"This is an outrage." Celesse"s voice shook. "This is attempted murder. You made her give up her blade! She had nothing to defend herself with."
"I"m well aware of the situation." The First kept a calm demeanor, but Clive could see the pain radiating from him.
Dina pushed through. "Out of the way. If you"re not at least a thousand years old, get out. She needs the most powerful of you to give her blood. The rest of you are just in the way." She put a basin with warm water down, along with scissors and some other tools.
Clive realized she"d probably tended a battered Rowan more than once. But he had no plans to leave.
"Naturally, Scion, you can stay, as well as the people from Hunter Corp., except for that one over there who will leave now or I will remove him bodily."
Roth sputtered his indignation, but Clive yanked him by the back of his suit coat and tossed him out, slamming the door in his face.
"I don"t like him." Dina rolled up her sleeves and sat on a stool at Rowan"s side. "We need to get her shoulder back into place and her broken bones splinted into place. She"ll start to heal, and without it, she"ll be in even more pain."
"That"s going to cause her a great deal of pain right now."
"Better than being dead. Ovilius, please brace her while Warren puts her shoulder back into place. David, would you prepare a splint for me for her leg? I"m going to cut her pants free so we can see the damage."
Everyone sprang into action. Without looking up from where she used scissors to carefully cut away Rowan"s pants leg, Dina sighed. "Scion, she needs you right now. I see how you look at her. Give her your love. Heaven knows, she needs it."
Nodding, he picked his way around The First and knelt in between him and Celesse. He bent to her ear. "Rowan, I"m here. We"re all here, and you need to fight. Do you hear me?"
"Sweetheart, this is going to hurt." Warren spoke, and Clive kept his lips to Rowan"s ear. Her breathing was ragged, but he was glad she still breathed at all.
"Hold her, Ovilius." Warren waited for The First to brace her carefully before he placed his hands on her upper arm and shoulder and shoved it back into the socket.
Despite The First holding her, Rowan cried out, arching.
Clive felt it when The First flinched. He kissed her forehead. "Petal, I"m so sorry."
"Enough time for guilty feelings after we get her stabilized." Dina"s rebuke seemed to shake The First out of his reverie. He took a deep breath.
"You"re right, Cook. Thank you."
A knock sounded on the door, and Cataline came in with another steaming pail.
"Good. David, how"s that splint coming along?" Dina washed away the blood, not caring about the mahogany floor or the Persian rug that rested upon it.
"Ready when you are."
"Ms. Paola, you need to stop or we"ll have to send you to the hospital too."
"She"s lost a great deal of blood. I have enough to share."
The First touched her hand. "I thank you for the gift of your blood. She"s had mine, and she"s had yours. Cook is right, you"ve given her quite a bit."
Takahiro moved up. "Let me take over."
Paola moved away to sit in a nearby chair, her gaze never leaving Rowan.
Rowan"s leg was a mess. Clive knew his incisors had lengthened when The First spoke. "Save your rage. The Five are out looking for Enyo. Rowan is here with us now. Keep your mind here."
Rex came in just moments later. "Oh, sweetheart." He rushed to Rowan. Celesse moved from her spot, giving it over to Rex.
"I"ll call Susan."
"Thank you." Rex didn"t take his gaze from Rowan"s face as Celesse stepped from the room to make the call.
"The water and poultices in this pail have healing magic in them. I want to get this leg splinted and then I"ll need to have a look at her arm. I"m going to have to cut off her sweater."
"Why didn"t her G.o.ddess save her? I don"t understand." Rex spoke but it wasn"t to anyone in particular.
"If She hadn"t helped, Rowan would have been dead for some time. Enyo is incredibly old and powerful." The First"s teeth clicked shut, and he snarled. "I am...prohibited from sharing a great deal of detail. But without the G.o.ddess inside Rowan, she could not have withstood three minutes with no weapons against one such as Enyo."
