Hunted (House of Night #5)(43)

"The human is fine, Priestess," Darius soothed. "Stanch the wound on his arm so that he will not lose any more blood."

Automatically I ran my tongue ove Btense had stor the narrow slice on Heath's arm and the bigger gash I'd made when I bit him while I thought Heal...don't bleed anymore, and when I pulled away this time I saw that the knife wound, as well as the marks my teeth had left, had completely stopped bleeding.

"You can close the circle," Darius told Aphrodite, who was watching me with undisguised curiosity.

See, I wanted to tell her, there are a lot of different kinds of Imprints. What I have with Heath is definitely not what you have with Stevie Rae. But I couldn't summon the energy to say the words. Actually, I wasn't looking forward to the gazillion questions I was sure she was going to have for me. And then before she turned to Stevie Rae to begin thanking and then sending away the elements, I saw Aphrodite send Darius a sexy smile filled with promise, and I remembered that the first Imprint I'd shared with Heath had been broken when I'd had sex with Loren, and I realized that it was Darius who was going to have to field her questions. By the intimate smile he gave her in return, I was guessing he was going to like that kind of questioning wayyyy more than I ever would.

Okay, gross.

As a grinning Aphrodite closed the circle, Darius turned back to Heath and me.

"Erik, help me get him over to the bed," Darius said.

A stone-faced Erik lifted my head out of Heath's lap. He and Darius carried him the short distance to the bed and laid his still body on the spot so recently vacated by Jack (who was watching, wide-eyed, from the side of the room while he manically petted Duchess over and over).

"Go get something fast to eat and drink. Oh, and find some more of Venus's wine," Darius told Jack. "But tell the red fledglings to stay away," he added before Jack nodded and scampered off with Duchess at his heels.

"They're not gonna attack Heath," Stevie Rae said. She came to me and held my hand. "Especially now that he's Imprinted with Zoey again. His blood smells wrong."

"I don't have time to test whether they will or will not right now," Darius said. He came back over to the bed and started inspecting my wound again. "Good. It has completely stopped bleeding."

"I think I'll take your word for that. I don't really want to look again." I was pleased as hell that I had my voice back, even if I did sound weak and more than a little shaky. "Thanks, guys, for the circle," I told my friends, who grinned at me and started to rush the table.

"No!" Darius put up a hand, halting their jubilation. "I need room to work. Aphrodite, find some of those butterfly bandages in that kit and bring them over to me."

"Hey, am I done almost dying?" I asked the warrior.

Darius looked up from my wound to meet my eyes, and I saw there a relief that told me exactly how close I must have been to not making it.

"You are done dying." He paused, clearly at the brink of saying more.

"But?" I prompted.

"There's no but about it," Stevie Rae said [ oXI was quickly. "You're done dyin'. Period."

I didn't look away from Darius, and he finally answered me. "But you need more help then I can give you if you're going to recover fully."

"What do you mean, more help?" Aphrodite asked as she moved to Darius's side, a handful of weird Band-Aids clenched in her fist.

Darius sighed. "Zoey's wound is severe. The human's blood has saved her life by replacing the blood she lost and strengthening her enough that she was able to accept the energy of the elements, but not even Zoey can recover from so great a wound by herself. She is still just a fledgling, though even were she a fully Changed vampyre, an injury like this would be difficult for her to recover from."

"But she looks better now, and she's talking to us," Damien said.

"Yeah, I don't feel like I'm not really here anymore," I said.

Darius nodded. "That is all good, but the truth is you need many stitches so that the wound can close and heal."

"What about these?" Aphrodite held up the butterfly Band-Aid packages. "I thought that's why you needed them."

"Those bandages are only temporary. She needs real stitches."

"So stitch me up." I tried to sound as brave as I could, even though the thought of Darius sewing up my flesh made me want to puke or cry, or both.

"There are no sutures in the kit," Darius said.

"Can't we get some?" Erik asked. I noticed as he spoke, he was looking everywhere but at me. "I could drive Heath's truck to the St. John's pharmacy and Stevie Rae could do her mind control thing on a doc there. We'd bring back what ever you need, and then you could stitch her up."

"Yeah, we can do that. I can even grab a doctor if you want and bring him down here, then wipe his memory clean when we return him," Stevie Rae said.

"Okay, Stevie Rae, that's a nice offer," I said, more than a little disturbed that she was talking about what amounted to kidnapping and brainwashing. "But I really don't think that's a good idea."

"It's not that simple to solve the problem anyway," Darius said.

"So explain it so it is that simple," Heath said, propping himself up on his elbows and looking totally like crap even though he smiled sweetly at me. "Zoey needs more than a doctor's care. Zoey needs to be around adult vampyres so that the damage to her body doesn't become fatal."