The Wicked (Elder Races #5.5)(29)

The healer sounded so sane.

Sebastian wasn’t, not in the slightest. He went to a place far beyond sanity or pride. He lay down on the floor beside Olivia and put his lips to her ear. “Olivia, please don’t leave me,” he whispered. “I’m begging you.”

He was right. Her eyes weren’t quite shut.

She blinked and said, I won’t.

Just then, Derrick also spoke in his head. Sebastian.

He snapped his head up and stared at the other male, his entire body breaking into a cold sweat.

The Elf smiled at him and nodded. Derrick wasn’t lying to reassure a dying woman.

She really was going to be okay.

Sebastian grew dizzy, the relief was so intense. He pressed his lips to the tender skin at her temple. “I don’t need your permission,” he said to her. “I’m going to start looking out for you now.”

She turned her head slightly, into his caress. That’s fine by me.

Derrick leaned forward. “Olivia, don’t be alarmed. I want to put you to sleep now so I can work on you without worrying that I might cause you any pain. I promise that you’re going to wake up in a few hours feeling much better. Is that all right with you?”

“Yes?” she whispered uncertainly. She opened her eyes, and her gaze cut sideways to Sebastian.

He brushed his lips against hers. “I’ve trusted Derrick with my life more times than I can count. Go to sleep and I will see you in a few hours.”

Derrick cast the spell and she was out before he finished speaking.

Tony and Bailey reappeared in the open doorway. They looked furious and worried at the same time. Bailey’s gaze went immediately to Olivia. “How is she?”

“I have work to do,” said Derrick. “She needs a transfusion of blood, and all I have is saline solution. The knife also struck much too close to her pulmonary artery for my liking.” The Elf sat back on his heels and looked around at the trio of worried faces. “Is this one of those times when I’m telling you too much information?”

“Yes,” Sebastian and Bailey said at the same time.

Sebastian asked, “Where’s Steve?”

“He’s gone,” Bailey said. “Well, I can’t be absolutely sure about that, because we didn’t search every single inch of the island. But all the evidence says he’s left. A wetsuit is missing from the washroom, and all the rest have been slashed, so we checked the tanks on the beach. There’s one tank missing, and he let the oxygen out from all the rest. He must have been planning this for a while.” She scowled down at Olivia as Derrick worked on her. “We had to have just missed him. We watched for threats from everywhere else, but we didn’t watch each other. Most of us can’t make the crossover without suits and tanks.”

Sebastian stood. Bailey was right. She was Light Fae, Derrick was an Elf and Tony and Olivia were human. None of them could hold their breath and swim in the frigid water for the ten minutes or so that it would take to reach the other side.

Like everyone else, Sebastian had used a suit and a tank to cross over, but that was more for comfort, not survival. As a Wyr, he generated more body heat than any of the others, and he had a powerful set of lungs.

Rage settled in him as an unshakable purpose. “You might not be able to make the crossover, but I can.”

“Make him hurt,” said Bailey. “Make him hurt real bad.”

“Count on it,” Sebastian told her.

He paused to look down at Olivia, his heart squeezing tight. He said to his people, “She’s going to be my mate.”

They all exchanged looks. None of them appeared surprised, but then they had all watched Sebastian with Olivia over the last week.

Derrick told him, “Trust me. Trust her.”

“I do,” he said.

He strode out of the cottage, shapeshifted and took wing to fly over the water. Then he shifted again in midair, rolled and dived toward the passageway. Lunging through the water as fast as he could, he thought ahead to what he would find.

Phaedra would be on watch, but the Djinn would only be on the lookout for people trying to approach the crossover passageway from Earth. She was expecting for the team to emerge from the Other land. She wouldn’t know to stop Steve.

Had Steve still been close enough to feel Olivia’s cry for help?

While the question renewed his rage, it was probably irrelevant. One way or another, as soon as Steve had made his move, he would have known that he would have to work fast. He couldn’t know whether or not Phaedra would say anything to the crew circling in the yacht at the surface. He would be swimming as fast as he could underwater, to get as much distance from the yacht as he could before surfacing, which was why he needed an oxygen tank even though he was also Wyr.

Steve had to have a preplanned route in mind. Perhaps he was meeting someone, but if he was, Sebastian doubted very much if they would chance connecting too close to Phaedra or the yacht. Just like with the crossover passageway, it would be much easier for someone to slip away than for someone to try to approach.

Then Sebastian knew where Steve was going.

The other Wyr was going to try for one of the underwater openings to an old, vast tunnel system that lay underneath San Francisco. Carling had told him about it. When Vampyres traveled back and forth from the island, they would swim to the tunnel system to avoid surfacing in any sunlight. If Steve reached the tunnels, his chances for disappearing grew a lot higher. He might even be planning to meet someone in the city.