And then it started to burn like acid.
As she howled in agony, Steven cried out and she heard another shot fired.
Then silence.
She heard her own labored panting and licked at the blood seeping down her leg. The bullet contained a trace of silver—not enough to kill her but enough to immobilize her with pain. She forced herself to look up and find out what was going on.
“—getting on the plane now,” Marco said, his gun stuck under the man’s chin. One of the other men was on the ground, bleeding from a wound in the stomach. The other two had their guns trained on Diego. “Don’t even think about it or I’ll blow his head off.”
Steven kneeled beside her and lifted her into his arms, gun still clenched in one fist.
She was vaguely aware of Diego, Amy Jo in his arms, backing toward the plane, only turning to climb the few steps into the plane. Then Steven started to move. The pain crept up her leg and she couldn’t help the pitiful whine that escaped. Strong arms tightened around her, and one hand sank into the fur of her back in a caress.
Then she gave into the pain and passed out.
Chapter Eight
Steven placed an unconscious Bella on the floor near the cockpit as Marco got them on the runway and in the air.
The men who’d ambushed them ran for their car when Marco started the engines and made a run at them, barely missing their dark sedan as he taxied to the runway. Luckily, there was no traffic at the small airport.
“That’s right, you bastard,” Marco growled. “You better move that car or I’m going to run it right into the ground.” Then he turned and yelled over his shoulder. “I’m gonna go straight to the runway and get us in the air. Might be a little shaky but don’t worry. The plane’s solid. It can take it.”
Steven couldn’t care less. Bella was bleeding. Shot. And he couldn’t do a damn thing to help her.
Diego strapped the still unconscious Amy Jo into a seat then pushed him away from Bella. Steven was too stunned to react. Closing his eyes, Diego stretched out his hands over her body, attempting to use his magic to extract the bullet.
“
Vaffanculo
, those bastards.” Diego’s guttural words could be heard over the engine noise. “There’s silver in the bullet. No wonder she passed out.”
Steven’s blood froze then threatened to boil over. He was going to hunt down every one of those men and tear them limb from limb—
“Steven, you’re going to have to do this.”
His gaze locked on Diego’s face. “I can’t.” He had to grit the words out between his teeth.
“You have to.” Diego’s expression was implacable. “I can’t work the bullet out because of the silver. If you must, use a knife and dig it out. But it has to come out. She can’t change with the bullet in there.”
No. He couldn’t do it. But as he stood there, watching the labored rise and fall of her chest, he knew he’d have to. Diego was a powerful
grigorio
but he was also
versipellis
. This was one of those rare instances when one contradicted the other.
Fuck
.
He might be able to use his magic to remove the bullet. Then again, he might not be able to control it and he could kill them all with a lightning strike out of the clear blue sky.
His gut twisted but he held out his hand. “Give me your knife.”
Diego laid it in his palm and Steven took a deep breath, trying to calm the painful pounding of his heart. His father had made sure he’d had medical training, particularly after his mom’s death. But this… He didn’t know if he could…
No. No, he
could
do this. He had to. Bella needed him.
Calling on the detachment he’d sworn by for the past three years, he slid the knife into the wound, ignoring the dark red blood that streamed out. He sank it in until the blade hit metal with a sickening thud. His stomach rolled and he took a deep breath to calm it, but all he could smell was the metallic scent of her blood.
His chest tightened until he could barely breathe and it hurt to try.
Shit
. This couldn’t be happening now. He couldn’t let it happen now.
His magic rose like a dark wave that threatened to drown him. He struggled to push it back down but it wouldn’t go willingly.
“Steven.” Diego’s voice cut through the fog in his brain, low and urgent. “Pull it together. She can’t take much more blood loss. Do something. Now. Or she’s going to die.”
Damn it, he knew that. He bit back the angry words that were on the tip of his tongue because Diego was right.
But the magic he’d strangled for so long craved blood and Bella’s seeped from her body in steady rivulets. She’d almost died before. The coma after she’d taken the Bullet. He hadn’t been able to leave the hospital building where they’d kept her. Her doctor had been ready to confine him to his own room with an IV tranquilizer.
