“You can’t believe you threw your gun?” Ethan supplied for her.
She gave her head a groggy shake. “Can’t believe I . . . threw like a girl.”
Seth and Melanie both laughed, then caught themselves and corralled their mirth.
Melanie smiled up at Ethan. “Was she by any chance bitten by a vampire?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. She’ll probably be a little loopy for a while, then.”
If the chemical the vampire’s bite had exposed Heather to only left her a little loopy, then she had fared better than most mortals did when bitten.
Yet again, Ethan wondered how Heather had maintained enough control to continue firing her weapon with any accuracy after that vampire had sunk his teeth into her.
Heather couldn’t seem to get her mind to focus. Her eyes either, for that matter. When she opened them, the room around her tilted and rolled as if she had just come off a three-day bender.
Voices spoke around her. One female, two male.
And a hand clung to hers. Large. Warm. With long fingers woven in between her own.
“Ethan,” she murmured. Relief filled her when his huge, muscled form leaned over her and his handsome face swam into view.
“Hey,” he said with a soft smile and stroked her hair back from her face.
Heather could have purred like a cat, it felt so good. “Handsome.”
His smile broadened.
Her own smile faltered as her vision cleared and she got a good look at him. The hair above one ear was matted with blood. His face, neck, and clothing were splattered with it.
“You were wounded,” she breathed and clumsily tried to sit up.
“Whoa.” Ethan urged her back down. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Just lie back and rest.”
A pretty brunette in a white lab coat appeared beside him and reached for Heather’s arm, checking a tube that was taped to it.
“Am I in a hospital?” Heather asked. Her tongue felt weird. Thick. She kept slurring her words. And her thoughts jumped around in her head like children in a bouncy house.
“You’re at network headquarters,” Ethan told her.
The brunette smiled down at Heather. “Hi, Heather. I’m Dr. Melanie Lipton. You’re going to be fine. I’m just giving you a transfusion to replace the blood you lost.”
Heather nodded. The room did that tilt-and-roll thing again. “A vampire stabbed Ethan in the back. Would you please check it?” She grabbed Ethan’s shirt with her free hand, intending to turn him around so she could see his back, but two hundred plus pounds of muscle that didn’t want to be budged simply couldn’t be budged.
Ethan’s lips tightened. “He didn’t stab me in the back. He stabbed you in the back, because you threw yourself between us.”
Really? The foggy remnant of a memory teased her. Pain. Seeing the point of a blade emerge from her stomach just before she stumbled into Ethan’s back. “Oh. Right. Good.”
His eyes flashed bright amber. “Good?” he repeated, fury darkening his features. “The hell it was! You sacrificed yourself to save me! What were you thinking? I’m immortal. You’re mortal. Incredibly, incredibly mortal. You would’ve died if Seth hadn’t gotten to you in time! You could’ve—”
“I wasn’t thinking,” she admitted, cutting off his rant. Her pounding head couldn’t take the yelling. “And it never ended that way in the dreams. The vampire always—”
“Wait,” Ethan interrupted. “You dreamed this would happen? You dreamed vampires would attack again?”
“Yes.”
He stared at her. “When?”
Heather wondered why he looked so pissed. “When what?” She could’ve sworn he paused to count to ten.
“When did you dream it?” he gritted.
“Every night for the past couple of weeks.” Fatigue seeped into her like a sedative.
“And you didn’t think to call me?”
Heather closed her eyes.
“Heather?” Pause. “Heather?”
She pried her eyelids open and stared up at the handsome face hovering above her. “Ethan.” She smiled. “You brought me coffee.”
He looked to the brunette.
The brunette pursed her lips. “Did I mention she may be loopy for a while?”
Ethan sighed. “Yes, but I actually did bring her coffee.”
“I thought you hated coffee,” a deep voice rumbled beyond Heather’s view.
“He does,” Heather murmured. “But he wanted to come around the hedges.”
Silence.
The doctor cleared her throat. “If that’s a sexual metaphor, please don’t explain it to me.”
Masculine laughter.