"Prohibited? Your precious Treaty is going to protect that monster after she tried to kill Rowan? In your Keep?" Rex was angry and terrified too. Which was probably what kept him alive after speaking in such a manner to The First.
"He"s under a spell. A geas. He"s prohibited by that, not the Treaty." Dina kept working. "I have to tie the splint into place. The poultice will cause her some discomfort, unfortunately. Hold her as firmly as you can. Enzo, please help David."
Clive barely restrained his gasp when Rowan"s body shuddered in pain. She was beyond the cry she"d given when her shoulder had been put back into place, but the gut-deep whimper that escaped was worse.
His strong, fearless Hunter was damaged. In pain and he couldn"t help. He wanted to tear the Keep down around their heads just to do something with his hands and all the anger he felt.
Instead, he gently cleaned her face, getting rid of the blood and dirt. "Rowan, it"s really quite tiresome the way you try to make everything about you. We had a date. Remember that?"
Dina continued to work. The doctor from town showed up and took up at her side. Together with Cataline"s help, they sewed up wounds and cleaned off the blood. Dina placed her smelly poultices, and some of the worst damage, especially on her arm, began to heal. Her color went from so-white-she-could-have-been-dead to critically ill.
Dawn teased as they finally finished.
The First spoke. "Vampires need to seek their rest. Especially those who"ve given so much blood. There are no windows in this room. Bring her a bed so she"ll be comfortable, and I"ll stay with her."
"Sir," David began to speak, but The First shook his head hard.
"No. This is my daughter. Do you understand? I will not leave her side, and that is that. This room will be guarded. No one will be allowed in or out but for a preapproved few."
"I respectfully ask that I be one of those few, Ovilius."
"Scion, you need real rest. There will be humans in and out of this room. I promise to keep watch." It was an order, though not unkindly spoken.
Clive kissed her temple. Her face was bruised and swollen still, and he didn"t want to hurt her any more than she"d been already. "I must go to rest, Hunter. I"ll be back at sundown. Try not to get into any fisticuffs while I"m gone." He paused and bent to her ear. "I love you, darling Hunter."
Alice waited for him just outside the door. "Your room is ready. Go on up. She"s going to be fine, Clive. She"s too stubborn not to be."
They walked quickly. "Did you see her, Alice? Did you see what that b.i.t.c.h did to my Hunter?"
Alice nodded. "I did. We"ll get her. Rowan will get better, and we"ll take Enyo out. But you"re exhausted, and you need to be at your best because she"s going to be a handful when she wakes up."
That at least made him smile.
Chapter Twenty-One.
Copper and smoke.
Rowan stirred, prodded by the G.o.ddess. She hadn"t ascended like she did at the shrine. But this was a different plane nonetheless.
"Rowan, you have a job to do."
She blinked up at the beautiful brilliance she always a.s.sociated with Brigid. And smiled at the manifestation that was a whole lot like Shirley Manson. Yes, the redheaded Scottish rock-star actress.
"My everything hurts."
"You were all I ever could have wanted in a Vessel this week."
Rowan struggled to make sense of what was happening. Of where she was. She"d never achieved this sort of connection with Brigid outside a shrine.
"Relax a moment. I am here with you. You were so close to death that it enabled me to connect with you on this plane."
"I"m dead?"
"No. You"re alive. Even now, your friends and loved ones are working feverishly to tend to your wounds and set you to rights. Tages"s blood courses through you again, though in far greater volume with this attack. The other old ones have given you blood, too. The human you call Dina, the kitchen witch, she has given you medicine that put you in this place so your body can heal. I"m helping, as well. I will keep you here, deeply unconscious from your physical form, for many more hours."
"I saw her. Enyo. The last thing I remember, really. I hit her with the tree limb. Hard for a one-hander." Rowan was proud of it as she remembered. "She bounced off the wall of the orangerie, and I got my thumb back in her eye socket. Dug in deep. Did I snap her neck?"
