LITMIR.BIZ

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base with him,” Lexi said between ragged breaths, her words stumbling over each other. “I found him like this—” Lexi shook her head, unable to continue.

      “Get his legs up,” Melissa instructed as she lowered him onto the bed. She glanced at the young woman. Apparently the ring was doing its job. “There are towels in the bathroom and a bucket under the sink. Fill it up with water—don’t worry, it’s clean, and then bring it all in here.”

      Lexi’s hands were shaking as she hoisted her brother’s feet up onto the bed, and Melissa touched her shoulder. The young woman turned to her, her blue eyes glistening with tears and bright with fear.

      “It’s okay, Lexi. You did good, bringing him here. How did it happen?”

      Lexi shrugged. “I don’t know. I was on the way to his place, and found him in the park down on Addison Road. You were the first person I thought of for help.”

      Melissa patted her shoulder reassuringly. “He’ll be fine.”

      Lexi nodded, took a deep breath, then hurried to the bathroom down the hall.

      Melissa opened Lance’s leather jacket and sucked in her breath. His shirtfront was dark and shiny with blood, so much that she couldn’t rip the damp material, and had to slide the buttons out of holes to peel back the fabric. His chest rose and fell rapidly, as though he couldn’t quite fill his lungs, and his body was bathed in a cool perspiration.

      She gently rolled him onto his side, wincing as he groaned. There was blood on his back, as well.

      Her mouth dried when she saw the extent of his injuries, and her gaze flicked up to Lance’s face. He stared at her, his green eyes dull with pain and sadness, a weary acceptance stamped on his features.

      “It’s fine, Mel. I know.”

      Melissa shook her head, blinking back the tears. “Don’t say that, Lance. You’re going to be fine. We’ll fix you.” This man had worked quietly and diligently in her store, had listened to her rants about her mother, had gotten drunk with her and her brother on the odd occasion, and had been there when Theo had died in a way no other could have been. “You’re going to be fine,” she repeated in a whisper, gazing at the cuts on his chest, and the hole that looked too close to his heart.

      It took an effort, but Lance covered her hand with his bloodstained fingers, and she flinched at the cool touch. “I’ve been shot, Mel. I’m dying. You can’t fix this.”

      Lexi entered the room with a bucket of water and towels, and Melissa lifted her chin toward the bedside table. “Good woman. Now, there is a cupboard at the end of the hall, with a basket on the bottom shelf. Go get it for me quickly.” Lexi jogged out of the room, and Melissa turned to her friend.

      “Who did this to you, Lance? Who did this?” She hissed the words at him softly, conscious of Lexi just down the hall.

      Lance smiled weakly. “It doesn’t matter.”

      Melissa’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, it does, because we are going to deliver a whole world of hurt on them.” She dipped a hand towel into the bucket, squeezed it, then started to clean his chest. She needed to see exactly what she was dealing with here.

      Lance’s smile fell, and he shook his head, just once. “No, stay out of it, Mel. Look after Lexi for me.”

      Her gaze flicked up to meet his. She wasn’t ready for this, wasn’t ready to say goodbye to one of her best friends, wasn’t ready to take on his burdens. “Oh, no you don’t,” she whispered harshly. “You don’t get to dump that high-maintenance chick on me. You can clean up her messes.” She wiped away most of the blood, although it still pulsed, slowly, from some of his wounds, so red—unnaturally so. The lacerations were deep, but it was the hole near his heart that most concerned her. A bullet wound, through and through, with an exit wound in his back. Lance was a dhampir, with a metabolism that aided self-healing, but the fact that he was healing so slowly suggested he was, indeed, gravely injured.

      She brushed his dark blond hair back from his forehead. “But for now, you need to sleep.” She whispered a sleep spell, and his eyelids drifted shut, his dark lashes forming crescents against his cheeks.

      Lexi ran back into the room, and halted when she saw her brother. “Oh, God, is he—?”

      “No, he isn’t, and he won’t, not if I’ve got anything to do with it.” She took the basket from Lexi and opened it up. Inside were her essentials—her emergency magic kit. This wasn’t the first time an injured person was brought to her. “Round up as many candles as you can and bring them here. You’ll find them everywhere throughout the apartment.”

      Elements helped her focus her magic, and as she wasn’t near a watercourse or a garden, and she didn’t want to subject Lance to a gale, not in his state, then fire was her go-to element.

      She worked quietly, cutting Lance’s bloodstained clothing away from his body, and Lexi helped her clean him up. She frowned. His cuts weren’t healing. As a dhampir, Lance had the ability to heal fast—which wasn’t happening.

      “Help me place the candles around him,” she told Lexi. Using the furniture setup of the room, she and Lexi placed the candles on the surfaces so that they formed a rough circle around the bed. With a flick of her fingers, all the wicks of the candles lit up, and Lexi turned off the overhead light so that candlelight was the only illumination within the room.

      “Sit over there,” Melissa instructed, pointing to the chair in the corner, and Lexi hurried over, her face pale and anxious as she watched her brother on the bed. Melissa climbed up near the head of the bed, gently lifting Lance’s limp head and resting it on her knees. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, calming her heart, evening out her breathing and summoning her powers. Placing her fingers at Lance’s temples, she let her magic flow over him.

      She frowned. She could sense something inside him, something small, but sharp, with a shadow that was slowly spreading. Whatever it was, it wasn’t letting him heal. She tried to battle it, tried to conquer it, then tried to confine it, but she could sense it diffusing through his system.

      She didn’t know how long they remained like that—Lexi sitting quietly on her chair in the corner, Lance breathing harshly into the silence and Melissa holding on to her friend, trying desperately to pull him back from the brink of death. She poured her own strength, her essence, into helping him. It slowed down the creeping shadow, but it didn’t stop it. This was some sort of natural poison that she couldn’t halt. She focused on that small, sharp object, the source of the toxin. It was so close to his heart. She tried to draw it out of him, using her magic like a magnet, but Lance moaned softly with pain. Melissa felt the raw edge of agony stiffen his muscles. She was only hurting him further.

      She sagged back against the head of the bed and opened her eyes. The room was almost dark. She’d burned through many of the candles, and only a couple still flickered with light. Her legs felt numb. She must have been sitting there for hours. Lexi was staring at her, her expression of anxiety and hope like a suffocating weight on Melissa’s chest.

      “I can’t do this,” she whispered brokenly, shame and desolation washing over her as she stared at her friend’s sister. “It’s not—it’s not responding to my magic.” Admitting that she couldn’t help her friend felt like a betrayal, an abandonment. “He needs medical help.”

      Lexi stared down at her brother in confusion. “What?”

      “He’s a dhampir, Lexi. In some ways, he’s the strongest being I know. In this, though, he is as weak and vulnerable as the rest of us humans. He’s got a bullet fragment inside him, and I can’t get it out.”

      “No.” Lexi shook her head, tears streaming down her face as she rose from her chair. “There has to be something you can do, Mel. Please. Whatever it is—I’ll pay.”

      Briefly, anger flared within her at the suggestion she would receive payment for helping a friend, but she quashed that anger. Lexi loved her brother and was desperate. She’d do anything to

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