“So tired,” Heather complained. She couldn’t keep her eyes open. “Could use that . . . coffee . . . bout now.”
“Sleep,” Ethan murmured. His lips brushed her cheek. “We’ll talk later.”
“Don’t leave,” she whispered.
“I won’t. I promise.”
Comforted, Heather let slumber claim her.
Chapter Eight
Seth watched Ethan stroke Heather’s hair. The younger immortal was clearly smitten. “What did she mean about the dreams?”
Ethan straightened, but didn’t relinquish his hold on the mortal woman’s hand. “Did Chris fill you in on how Heather and I met?”
“We were all concerned about Cliff at the time, so Chris just gave me the basics. He said she came to your aid while you were fighting vampires in a nearby clearing.”
Ethan nodded. “Heather dreamed the vampires and I would end up fighting there and that she would be dragged into it. Dreamed it exactly as it happened, almost every night for a year before it finally did happen. Apparently she dreamed of tonight’s battle as well.”
Alarms sounded. “Heather isn’t precognitive,” Seth said.
“Did Chris tell you that?”
“No.”
Ethan stared at him for a long moment, then blinked. “Oh. Right. I forget sometimes that you know everything.”
“Smart-ass,” Seth muttered.
“Not really. I’m just a little slow to process things at the moment. It’s been a long night and I’m not at my best.”
Melanie frowned. “Oh, Ethan. I’m sorry. I haven’t even offered you blood. Let me get you some.” She darted away before he could thank her.
“Heather told you she dreamed it exactly the way it happened?” Seth asked.
“Yes. There were no deviations at all. She said that’s never happened before. Except, now it’s happened again.”
Seth studied the unconscious gifted one. It didn’t make sense. Telepaths didn’t have prophetic dreams. Sometimes they were sucked into the dreams of those slumbering in their general vicinity. But Heather had no nearby neighbors and certainly had no neighbors with precognitive abilities.
Seth delved into her mind, seeking an explanation.
The one he found jarred him.
“What?” Ethan asked, his bloodstained face creasing with worry. “Is something wrong?”
Fortunately, Melanie returned just then with a couple of bags of blood she offered Ethan. “Here. If you need more, let me know. And if you’d like to clean up, Bastien always keeps a change of clothes here. He won’t mind if you borrow them.”
Ethan took the blood bags and arched a brow. “He won’t?”
She winked. “Not if I tell him not to.”
Relieved by the diversion, Seth caught Melanie’s eye. “Where is Bastien?”
“Out hunting with Cliff,” she said, her expression sobering. “Thank you again for allowing it.”
He nodded. Seth agreed with Bastien that the violence of the hunt gave Cliff an outlet he needed and hadn’t wanted to take that away from him just yet.
Ethan set the first bag, now empty, on the bed and lifted the second. “How’s Cliff doing?” He sank his fangs into the bag.
Melanie sighed. “He’s walking on eggshells, as if he thinks any slip in control at all will make him lose it again. He’s handling it, though. I think the fact that no one blames him for kicking Whetsman’s ass helps. But after what happened, some of the guards—the ones he inadvertently hurt trying to get to Whetsman—are more leery of him. And he knows it.”
“What about Bastien?” Seth asked. “How’s he taking it?”
Her shoulders slumped a little. “He wakes up every evening fearing this will be the night that Cliff will ask him to end it.”
Seth backed away a step. “I think I’ll join them on their hunt, then. See how they’re doing. Ethan, I want you to remain here with Heather. Stay close. Don’t let her out of your sight. And see what she can tell you about the latest dreams when she awakens.”
“Okay.”
Melanie held up a finger. “You might want to call ahead. For Cliff’s sake.”
Seth nodded. Retrieving his phone, he dialed Bastien’s number.
“What?”
“It’s Seth. I’m on my way, I just have a quick stop to make first.”
“Okay. Thanks for the heads-up.”
Seth teleported to the reception room outside Chris Reordon’s private office. His eyebrows flew up as his gaze fell upon the shapely bottom of a woman who was bent over behind the desk, looking for something in the lowest drawer of a file cabinet.