"She is still alive. On the run."
That p.i.s.sed her off. "Really? All these d.a.m.ned Vampires in the Keep, and none of them killed her for me?"
"Tages could have, but he chose you instead. If he hadn"t, you would have died. His Five are looking for her, but they had to go to ground when the sun rose. When you awaken, you will have to find her yourself. Or she will find you."
"When she hit the gla.s.s and it broke, she came at me one last time. I felt myself slipping, and then her blood, some of it dripped from her face into my mouth and I saw. I saw how she was made."
"In that moment, the two of you shared something. She didn"t mean for it to happen. But now you know."
Casta had been nineteen years old and had been married off three years before to a powerful man who ran a city-state. She"d hated him. Hated his old, disgusting hands that never seemed to stop touching her. Hated his s...o...b..ry kisses and the mockery of lovemaking he gave her.
But she had quite enjoyed the life she had. The servants. All the jewels and luxury she"d ever imagined. She"d dabbled in magic and, like her mother, had a considerable gift, though not well trained.
She"d had to hide what she had or risk scaring others. And in that secrecy, her power grew in intensity but also grew darker. There had been no guiding hand. No one to teach her the ways of her magic and the responsibility that came with it.
She"d wanted more power of her own and had wanted her husband dead. Preferably on the battlefield. She"d recently taken a lover. A man she"d met when she"d been at a party. She"d had much wine and he"d been skillful, though rough. Rough enough to make her bleed a few times.
She researched and decided to call to the G.o.ddess Enyo to bring down ruin on her husband"s head, but victory to his men. She liked her life, after all; she just didn"t want her husband in it.
But something had gone dreadfully wrong. As she"d been in the middle of her spell, the G.o.ddess had indeed begun to manifest, but her lover had come in. Seeing her naked, with her arm sliced open for a blood offering, he set upon her and sank his long fangs into her, draining her.
The spell, though, had called powerful magic, and that magic intertwined with the change the Vampire she"d thought of as a human lover, had started.
Casta was not a Vessel. Nor was she made like most Vampires. She was a Vampire made with the aid of magic. The spell completed her transformation into a Vampire, but she had no maker in the traditional sense, and her spell to manifest the G.o.ddess had been interrupted before it was completed. Enyo was part of her, like an echo. Her bloodl.u.s.t and need for battle, yes, a part of her power, yes. The need to take blood and shelter from the sun like any other Vampire.
Like Theo, like Rowan, she was Other.
And now that Rowan knew just what Enyo was, she could maybe begin to find a way to kill her true.
Brigid placed a kiss to Rowan"s forehead. "Yes. Knowledge is power. Rest. Let your body and my power do their work. When you are ready, you have a task that will take all your strength to get complete."
Everything hurt.
"I can hear you," she mumbled.
"Rowan?"
She struggled to open her eyes, and it was some time before she managed to do it.
"What?"
"Rowan!"
A door opened, and voices sounded, excited. More doors opened. Footsteps sounded. It made her very tired just listening to it.
"Tha f.u.c.k"s going on?"
"There"s my sweet, delicate flower." Clive looked at her, smiling. But worry lived in his gaze.
"Do I have cancer?"
He looked confused. "What? Darling, you"ve taken a nasty thumping. But cancer has nothing to do with it." He looked away, still smiling. "Still a bit muzzy, I"m afraid. Just asked me if she had cancer."
"The amendment still stands, right?"
Clive groaned. "You"re like a dog with a bone. Yes, darling Hunter, the amendment is in place."
"Why are you looking at me like that, then?"
"Like what? Like I"m happy to see you conscious and using profanities? The F word never sounded sweeter."
She might have laughed, but her ribs hurt too much so she winced.
"Petal, here I come into a room where you"re recuperating from being beaten nearly to death. For the second time in less than six months. Do pace yourself."
Theo"s face came into focus, and she managed a smile, though her face ached.