Love Me to Death (Underveil, #1)(31)

Elena tried to stand again, but fell back on her back. “I can’t. My legs are frozen or asleep or something.”

“Then crawl. I need your help.”

She crawled the several feet through the bloody snow to his side, covering her nose and mouth with her hands. Obviously, the smell of his blood was affecting her.

“Hold out your hands,” Aleksandra ordered. “I can’t leave evidence that he has been healed. You must take the bullets with you.”

Elena held out her bare hands and placed them together. One, by one, for what seemed like forever, Aleksi moved her hands over his body, removing bullets with a pain that rivaled being shot in the first place. Fuck, it hurt. And still, they kept coming. Clink, clink, clink.

“You’d better be worth it, little human,” Aleksi said, finally sitting up. “There. I got them all. Niki, are you still with us?”

“Yes.” His voice was strained, but at least he could still talk.

“You need to teleport now. Right now. Can you do that? I know you’re hurt. Has a sufficient amount of time passed?”

He nodded, which was the best he could do with his body ripped full of holes.

“More will come if we remain here, and they might not be simple wood elves. Go to the cabin. It’s very close, so you won’t have to use a lot of energy to get there, and no one knows of it. Teleport there and heal. I’ll come to you when I can.”

Again, he nodded.

“Where is your dagger? The one I gave you?”

His eyes searched the area and stopped on the body of a wood elf with a jeweled knife hilt protruding from the gray skin of its throat.

“It’s how they’ve been finding you. I overheard Fydor bragging about it to a guard. He altered it and put a device in the handle so they could track you.” She walked to the body of the creature, ripped out the dagger, and wiped the black sticky blood off it onto its jacket. “And it’s how they’ll find me.” She stood on the bearskin that had covered Elena, raised the blade, and plunged it into her own belly. “Shame on you for stabbing me like this.” Her face contorted in pain. “I love you. See you soon.”

Mouth open in a silent scream, Elena, still holding the bullets, trembled as Aleksi crumpled over in the snow.

With a grunt, he pulled the suitcase to them and popped it open. Aleksi’s plan was good, but only if they could get the hell out before more of Fydor’s men came. “Put the bullets in here. If Fydor is really trying to have me killed, we can’t leave evidence she helped me.” She dropped them in a shower into the bottom corner of the suitcase. “Now hold this and we go.”

She gripped the suitcase tightly.

“Lean close.” He stared into her blue eyes and put his hands on her neck. As he chanted, the familiar pressure of teleportation began.

Once solidified, he leaned against the wall for support. He’d thought the worst of the pain was over when Aleksi finished removing the bullets, but teleporting proved him wrong. Just because bullets couldn’t kill him didn’t mean they didn’t hurt like hell. There must have released two dozen rounds into his body. Damned wood elves.

He straightened and took a ragged breath. He hadn’t been here since his father’s death over twenty years ago. They’d used to camp here when hunting bear and boar. The cabin looked exactly as he remembered it, sparsely furnished with only two beds, a stove, and rough-hewn beams on the ceiling. It seemed like only yesterday he was staring up at the knotholes in the beams as his father told him stories of his people and the species under the Veil.

Swallowing hard, he brushed away the ghosts of happier times. His father was dead. And now that he knew Arcos’s offspring was not complicit whatsoever in that murder, he was discharged from avenging his death. Or was he? Maybe the rumblings and rumors had some merit. Maybe something more complicated than the two kings killing each other in a swordfight had caused his father’s death.

His uncle had planted the location device in his dagger. Why? Aleksandra made it sound like he was behind all these attacks. Well, until he found out what was really going on, he would trust no one. The only thing he was really sure of was that this woman was paired with him by fate, and Uniter or not, he’d protect her.

Judging from the dim light coming in the windows, the tiny cabin was completely snowbound. Good. They would be all but invisible. He needed to be sure they stayed that way.

Elena had moved as far from him as the cord would allow. Her eyes were dilated. She lusted for his blood. If only she wanted him like that. Well, it was probably a good thing she didn’t at this point because he hurt too much to do anything to relieve her if she did.

“I have no spare clothes,” he said. “I can do nothing to eliminate the blood and make you more comfortable until I heal.”

“How long will that be?”

“I have no idea. I haven’t eaten in a while and am weakened. Usually, the wounds close in less than a day, so probably by this time tomorrow.”

She groaned and slumped to the floor, covering her face. “I’ll never make it.”

“That bad?”

“That good. You have no idea how good you smell.”

Well, part of him didn’t need healing and sprang to life at the husky tone of her voice. “How good?”

“So good, I don’t care that I can’t feel my feet anymore.”