How the hell had he missed this earlier and not questioned her? he wondered with dismay, and then, thinking back, recalled that she’d been wearing a leather jacket over the top when he’d woken up. His leather jacket, he thought now. The desert got chilly at night and she may have donned it for that reason, but it had done a fine job of hiding all of this too.
“All clear,” Jackie announced, suddenly appearing in the door.
“Video shows two men climbing the fence and then fleeing when the alarm sounded. Good thing Jackie insisted on alarming the fence and yard as well as the house after that business when she was turned,” Vincent added, pausing behind her, one hand on her shoulder.
Marcus glanced to the couple and nodded. He had been there for “that business” and wasn’t surprised that Jackie had ramped up the security since then. The culprit who had attacked her might now be caught and taken care of, but an experience like that could haunt a person and make him more cautious. His gaze slid back to Divine, and he asked, “Did I do this to her?”
“You were out of your head,” Vincent said at once, slipping past Jackie to move to his side. “She doesn’t hold you responsible.”
She might not, but he felt guilty as hell for it and asked grimly, “What did I stab her with?”
“I gather it was an arrow, or a bolt I guess,” Vincent said, peering at the wound and then bending to tug the peasant blouse out of her skirt and up so that he could get a look at the wound. It was further along in healing than the striations in her chest.
“Where the hell did I get— Oh,” Marcus ended on a mutter as he recalled the weapons box built into the floor beside the refrigerator. Every SUV had one; his held a gun, knife, and bows with specially made bolts, the tips painted with a drug strong enough to knock out an immortal, if only temporarily.
“I gather the two of you were struggling and you opened the weapons box, grabbed the first thing, and stabbed her. Fortunately, you stabbed her with the wrong end, and accidentally stuck yourself with the drugged tip while doing it,” Vincent announced, straightening. “Which is probably a good thing. You passed out and she was able to get into town and buy chains, then chain you down before you came to.”
Marcus grunted, and then muttered, “I’m surprised she didn’t use them to stake and bake me out in the desert if I did all of this to her.”
Vincent actually smiled faintly at the suggestion, but shook his head. “She doesn’t seem the type.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Jackie agreed, and when Marcus glanced to her, the woman added, “She was very caring with you when you passed out and we brought you up here. And the memories we can read suggest she’s like that with everyone. Divine’s a mothering type, taking care of and helping everyone she encounters.” She paused briefly to peer at Divine’s face and then frowned. “If she is Basha Argeneau, than I think Lucian must be wrong about her being rogue.”
Marcus had been coming to the same conclusion himself, but had feared his decisions were biased by the fact that she was probably his life mate. Still, a woman who did what she could to help pretty much every mortal she encountered just didn’t seem to be the type to hang out with and harbor an animal like Leonius Livius. She wouldn’t align herself with a man who brutally sliced up and slaughtered whole families. Perhaps she wasn’t Basha. That was a good thing.
They were all silent for a moment, each of them peering at Divine, and then Jackie said quietly, almost apologetically, “We need to sort out what is going on here. Who set the RV on fire? Were they after you or her? Is it likely it was the same people who broke in here? Could they have followed you?”
When Marcus frowned but didn’t respond, Vincent said. “She’s right, my friend. We need to know what we’re dealing with here. Whether we need more people, more security, more weapons.”