best to save me, too. “Please. He’s no danger to you. He won’t hurt anyone now that he knows I’m safe.”
The crossbow came down with a long sigh, as though Kelsey was giving up something precious. “All right then. But if he’s your protector, he needs way more training.”
It was something we could all use, but I’d certainly never considered him my protector. It was kind of the other way around given Dean’s great destiny. Sometimes it wasn’t easy to keep the “savior” alive.
“Summer, you need to take Marcus’s blood.” Dev Quinn got to one knee in front of me, his emerald green eyes pools of concern. “I’m worried about these wounds. The vampire blood will clear any and all infection as well as heal the wound. I can help spread it over your skin.”
But even I knew it would work so much more effectively if I drank from the tap, so to speak. And the pain was starting to be difficult to deal with. The each-uisge had done a number on my arm. Horse teeth might not be sharp, but they packed a punch. I looked to Dean. “You’re lucky you made it here. Now give me some space so I can deal with my wounds and we can get home.”
Home. I didn’t truly have one of those, but I couldn’t keep calling it the brugh or the cottage. I would go back to Erna and hope I had the information she needed.
Panic threatened to overwhelm me because I’d forgotten all about the book.
“I lost my satchel.” My stomach turned. I’d done everything so we could get that book. I’d risked letting Turi’s men find me so we could try to figure out Dean’s path. Now it was at the bottom of the lake and I would have to find it and pray it hadn’t been destroyed.
Dean knew the implications. “I’ll find it. I’ll work a spell to bring it back.”
“Or Devinshea will have his plants find it for you,” Marcus said in an all too reasonable voice. “Could you and Kelsey take the lad and find Summer’s bag? It seems to be important to her and I have a feeling she would like some privacy.”
Dev’s eyes narrowed. “Privacy for what?”
Kelsey groaned. “She’s not letting him bleed on her. First of all, vampire blood stains clothes, too. Second, you know damn well it’s going to work faster and better if she sucks him off. And I did not mean it that way. Out. Sucks it out of him. Blood. Sucks the blood… Just come on and help me find the freaking bag. They aren’t going to do the nasty.”
I felt my whole body heat with embarrassment. Mostly embarrassment. Only a little of something else.
“The nasty what?” Dean asked, proving he’d had a sheltered childhood. Despite what had happened to his mother when she was pregnant, she’d found powerful people on the Vampire plane to protect her son.
“Nothing.” Dev stood with a sigh. “He’s going to heal her and that’s all. We’ll find your bag, Summer, but don’t think I’m letting you out of my sight. I meant what I said. I consider myself to be your father, and I’m quite the helicopter parent. Ask your siblings when you meet them. And, Marcus, I am watching you.”
“I’m sure you are.” Marcus’s reply came out all silky and smooth, and a bit on the bad-boy side like he was the kind to steal a few kisses, a caress. Like he wouldn’t mind that we could get caught. It would make the intimacy all the hotter.
But then a pain went through me and I forgot about how hot the male was.
“Bella, drink. Stop worrying and let me heal you. I want nothing more in the world than to heal you.” The emotion he pushed toward me no longer had any of the sensual tinge from seconds before. Concern flavored the wave that came off him. Tenderness and worry for me. He moved his right arm and before I could tell what he was doing, he brought his wrist up to my mouth.
He’d bitten his own wrist and blood welled there. I stared at it. Rich, velvety blood. His life’s blood. No one but Erna had ever offered to help me in a way that cost him or herself. He couldn’t claim me if he didn’t sink his fangs in, and it seemed like Dev wasn’t so keen on that. I didn’t understand what was going on with these people. They’d seemed to