Jude. “Keep the fuck away from what’s mine, leech.”
Jude flowed up from the ground, paler than normal, his eyes still glittering and red. “Mine first, cat. I’ll challenge that with your Alpha…and she’ll acknowledge it. She won’t risk my wrath over a paltry little half-human.”
“Hey,” I snapped. “I don’t belong to you, jackass.”
Jude ignored me.
Damon didn’t, though. An odd little smile curved his lips as he paused, staring at me. Then he stopped and turned. “You didn’t hear them as they were talking, did you, leech? They said Alpha. Annette died today. You want to challenge my right? Take it up to the Assembly…and they’ve got different ideas on that antiquated idea. Ask Es here, but I suspect they’ll tell you to get fucked.”
“Oh, yes.” Es smiled. “We will. Vampires can no longer claim ownership just because they laid a bite on somebody…especially when you didn’t explain all it entailed, Jude. Naughty, naughty, that. But I can always address it when I go to session next week.”
I barely heard her.
I was too busy staring at Damon.
The cool weight of Jude’s fury struck us, but seconds later, he was gone, launching himself into the air. The air lashed us with the speed of his departure and I batted at my hair as it flung itself into my eyes.
“Damon?”
I think I saw him smile at me. But then the pain in my lungs ripped through me again as I took a deep breath. Darkness rushed up at me.
Chapter Twenty Four
“It’s getting to be a pattern, healing you.”
I woke up in the healing hall. And once more, Es was by the bed. Damon was close by, although I couldn’t see him.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. No pain. Heaving out a sigh of relief, I murmured, “Oh, that’s lovely.”
“He shattered four of your ribs, child. And I do mean shattered. I had to work bone fragment from your lung tissue. If you’d been human, you might have died, silly girl. Whatever did you do to anger him so?”
Silly girl. Another person calling me silly. Although in this case….I popped one eye open and stared at Es. “I might have shot him through the heart with a wooden arrow.”
“Oh. That would do it, yes.” Her brow puckered and she looked around.
I followed the line of her gaze and saw Damon standing at the far end of the room, head bowed, arms crossed over his chest. He almost looked asleep, but I knew better.
“And here I thought you might have smoother sailing since Annette was dispatched. Jude will make just as bad an enemy, I fear,” she said quietly. Then she patted my arm. “You don’t do easy, do you?”
“Wouldn’t know it if it bit me on the ass.”
“Hmm.” She checked my arm one more time and then nodded to the table. “Drink the teas. I had to do a full healing whether you liked it or not. Between the damage on your lungs, your arm, your body was just too taxed for anything else. I’ll be off, but you call if you need me.”
I didn’t watch as she slipped away.
I couldn’t look at Damon, though, either.
“You killed Annette.”
His quiet sigh drifted through the room.
When he didn’t say anything, though, I looked up at him. “Why?”
“Not much choice.”
He blew out a breath and came my way, all caged, easy grace. Looking at him, I couldn’t even tell he’d been hurt. Faded denim clung to his legs and a black shirt stretched over his chest and arms, the sleeves rolled halfway up his arms. “I was heading into her chambers when Es sent me a text—something about some magic Kori had worked. She’d had one of her witches out there all morning and kept updating me, but the last message…” He paused and then looked at me. “One of the spells caught something from the guy we bought the bow from. There was vampire magic on him. And he was running scared. The vampires around her land aren’t going to be involved in what he was doing. I thought it was a stretch, but Jude seemed pretty damned determined to pull you off this job. Didn’t make sense—other people can do whatever he was wanting done, although I know you’ve got a rep for being a bulldog. I thought maybe that was the problem. You don’t let go. Plus…well, the reason I wanted to have you with me for Doyle was because you’ve got this uncanny way of figuring things out…”