Runaway Vampire (Argeneau, #23)(58)

Dante was seated at a small table beside the bed, a half-eaten feast on the table before him. He got quickly to his feet when she entered, though.

“I didn’t want to put the dirty T-shirt back on after showering, but I have no clothes,” Mary announced as she entered the bedroom.

“They are hanging in the closet,” Dante said. “Russell had the hotel launder them. You can put them on later. Sit now. Eat.”

Mary glanced toward the closet, but then made a beeline for the table. Now that food was on offer, she was suddenly aware that she was very hungry. Pausing beside the table, she admitted, “I’m starving.”

“I am not surprised,” Dante said, his voice a little husky. “You have not eaten in four days.”

“Really? All it took was four days for me to turn?” she asked with surprise. She would have expected longer for a transformation like this.

“You are still turning,” he assured her solemnly. “You are just through the worst of it. The rest will complete over the next weeks or months.”

“Oh,” she murmured, turning her gaze back to the food.

“As for how long a turn takes, it varies. For some it is faster, for some longer. Your injuries probably contributed to the length as well.”

“Right,” she murmured, wondering what her injuries had been. From what he’d said, they’d been life threatening, but had it been head trauma, or had she been pinned? Crushed? Skewered by a piece of metal?

Maybe she didn’t want to know, Mary decided, and admitted, “I don’t remember much. I know they drove us off the highway, and then it was like the RV exploded.”

“The RV did explode,” he said, but quickly added, “after I got you out.”

“Oh.” She sighed her relief and grimaced. “I don’t remember that. I just remember everything flying at me and—” She whirled and glanced around the room with alarm. “Where is Bailey?”

“She is fine,” Dante said quickly, taking her arm and urging her into the chair across from the one he’d been seated in. “She broke a leg in the accident, but—”

“What?” Mary cried, jumping to her feet again.

“She is going to be okay,” he assured her, placing a hand on her shoulder to push her back down onto her chair. “She is at the veterinary hospital.”

“And they’ve kept her four days?” Mary asked with alarm, popping to her feet once more. Vets did not keep dogs that long unless it was terribly serious. Hell, she’d had dogs that were operated on and sent home the same day.

“Russell . . . convinced them to keep her for a few days because we thought it best she not be here while you were going through the turn,” Dante explained soothingly.

Mary didn’t need to ask to know he was talking about mind control when he said convinced.

Dante added, “It was for the best. We had enough on our plates looking after you and trying to keep anyone from calling the police to report a murder. We couldn’t watch Bailey too.”

“What murder? Why would anyone call the police?” she asked with a combination of alarm and confusion.

“Mary,” he said solemnly. “The turn is very painful. You have been screaming your head off for four days. We had to take turns, two of us holding you down to ensure your bindings did not snap and loose you to hurt yourself, and one of us out in the hallway controlling anyone within hearing distance.”

“You tied me down?” she asked with amazement.

“We had to. You would have hurt yourself otherwise,” Dante said apologetically.

“I would not,” Mary assured him indignantly. “I’m not into cutting or any of the other self-abuse things.”

“It is not a matter of being a self-abuser,” he assured her. “It is a matter of the pain being so great that . . .” Dante paused as if searching for an example, and then sighed and said, “I heard once of a turn who stabbed himself in the eye trying to end the agony.”

“Ewww,” she said, sitting down abruptly.

“Si. Exactly.” Dante nodded. “I wished to avoid your doing something like that.”

“Thank you,” Mary muttered, trying to imagine how bad pain had to be to make a person do something like that. She couldn’t even imagine it though. It just seemed so alien. Shaking her head, she admitted, “I don’t remember suffering any pain.”

“That is a blessing then,” Dante said and began to move the plates with food still on them closer to her.

Mary stared down at the food before her, and then glanced up and asked almost apologetically, “You said Russell is sure the kidnappers followed us back here?”

He nodded.

“So they drove us off the road and then just let this Russell and Francis collect us and bring us here?”

“Not exactly,” he said dryly. “When the kidnappers forced us off the road, Russell and Francis were in the SUV directly in front of us. I do not think the men in the van even realized they were there. The RV probably blocked their view of them.”

Mary nodded. She had noticed the SUV he was talking about. It had practically been riding the RV’s front bumper. She had no doubt the kidnappers hadn’t known they were there and had probably thought the road empty when they forced the RV off the road.