"Okay," she whispered to him as she patted him gently on the arm. "I'll take care of you without an ambulance."
Talon forced himself to move away from the glaring lamplight that hurt his light-sensitive eyes. His broken leg protested, but he ignored it.
He limped over to lean against a brick building where he could take the pressure off his damaged leg. Again the world tilted.
Damn. He needed to get to safety. It was still early evening, but the last thing he needed was to be trapped in the city after sunup. Whenever a Dark-Hunter was injured, he or she felt an unnatural urge to sleep. It was a need that would make him dangerously vulnerable if he didn't get home soon.
He pulled his cell phone out to notify Nick Gautier he was hurt, and quickly learned that his phone, unlike him, wasn't immortal. It was in pieces.
"Here," the woman said, moving to stand beside him. "Let me help you."
Talon stared at her. No stranger had ever helped him like this. He was used to fighting his own battles and then cleaning up after them alone.
"I'm all right," he said. "You go do-"
"I'm not going to leave you," she said. "You got hurt because of me."
He wanted to argue, but his body throbbed too badly to bother.
Talon tried to move away from the woman. He took two steps and the world started to shift again.
The next thing he knew, everything went black.
Sunshine barely caught the man before he hit the ground. She staggered from the sheer size and weight of him but somehow kept him from falling over.
As gently as she could, she lowered him to the sidewalk.
Note, she said as gently as she could.
As it was, he slammed into the pavement rather forcefully, making her hurt for him all over again as his head practically made a dent in the sidewalk.
"I'm sorry," she said, straightening up to look down at him. "Please tell me that didn't just give you a concussion."
She hoped she hadn't hurt him even worse by trying to help.
Whatever was she going to do now?
The illegal biker-looking alien dressed all in black was huge. She didn't dare leave him on the street unattended. What if their attackers came back? Or some street punk rolled him?
This was New Orleans where most anything could happen to a person while conscious.
Unconscious...
Well, there was no telling what the unsavory ones might do to him, so leaving him alone was not an option.
Just as her panic was getting the better of her, she heard someone call her name.
She looked around until she saw Wayne Santana's beat-up blue Dodge Ram pulling up to the curb. At thirty-three, Wayne had a ruggedly handsome face that looked a lot older. His black hair was laced liberally with gray.
She breathed a sigh of relief at seeing him there.
He rolled his window the rest of the way down and leaned out. "Hey, Sunshine, what's going on?"
"Wayne, could you help me get this guy into your truck?"
He looked really skeptical about that. "Is he drunk?"
"No, he's hurt."