A Fire in the Blood(47)
At lunch, she listened halfheartedly as Jilly went on and on about her growing relationship with Luke Moran and how much she loved him.
Tessa looked up when Jileen reached across the table and shook her arm. “You haven’t heard a word I said, have you?”
“Of course I have.”
“What did I just say?”
Tessa stared at her blankly.
“I knew it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was asking about your plans for Thanksgiving. It’s next week, you know.”
“Is it?”
“All right, ’fess up,” Jilly said, her brow furrowing with concern. “What’s bothering you? I mean, besides the obvious, of course.”
Shoulders sagging, Tessa said, “I feel like I’m going quietly insane. I’m in love with a . . . you know . . . who’s being stalked by his wife. My roommate is not entirely normal. I can’t even drive to work alone because monsters are trying to get me. And now I think . . . never mind.”
“Hey, you can’t stop now!”
“Andrei spent the night in my bed. He was gone this morning, but . . .”
Jilly’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “What?”
Tessa nodded. “I’m wondering if he . . . if he took advantage of me while I was asleep.”
“Oh, my. What makes you think that?”
“I thought I dreamed it all, but it was so real. I mean, he wasn’t in bed with me when I fell asleep.”
“Did you ask him?”
Tessa shook her head. “I haven’t seen or talked to him since.”
“Well, if you’d been raped while you slept, there’d be some . . . well . . . evidence.”
“I know. There wasn’t any. But it was so real. Maybe vampires can do it without your even being aware it happened. I mean, he could have made me forget.”
“I’m sure it was just an erotic dream, no matter how vivid it was.”
“I guess so,” Tessa said. “But enough about me. When you called about meeting for lunch, you said you had news to share.”
Jilly leaned forward, her eyes bright with excitement. “I think Luke’s going to ask me to marry him.”
“Seriously?”
“I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I’m head-over-heels in love with the guy.”
“Have you thought it through? You know, what it would mean, being married to a hunter?”
“Lots of men have dangerous jobs. Cops. Those guys who go deep-sea fishing for a living. Firefighters.” Jilly shrugged. “I can’t let worrying about the future ruin the present.”
It was, Tessa thought, excellent advice.
* * *
Tessa sat in the backseat of Luke’s car. She was wondering how Bailey had spent the day when there was a thump on the roof, as if someone—or something—had landed on it. Her heart skipped a beat, then sank to the pit of her stomach as a fist smashed through the driver’s-side window and grabbed the wheel.
Everything that happened next seemed to happen in slow motion.
Luke swore when he lost control of the car.
Jilly let out a shriek as the vehicle skidded wildly across the roadway toward Tessa’s apartment building.
Tessa crossed her arms in front of her face as the car spun around and crashed into one of the trees that lined the parkway on the other side of the street.
She was going to die.
It was her last conscious thought before she pitched into a deep black void.
* * *
Pain.
Voices.
Sirens wailing in the distance.
As if from far away, she heard someone frantically calling her name, over and over again.
In spite of the pain that splintered through her, she fought her way through cobwebs of oblivion toward his voice, knowing if she remained in the peaceful darkness, she would never see him again.
“Tessa.”
She opened her eyes, blinking against the light. “Andrei?”
His hand grasped hers. “Stay with me, love.”
“Stay.” She tried to smile but it was beyond her.
* * *
Ignoring the medics who insisted he couldn’t ride to the hospital with Tessa, Andrei climbed into the ambulance, holding her hand all the while.
He knew immediately that being so close to her was a mistake. She was covered in blood from a multitude of cuts. She had hit her head against the window and sustained a nasty laceration when the car careened sideways into a tree. Blood leaked from the bandage swathed around her head.
“Jilly?” Tessa tugged on his hand. “Where’s Jilly?”
“She’s in the ambulance behind us,” Andrei said.
“Is she . . . ?”
“She’ll be fine. Luke, too.” They were both pretty banged up. Jileen had a sprained wrist and possibly a concussion from where her head had hit the passenger window. Luke had a number of bruises, a broken nose, and probably a fractured rib or two. They were lucky, he thought as the ambulance pulled into the hospital parking lot. It could have been a lot worse.