Ethan’s eyebrows shot up. “He thinks about Melanie naked with his vampire friends?”
Bastien popped him on the back of the head.
“Ow! Shit!”
Lisette pinched the bridge of her nose. “Let us return to the subject at hand, shall we? Yes, I’m a girl,” she pointed out needlessly. “A girl who can kick your ass, Ethan.”
“I know,” he acknowledged with a grin as he rubbed the back of his smarting head.
“Bastien, my guest here,” she said, refraining from mentioning Zach by name, “is immortal. I was hoping you might know how to tend his wounds. Neither Ethan nor I knows much about first aid.”
“Why don’t you just give him blood?”
“No fangs.”
“You don’t need his fangs to descend. You can transfuse him with your own.”
She hesitated, unwilling to tell them what she suspected.
“What?” Ethan asked, picking up on her unease.
“He has wings,” she said.
“Those are real?” Bastien asked.
“Yes.”
He studied her stoically. “And—what—you think . . . ?”
Ethan frowned. “You don’t think he’s an angel, do you? Like a fallen angel?”
Some kind of angel. She hadn’t thought about whether or not he had fallen.
“I don’t know what he is,” she hedged.
The two men shared a look.
At least they didn’t laugh at her or mock her.
“He’s probably just a shape-shifter,” Ethan suggested.
Possibly, but . . .
“You don’t want to give him blood,” Bastien said.
She shook her head.
“All right. I’ll tend his wounds.”
“There’s something you should know first,” she cautioned.
“I’m listening.”
“Seth isn’t terribly fond of him.”
Ethan crossed his arms. “Translation: He’s on Seth’s shit list. If Seth finds out we helped him, we will likely join him on that list.”#p#分页标题#e#
A dark smile slid across Bastien’s handsome face. “When has pissing Seth off ever stopped me from doing something?”
There were definite perks to having a black sheep in the Immortal Guardian family.
Bastien ended up being a remarkably capable medic. He seemed to know the use of everything in Tracy’s substantial first-aid kit and used a hell of a lot of it to close Zach’s wounds.
“Where did you learn to do all this?” Lisette asked, watching him stitch up a deep gash on Zach’s arm.
“I commanded an army of vampires prone to psychotic breaks and a dozen or so human wannabe minions with violent tendencies. Severe wounds were a nightly occurrence, and Tanner and I were the only ones around who were guaranteed to be focused enough to take care of them. Hold his wings while I roll him onto his side.”
Approaching the bed, she leaned down to grasp Zach’s wings. They were so large. And so mangled. Broken in countless places. Feathers bent and torn. “Ethan, will you help me?”
They each took a wing and kept it as immobile as possible while Bastien turned Zach onto his side. Again Lisette marveled over how soft the feathers were. Softer than rabbit’s fur.
“I’ve set countless broken bones in the past,” Bastien murmured, “but broken wings . . . ? This is a first.”
“I appreciate your trying.”
He glanced at her as he worked. “Any particular reason you didn’t ask Melanie to help?”
Bastien’s wife, Dr. Melanie Lipton, was a now-immortal doctor who worked at the human network, searching for a cure for the virus. Either that or a way to prevent or reverse the brain damage it caused in humans. She was also doing everything she could to carry Ami safely through her pregnancy.
Lisette sighed. “I didn’t want to get her in trouble.”
His lips quirked as he manipulated one of the wings. “But you didn’t mind getting me in trouble?”
Ethan snorted. “When are you not in trouble?”
Bastien laughed. “True. I’m going to need something I can use as splints.”
Bastien slowly and methodically tended the many injuries that marred Zach’s lean form. When he finished, Lisette walked Bastien upstairs and followed him out the front door.
“Will you have time to get home before sunrise?” she asked, eyeing the gray that preceded dawn.
“The way I drive? Yes.” He paused on his way to a Chevy Volt and turned to study her.
Lisette shifted, uncomfortable beneath his silent scrutiny.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he asked at last.
“Ready for what?”
“Being on Seth’s shit list.”
Hell no. The thought of facing Seth’s wrath made her quake in her boots. “You survived it,” she replied coolly, but feared she didn’t fool him.