Immortal Ever After(5)

“That won’t happen. She’s wounded,” Anders said. He didn’t bother mentioning that there were signs of a fight and a hell of a lot of blood in the master bedroom. Or that if even half of that blood was hers, she couldn’t have got far on her own.

“Wounded, huh?” Bricker frowned at the house. “She might not have got away at all then. The rogue might have caught and taken her with him. He did return during her call.”

“A possibility,” Anders acknowledged and thought it would be a shame if it were true. How terrible would it be if this nameless, faceless caller had escaped long enough to alert the authorities, saving the other women, only to be recaptured and taken by the rogue before those authorities arrived to save her?

“I suppose we have to be sure, though,” Bricker muttered.

Anders nodded. “Decker and Mortimer are seeing to the women in the basement while we look around and make sure she isn’t lying out here somewhere.”

“Right.” Bricker’s gaze slid over the house front again. “Where was the open window?”

Rather than answer, Anders turned and led the way around to the back of the house.

They’d rounded the corner and Anders had just spotted the open second-floor window of the master bedroom when Bricker’s phone began to ring. Pausing, he glanced to the younger man as he retrieved his phone and checked the caller I.D. When Bricker then sighed, Anders raised his eyebrow in question. “Problem?”

“It’s Lucian.” The explanation was accompanied by a grimace.

Anders managed to smother the smile that tried to claim his lips. Lucian was the head of the Immortal Council as well as the Enforcers who hunted down those who ignored or broke council laws. He also had a wife who was a week overdue giving birth to their child . . . which was making the man a little crazy and prone to annoy his Enforcers with phone calls to keep on top of things.

“You’d better take it then,” he suggested mildly.

“Yeah.” Bricker sighed the word and then muttered, “He probably wants me to pick up something else Leigh is craving. Lord knows he couldn’t leave her alone and go get it himself.”

Lips twitching, Anders left him to it and continued forward alone. It was late, past midnight, but there was a full moon tonight and his eyes worked nearly as well in the darkness as in light. He headed first for the bushes along the back of the house, eyes scanning for any signs of disturbance or blood on the ground as he went. Anders was standing in the dirt below the window before he saw any indicators of someone having been that way. The bush there was crushed, with broken branches, and loose leaves lying around it. The dirt surrounding it was also disturbed.

Anders followed the trail along the back of the house for ten feet and then paused when he spotted a foot sticking out from under the bushes. His eyes moved past the bare foot to the bottom of a pair of jeans. But he couldn’t see the rest of the body, which was well hidden by the bush.

It had to be the female who’d made the 911 call, Anders decided. And from the markings in the dirt, it looked like she’d dragged herself here and tried to hide herself under the bush before passing out . . . or dying, he thought grimly. The noise of his approach hadn’t stirred her at all.

Bending, Anders caught her ankle and stepped back, dragging her out from under the foliage. She was a young woman with a filthy face, and equally dirty long, light brown hair. Her clothes were an utter mess, the jeans looking more brown than blue, and her T-shirt was both dirty and bloodstained, leaving only a patch here or there to tell that it had once been white. Her chest was rising and lowering though. She was alive.

Squatting, Anders tugged her T-shirt up in search of wounds, but brought it quickly back down when he saw that her chest was not only woundless, but braless. He sat her up then and immediately spotted the puncture wound on the side of her lower back. It was a good-sized hole, and still bleeding, he noted, but didn’t want to tend to it here in the dirt. He had to get her back to the van and the first-aid kit there.

Anders was scooping her up off the ground when he heard Bricker speak behind him.

“Yes, he’s found her.”

A glance over his shoulder showed Bricker approaching, his phone still pressed to his ear.

“Lucian wants to know if she’s alive,” Bricker said, pausing behind him.

“She is.” Anders straightened with his burden. “Wounded though. Her back. She needs Dani or Rachel to look at her.”

Leaving Bricker to relay that information, Anders started away. He’d just reached the front yard when Bricker caught up.

“Lucian says we’re to bring her to his house,” Bricker announced, falling into step beside him. “He wants to talk to her as soon as she’s conscious. He’ll have Dani or Rachel come there.”