stared down at her, a strange look on his face. Ari slipped into darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Three
She opened one eye. Tan walls. Ari lay on a sofa in a room she had never seen before. Her arm was bandaged—again—and a damp cloth covered her forehead. She opened the other eye. Andreas sat on the arm of the sofa talking to someone she couldn’t see without sitting up. She wasn’t sure she was ready to do that.
Events and images flooded back. The deafening gunfire, the blood, the bodies. What had the vampires thought of the carnage throughout the compound? Jeez, Ari, she chided herself. They’re vampires. Tame stuff to them.
She stretched her arm to see how bad it was. Andreas immediately crouched at her side.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Ready for another round,” she said in a feeble stab at humor.
“Well, isn’t she the bloodthirsty one,” Carmella said from somewhere above her. “And they think we’re bad.”
There it was again, that vampire issue with humor. Before Ari thought of a suitable response, she heard Carmella walk away.
Andreas looked at Ari, his face unreadable. “Your magic woke me,” he said. It almost sounded like an accusation. “An overwhelming sense of danger jolted me awake. Your magic filled the room, and I saw the wolves outside the chamber door. Outside,” he repeated, as if she might have missed it the first time. “What kind of a witch are you?”
Ari stared at his face, saw the tension, even the alarm in his eyes. But no one could wake a vampire. Could they? Or do the things he was suggesting. “What are you talking about?”
He raised an incredulous brow. “You woke me from the sleep cycle, Arianna. And now you say you don’t know how?”
Ari frowned. “I don’t, uh, I mean, I didn’t…do anything. Whatever happened, whatever got you up, it wasn’t me.”
“And the image of the wolves? How do you explain that?”
Wide-eyed, she just shook her head. “I can’t. How do you explain it? This is your deal, not mine.”
He started to say something but seemed to change his mind when voices reached them from the hallway. “This is not a good time, but we shall discuss this later.”
Yeah. Like never. She had a hard enough time coping with the tangible things, like killer wolves with Uzis.
She struggled to sit up and winced when she bumped the arm. Painful, but not too bad. With her constitution she should be fine by the end of the week.
Andreas soon dashed that hope. “The bone was splintered. It may need special treatment to heal properly. Should we find something for the pain?”
“No, I’m good for now,” she said. “Tell me about my team. I want to see them.”
“Everyone survived, and their injuries will heal. Lilith and Russell are down the hall licking their wounds. Mike morphed into his human persona and—”
“Is he a black wolf?” Ari interrupted, remembering the wolf who helped her in the tunnels.
“Yes, and very large. He left to look for Benny.” At her frown he added, “We think Benny is still trailing Sheila.”
“She got away?”
“Mike saw her and a gray wolf leave by the front door, right after you entered the tunnel. Benny went after them.”
Ari snorted. “She left before the fight was over? Some leader. And the rest of her pack?”
“Seven dead, one captured. We believe ten or twelve were inside the compound. The chopper pilot took off when Lilith and Russell climbed onto the roof.”
“So Sheila and two or three others are still out there.”
“At least,” he said. “We do not have a good count. Sheila may have new recruits who were waiting outside. I hope Benny will return with a more accurate count—and a current location.”
“They’ll be long gone. Probably in that chopper,” Ari said in disgust. “And trying to get out of the country with Victor dead.”
“But they cannot know that yet,” Andreas argued. “It is too early. We should have another hour or two before he is late enough they become alarmed.”
Ari couldn’t stand the thought of Yana’s killer escaping. But in Sheila’s place, Ari would head for the hills, or in this case, home to Canada. Hell, the she-wolf had already run out on her pack. Why would she hang around? Unless she needed time to heal.
Ari heard voices at the door. Andreas straightened his tall frame and left to see what was causing the commotion. She felt strangely disoriented, touched the large lump on her forehead, and wondered if her brains had been scrambled. What had Andreas been