of something that was capable of accidentally
injecting her with werewolf-killing venom. I still felt that way
despite the fact that Jess wasn't my girlfriend and hadn't been in
months.

Kristin
normally wasn't very heavy, but now, after an injury that had come
within minutes of killing her, she seemed as light as a feather to my
hybrid arms. I shifted her around, careful not to cut her with my
claws, until I was happy with how I'd positioned her and then turned
back to Celeste.

I caught her
partway through stripping out of her clothes. Everything important
was still covered up, but she'd already unzipped her pants and had
started sliding them down over her hips. She caught me eyeing the
black lace panties that she'd just revealed, and went bright red.

"Turn
around."

Normally I
would have turned without her even having to ask me to, but I hadn't
forgotten about the fact that she hadn't bothered averting her eyes
when the shoe had been on the other foot.

"Didn't
you say something about all of us from the Sanctuary pack being a
bunch of prudes? You're the last person on earth I would have
expected to be bothered by the thought of flashing a little skin."
I said it in something less than a whisper, pitched so that it would
carry to her ears, but not make it to the lamias who'd retreated back
to rejoin their fellows as soon as they'd been given their burdens.

"Isaac,
turn around. This isn't the time to be pushing. We can talk about it
once we are by ourselves." It came out as
a hiss, quiet enough that there was a chance that the lamias couldn't
hear her, but loaded with plenty of indignation.

She'd just
ordered me around two more times in less than five seconds. I'd
expected my beast to respond with a flare of rage, but my beast
wasn't mad…he was curious. I was still all wrapped around an
axle over what had happened with Jess, but my beast seemed to have
already moved on. Maybe not all the way, but enough that he'd noticed
that Celeste was a very attractive female.