This felt a thousand times worse. His hands started to shake and the knife wobbled, tearing into her flesh even more.
Gritting his teeth, he forced his hands to still. Then he blanked his mind of everything.
* * *
Diego watched the tears drip down Steven’s face.
He didn’t think Steven knew he was crying as he dug the bullet out of Bella’s front haunch. The sheer agony in his expression made Diego’s gut clench. Silently he cursed this failing. One of many.
He couldn’t do a damn thing for Bella. Not until Steven pulled the bullet out. What good was he as a
grigorio
when he couldn’t perform the most basic healing because his
versipellis
nature conflicted?
The Etruscan deities had fucked him over good—
Steven’s barely audible sigh as he worked the bullet out of the wound drew him out of his thoughts. When he met Steven’s eyes, he knew the other man had reached the end of his rope.
“I’ve got it from here.” Diego spoke slowly, as if to a child. “See if you can wake Amy Jo.”
Steven nodded but didn’t move, continuing to stare at Bella.
“Steven.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Finally he stood. “I’ll check on the girl.” Then he looked into Diego’s eyes. “Don’t fail.”
Diego couldn’t respond. The emotion in Steven’s words made his throat tighten. He forced himself to nod and Steven finally moved away, toward Amy Jo.
Now it was his turn. He had to do this fast and right. He couldn’t fail. It wasn’t an option.
Shutting his eyes, he forced himself to focus. He gathered the magic from the place inside where it dwelled and drew it through his body into his hands.
If anyone ever asked how he did it, he wouldn’t be able to explain. The power was there, lying in wait until he needed it. He drew it from inside himself but also from the air, the earth, the people around him.
He gathered it together and forced it into his hands. From his hands, he bent it to his will and used it to fix Bella’s wound. In his mind, he saw the torn flesh and muscle. The wound was worse than he’d thought.
Sweat broke out along his brow as he realized Steven had hit the major artery in Bella’s shoulder. He had to fix that before he could repair the rest of the wound. Damn it, he was much better with human wounds. Bella was the vet, not him, though this wasn’t the first time he’d had to tend to a wolf.
Dripping sweat made his eyes burn until he could barely see. Still, he didn’t move his hands. After several minutes, the artery was repaired and he moved onto the wound itself.
By this time, his hands burned so badly it was almost unbearable. Still, he held his hands steady until Bella’s wound was healed.
When he finally lowered his hands, they trembled uncontrollably. As did the rest of his body. He tried to stand and found he couldn’t get his legs under him. When he raised his head to look around, everything was blurry.
“Here, Diego. Let me give you a hand.”
Steven’s voice sounded blurry, too, as if Diego’s head was wrapped in cotton. He tried to focus on the other man’s face but he couldn’t make it clear.
“Steven, I’m—”
He passed out.
* * *
Steven caught Diego before he hit the floor of the plane and pulled him over to the seat next to Amy Jo.
He’d checked on the other woman but whatever Diego had done to her had knocked her out cold. Since she didn’t seem to be injured, he left her strapped in. He made sure Diego was strapped in before he moved to Bella’s side.
He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he had to draw in another when her eyes opened and she whined at him.
“Bella.” He didn’t know what else to say.
She smiled that wolf smile, the one that made him think she was considering having him for dinner. He laid a shaking hand on her head but she shook him off and started her change.
He averted his eyes. It wasn’t considered polite to stare while a shifter changed skins. It was one of the first things he’d learned living with her and Cole.
When she lay naked, panting, on the cold metal floor of the plane, he grabbed a blanket from a pile near the door and draped it around her.
“Damn it, Bella. You’re going to be the death of me.”
“I’m the one who took the bullet, Steven.”
“And if I ever have to watch that again, I might just shoot myself.”
He wanted to cry, felt his eyes well and hated it. Hated how he lost control of his emotions where she was concerned. That had always terrified him. It was part of the reason he’d broken all ties with her. If he couldn’t control himself around her, it was a short leap from his hold on his emotions to his hold on his magic. The two were so closely intertwined, especially the darker, more volatile emotions—hate, love, jealousy, fear.
“Steven—”
He held up one hand. “How do you feel?”
