Predatory (Immortal Guardians #3.5)(77)

“Well, we can’t just leave him here,” she said. He was wounded, badly, judging by all of the blood. He needed help.

“If you’re asking me what we should do . . .” He shook his head. “As your son, my first instinct is to protect you by waiting for the sun to rise and shoving his ass out the door.”

“John!”

“Don’t worry. My second inclination—again because you’re my mom and I know you care about him—is to do what I can to help him. Let’s put him to bed and see if we can do anything about his wounds.”

Jenna gave John a quick hug. “I love you.”

He hugged her back. “I love you, too. I just hope we aren’t making a huge mistake.”

They stood. John kicked the daggers away from Richart’s hands.

“Put him in my room,” Jenna instructed.

Offering no protest, John bent down, hoisted Richart over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and straightened. “Holy crap he’s heavy.” He staggered toward the hallway.

Jenna ducked past them and hurried into her bedroom.

Grabbing the old, timeworn blanket at the foot of the bed, she threw it over the covers to protect them a bit from the blood. She stared as John deposited Richart’s limp form on the bed.

Had Richart not canceled, she likely would have spent tonight making love with a vampire.

“Mom?”

Get it together. “Right.” Moving forward, she tugged off Richart’s boots.

John removed the long coat, then Jenna started on the buttons that ran down the front of Richart’s black shirt. When she reached the last one and parted the material, both she and John gasped.

Richart’s torso was a sticky red. His shoulder did indeed sport a bullet hole. The rest of him . . .

Puncture wounds, deep cuts, and gashes that must have been carved by blades as sharp as Richart’s daggers marred much of his form.

“We don’t even have what we need to bandage those, let alone close them,” John said.

“Whatever we need, go buy it,” Jenna told him.

“I don’t want to leave you here alone with him.”

Jenna met his gaze. “We’ve been alone together nearly every night this week and he hasn’t harmed me. Do it. I’ll be fine.”

“What if he wakes up, wanting blood? You go. I’ll—”

“John.” Her tone offered no compromise.

He nodded, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, and left the room.

A couple of minutes later, he returned, wearing a fresh sweatshirt, jacket, and jeans. He handed her a canister of pepper spray and one of Richart’s daggers. “If he threatens you, hit him with the pepper spray, then carve him up.”

Lovely.

Jenna took the weapons and kissed John on the cheek. “Hurry.”

Nodding, he left the room. A moment later, the front door closed.

And Jenna was left alone with the vampire she loved.

Jenna glanced at the clock for the hundredth time since John had left.

Richart had not roused once. Not when she had finished undressing him. Not when she had sponge-bathed the blood from him. Not when she had attempted to clean his sticky, bloody hair. And not when she had worked a pair of John’s boxers up Richart’s long, muscled legs and over his . . .

Her gaze darted to his lap, covered now with a clean blanket.

She hadn’t seen a naked man up close and personal in years. She had hoped to see Richart naked when the day had begun, but not like this.

She rested her hand on his bare chest.

Warm. Weren’t vampires supposed to be cold to the touch?

His chest rose slightly, then fell still once more.

The front door opened and closed. “I’m home,” John called. Moments later he entered the room, jacket zipped up tight against the cold, a shopping bag dangling from each hand.

“Did you get everything you need?” she asked.

Setting the bags down, he unzipped his jacket and tugged it off.

“Yes, but I didn’t get everything he needs.”

“What do you mean?”

“If he’s a vampire—”

“Please stop calling him that. It’s just too weird.”

“I know. But, if he is one, he probably needs blood more than anything else.”

Jenna eyed Richart with dread. Did he really drink blood?

“Has he moved at all?” John asked.

“No. But he still has that slow, faint pulse.”

He spilled bandages, tubes, and bottles onto the bed. “I’m gonna go wash up, then we can get started.”

Chapter Four

Yawning, Jenna focused gritty eyes on the clock again. It would be noon soon.

John slept in his bedroom. He had a final exam tomorrow and Jenna had insisted he get some rest.

Richart’s chest rose and fell in another barely detectable breath.

He still hadn’t stirred. Nor had his wounds miraculously healed as they often did in movies.

Was John right? Did Richart need blood?

She thought of all the films and TV shows she’d seen in which a human had slashed his or her wrist and held it over a vampire’s mouth until he latched on and began to drink.

She was so not going to do that.

Not yet, an inner voice murmured.

Not ever, she insisted, but wondered if she would feel the same way if Richart still hadn’t awakened by . . .