Chemistry of Magic: Unexpected Magic Book Five (Unexpected Magic #5)(71)

“Give me his neckcloth,” a familiar male voice commanded.

Pascoe. While the room behind them erupted in shouts, Emilia did as told, nearly ripping the cloth from Dare’s throat. He feebly attempted to aid by lifting his neck so she could unwrap the linen. She wept more as her fingers brushed the strong column of his throat.

“Sorry, love,” he whispered. “I wanted to be a hero for you.”

“I don’t need heroes,” she told him angrily, fighting her tears. Her anger wasn’t for him. He wasn’t the one who had started this. Her anger was at men in general and civilization as a whole and at herself for being so useless. “I need you. Don’t you dare die on me.”

Pascoe ripped off his own neckcloth to pad the wound and tied the second one around Dare’s thigh.

Dare gave a half laugh “Dying is inevitable, my dearest. I’d rather go this way than languish on a sickbed, spitting blood.”

“I ought to let you croak for that heartless remark,” she retorted. “Think of your mother and sisters and stay alive!”

“Will, help me carry Dare to the carriage,” Pascoe ordered. “That’s all the doctoring I know. We’ll have to take him to Bridey.”

“What about. . .” Emilia glanced down at the hulk sprawled across the study entrance. One of the strangers she assumed to be a physician was leaning over him, but young Crenshaw did not appear to be breathing.

Pascoe grabbed her elbow and turned her away. “Evil brutes come to bad ends. If you have any gift at all, use it on Dare. He will bleed to death before we reach the abbey otherwise.”

Not a single man turned to help them or protest their departure. The silence was almost deafening as Mr. Madden and Pascoe carried Dare down the hall to the berlin. Outside, the deerhounds waited. They must have been tracking the thief.

Emilia didn’t listen to the discussion of who would do what. She merely climbed in with Dare, set his big leg over her lap, and pressed her hands to the wound. The warning prickles immediately became shocks of agonizing pain traveling up her arms. His thigh was far too large for her to circle, even with both hands.

In another time and place she would have been embarrassed at publicly embracing a man’s thigh. Even a week ago, she would have been terrified to pour her energy into a man as vital as this, with the power to suck everything she was and could be into him.

“Don’t go catatonic on me,” Dare warned weakly, shifting and breaking the dangerous connection. His face looked pale but handsome as ever, causing her tears to fall again. “I’m not worth it.”

The bandage beneath her hand had already turned soggy with blood. Ignoring his warning, Emilia pressed her palms harder over the gaping tear. She focused her attention on the beat of his pulse in the long column of his throat. A small curl of brown hair teased over his shirt. It stirred familiar lust as she watched it move with the draft. Pascoe climbed in across from her, and she barely noticed.

“You are worth saving,” she murmured, concentrating on Dare’s pulse and not the energy pouring from her. Did his heartbeat weaken even as she watched?

She couldn’t tell him that she feared her gift couldn’t save him. She’d never attempted to stop blood or replace it. She didn’t really think it possible. But if she could keep him alive until they reached Bridey. . .

Dare groaned as the coach jolted to a start, and his eyes closed.

“His coat,” Emilia said. “I need more padding.”

Pascoe took off his own and handed it over. “I’m sorry we were so late arriving. We let the dogs practice tracing Crenshaw’s scent. We know where he hid the book, but we had no way of digging it up or carrying it.”

The book seemed so meaningless in light of Dare’s wound.

Again, she’d been hopelessly selfish. He hadn’t had time to ride to Leeds and back. His meeting was going on without him. With his pain consuming her, it was hard to concentrate on his pulse and her energy. Thinking was out of the question. She relied on instinct.

“The railroad,” she said, closing her eyes and letting pure energy pour through her fingers. “Papers in his pocket? Send someone.”

“Don’t let her pass out,” Dare muttered through another groan. “She’ll kill herself.”

“You believe me.” Distracted by that notion, Emilia took a breath and released him long enough to see if she was in danger of fainting.

She was light-headed and exhausted already. She didn’t think she could keep this up until they reached the abbey, even though the team appeared to be galloping at full speed. She nearly fell off the bench as it took a turn at a reckless pace.

“If I live, we’ll go to Wystan,” Dare suggested.

She understood the lascivious thought behind his amused whisper, and her insides melted. “It’s questionable whether your humor or your lust will be the first to kill you,” she warned.

Ignoring their whispers, Pascoe rummaged through Dare’s coat pockets, producing the oil-cloth protected packet of papers. “We’ll run Erran ragged at this rate, but we’ll arrange the meeting, although I think Dare has taken the fight out of that group of slugs back there.”

Emilia wanted to cry out her horror of the death she’d seen right before her eyes, but Dare’s life was more important than her fears. She returned to pouring herself into stopping the bleeding.