It took her a few seconds to answer. “Better than you might think. How’s Diego?”
“Passed out.”
“And you? How are you?”
He shook his head before he realized he was doing it. “I’m fine. Let’s get you off the floor and into some clothes. It’s cool in here.”
Her gaze finally drifted away from him and took in their surroundings. “Marco got us in the air.”
“Yeah.” He turned away to look for something, anything she could wear. Her nudity made his hands itch to touch her. “I’m going to go talk to him as soon as I find… Good. Here, put this on.”
He held out the beige coverall he found folded on one of the seats. It looked clean but, at this point, he didn’t care. He had to get her dressed. He was so damn happy to see her awake and alert. But now shock was setting in and there was no time for it.
He turned to check on Diego and Amy Jo once more while Bella got dressed. If he watched, he’d grab her and take her back to the floor and neither one of them could afford that.
Diego’s pulse was strong but he didn’t move when Steven shook his shoulder. As soon as he touched Amy Jo’s wrist, however, she moaned and her eyelids fluttered open.
Her big blue eyes looked resigned when they focused on him. “Well, what the
hell
happened this time?”
He heard the rasp of a zipper. It threw him off track and it took him a few seconds to process Amy Jo’s question. By the time he had, Bella answered.
“You freaked and Diego knocked you out.” Bella moved closer and he saw she was covered neck to toe with the jumpsuit, which was about three sizes too big for her.
Amy Jo shook her head gingerly and rotated her jaw. “Wow. That’s really gonna hurt in a little while—” Her eyes widened as she looked out the window. “Oh, my God. How did we get away? Did he see me? Is he following us?”
“Whoa.” Bella moved to the other woman’s side and put an arm around her shoulder. “We’re fine. We’re all fine.”
Eyes huge, Amy Jo practically panted with fear. “But he was there, wasn’t he?”
“Who was there?” Bella asked.
Steven answered that one. “One of the men who bit you. He was there at the airport, wasn’t he?”
Amy Jo slowly nodded. “Yeah, he must have been following me—
Oh, no
.” Her gaze snagged on Diego and she turned, her hands reaching out to cup his chin before she stopped and drew back. “What happened?”
“Bella was shot.” It still made him cringe to think of it. “Diego healed her then passed out.”
“Healed her how?”
“With his hands.”
Amy Jo’s eyebrows shot up, her gaze never leaving Diego’s face. “He can do that?”
Steven nodded. “The
grigori
all have certain traits in common. The ability to manipulate metal, increased strength, enhanced senses, the ability to work magic. Some can heal. Some have more individualized powers.”
Amy Jo shook her head as if that would help put some of the pieces together. But her expression radiated sorrow. “You know, sometimes I think I lost my mind that night I was bitten. That I’m really living in a mental hospital somewhere and this is all some demented dream. Kind of like ‘The Matrix,’ you know?”
Bella nodded, tightening her grip around Amy Jo’s shoulders. “It must have been hell, but I promise to answer any questions you’ve got. Anything at all. You’re not alone anymore.”
She said it with such conviction, Steven couldn’t help but sigh. “More like out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
Both women looked at him. Bella’s lips pressed together in a frown but Amy Jo smiled.
“Yeah,” Amy Jo nodded, “I guess you could say that. Still, I’m not real sure about this voodoo woman in New Orleans.”
Bella started to answer but he jumped in before she could.
“Just give it a shot. See what happens. You can always stop.”
Amy Jo slid a look at the still-unconscious Diego then at Bella then back to him. “Alright. If you think I should.”
He nodded. “I do. Just—”
“Diego!” Marco called. “Get up here. I need you. Now.”
Steven caught the hint of fear in Marco’s voice and turned but not before ordering the women to buckle up and stay seated. Surprisingly, neither of them took his head off for the command.
“We’ve got a problem,” Marco said as soon as he leaned into the cockpit. “Where the hell’s Diego? I need him.”
“Passed out in the back. What’s wrong?”
Marco swore under his breath in a language Steven didn’t understand. “We took a bullet in the gas tank. We’re losing fuel. We’re not gonna make it to New Orleans. I don’t know how long I can keep us in the air.”