A Fire in the Blood(49)
Andrei nodded. “Thank you, Nurse. You can go now.”
With a tentative smile, she blinked at him and left the room.
“What did you do to her?” Bailey asked.
“Just a little mind trick,” Andrei said, moving toward the bed. “Why don’t you wait for me in the hall?”
Bailey frowned at him. “Why? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to give Tessa some of my blood. It will speed the healing process. Now, go outside.”
“I want to watch.”
He regarded her a moment, then shrugged. Lifting his arm, he bit into his wrist, parted Tessa’s lips, and let a few drops of his blood fall onto her tongue.
When he judged she’d had enough, he sealed the wound in his arm.
“What now?” Bailey asked.
“She’ll wake in the morning feeling much better. Stay here and keep an eye on her,” he said, moving toward the door. “I need to find Luke and Jileen.”
* * *
Katerina stalked the dark streets, her fury as black as the night. Things were not going as planned. She had not expected Andrei to be happy to see her, at least not at first, but she had been confident of her ability to win his affection, if not his love. She had wooed and won him centuries ago. But he was no longer young and innocent.
No longer enamored of her beauty.
No longer weak. Or easily manipulated.
How could she have forgotten how it had been back then? Over time, he had gained in strength and power, until he was able to resist her compulsions completely. Until he was able to leave her, something she would never have thought possible.
She had never loved him.
She didn’t love him now.
But he was hers. And she intended to have him, one way or the other.
Only one thing stood in her way.
The other woman. Tessa. She was the one the fledglings talked about. Katerina had overheard them whispering about her in the local vampire hangout from time to time, though she had not known then that it was Tessa. There were, even now, half a dozen fledglings in the town, just waiting for a chance to get close to her, to taste her. The woman’s blood was purported to strengthen a fledgling’s supernatural power.
But it was only rumor, of course, started by some gypsy, because none who had gotten close to Tessa had survived to tell the tale.
She paused in her contemplation to feed from a homeless man who stumbled across her path.
After leaving the body behind a trash can, she continued on her way. There was something about the woman’s blood. Something extraordinary. Katerina knew that for a fact.
Because her bite should have destroyed Andrei. Instead, he was stronger than ever. Had the woman’s blood done that? What if the rumor was wrong? What if it wasn’t fledglings who got stronger, but ancients?
Chapter Twenty-Three
In the morning, Tessa woke feeling as good as new. Her doctor was amazed that she didn’t have any lingering soreness from the accident, that it was no longer painful for her to breathe. When he removed the bandage to check her stitches, he informed her that the laceration in her head had healed completely, leaving no scar.
Mystified, he agreed to let her go home the next day.
She was fretting at having to spend another night in the hospital when Andrei and Bailey entered the room, laden with take-out sacks from a local hamburger stand, a big bouquet of flowers, and a large white teddy bear.
Andrei handed her the teddy bear, his gaze moving over her, missing nothing. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine, really. The doctor said I can go home tomorrow. He just wants to run a couple of tests.”
Bailey looked at Andrei as she placed the bags and the flowers on the tray, her eyes wide.
“What is it?” Tessa asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Andrei took her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. “I gave you a little of my blood last night, that’s all.”
“Oh! But . . . won’t they . . . ?”
He shook his head. “They won’t find anything out of the ordinary.”
“So, what happened last night?” Tessa asked. “You were hurting.”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle, thanks to Bailey,” he said, smiling at the girl.
Bailey flushed at the compliment. “You two probably want to be alone,” she mumbled. “I think I’ll go look at the babies in the nursery.”
When they were alone, Tessa tugged on his arm. “So, what did happen last night? It was Katerina, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know. She took off. She was afraid of Bailey, at least in her panther form.”
“I don’t believe it. Bailey’s just a kid.”
He twitched his shoulder in a shrug. “She might be a helpless teenager in her own skin, but as the panther. . . she’s something else.”