A Dark Heart (15 page)

But even these fresh injuries were only part of the damage to Elijah’s
body. The glimpse she’d had of his arm that day in his office had not even
begun to indicate the extent of the hurt Elijah had done to himself. His arms
were marked on both sides from his elbows to his wrists with puncture wounds
and collapsed veins. The oldest marks were faded to white, the newest red and
raw or black with rot, surrounded by deep purple bruises. He’d broken so many
veins it was a wonder he had any left to inject that hateful poison into his
system. His arms were a record of years of addiction, years of oblivion.

And it was all her fault.

“God a’ mighty!” Matthews breathed next to her, shaking his head, undone
by the sight of his master’s ruined arms. “I knew it was bad, but not this!” he
said.

Ignoring everyone else, Christiana took fresh linens from the washstand
and tried to clean the wounds on Elijah’s torso as best as she could, while
Romanov gave Aline a list of supplies he was going to need. Christiana barely registered
what he was saying. She was solely focused on Elijah, listening to the shallow
breaths escaping his lips, afraid that every moment that passed might be his
last. He was so pale beneath the dark growth of beard covering his jaw that she
could hardly believe he had any blood left inside of him. Yet it kept trickling
out, saturating the linens in seconds.

As Aline left the room to gather the proper supplies, Romanov moved next
to her and checked Elijah’s vital signs once more. “Tell me what happened tonight,”
he demanded, pulling out his pocket watch and timing Elijah’s pulse against it.
“Exactly how was he wounded?”

“The leech gutted him wif a blade, then stuck him through the heart,”
Matthews said through clenched teeth.

“No sign of regeneration?”

Matthews shook his head. “It’s hard to say. Usually ‘e gets stuck, an’ ‘e
heals right up in the blink of an eye. But not lately, what with all the snow ‘e’s
been shooting up his veins.” He pointed to the nasty scrape marring Elijah’s
left cheek. “That’s from nearly a day ago. It’s healed, but not by much.”

Romanov’s mouth set in a grim line. He took one of the linens from
Christiana’s hands and pressed it hard against the wound over Elijah’s heart.
“These wounds would have already killed a normal man. That he still has a pulse
is a good sign. I am inclined to stitch him up as if he were a human patient. But
beyond that I cannot predict the outcome. He has lost a lot of blood, and the
wound to his heart is especially worrisome. I’ve a feeling his opponent nicked
one of the valves. He has some healing ability left, but I don’t know if it
will repair his internal injuries quick enough.”

“All he needs is his maker’s blood,” Percy insisted from the foot of the
bed, his face twisted with frustration. “Why are you wasting time considering
anything else?”

Romanov pursed his lips and turned his attention to Christiana, along
with the rest of the occupants of the room. Christiana kept her eyes trained on
Elijah’s face, willing him to wake up. Just one word – one look – from
him, and she’d know what to do.

“What do you think, Christiana?” Romanov asked quietly. “I leave the
decision up to you.”

“Stitch him up,” she whispered.

Percy groaned. “For the love of God!” he cried. “Why will you not heal
him, you selfish bitch? One drop! Is it too much to ask? Is he so beneath your
contempt you’d deny him his
life
?”

She raised her glance to the angry stranger’s cold gray eyes, now stormy
with the force of his emotions. His verbal assault was so far off the mark
Christiana could have laughed out loud if she weren’t so distressed. But the
man seemed to care deeply for Elijah, and she could not fault him for that, no
matter how much she wanted to slap his scowling face.

“I would deny him nothing,” she said quietly. “But my blood is the last
thing he would want. If I healed him with it while he was unconscious –
again
– he’d hate me for eternity.”

“So you are more afraid of his hatred than losing him?” the man asked
incredulously. “If you truly care for him, you’ll heal him now, even if he’ll
hate you for it.”

Christiana knew Percy was right, and if it came to it, she’d slice open
her veins and force her blood down Elijah’s throat, just as she’d done before.
But if there was a chance Romanov could patch him up enough to allow Elijah
time to regain consciousness, she knew she had to take it.

Elijah had felt violated through and through by her actions nine years
ago, to a degree that she still didn’t fully understand. This time, if it were
possible at all, she’d give him a choice.

“Stitch him up,” she repeated to Romanov, as Aline re-entered the room
with her husband’s medical bag and a basin of hot water. “I need him awake when
he takes my blood.”

Romanov retrieved his medical bag from Aline and opened it. He hesitated
as he pulled out his tools. “Normally I would administer morphine during this
sort of thing.”

Christiana shook her emphatically. “No morphine.”

“The pain when he comes ‘round…”

“The morphine is what’s killing him. He can take the pain,” she said
stonily.

Percy’s eyes flashed dangerously. “If he dies…”

“I won’t let him die. Ever,” she said. “If you think I would, you don’t
know the first thing about me or this man.”

“I don’t know you,
my lady
,” Percy sneered, “but I know Elijah
better than
you’ll
ever know him. And I know he deserves better than a
woman who’d sit idly by for a decade watching him kill himself.”

She flinched. The words stung more than she would have liked, because she
knew that on some level they were true. She may not have known about his need
for her blood, or the morphine, but she’d known something was deeply wrong with
him. And she had done nothing. She’d been too terrified of his rejection.

Percy seemed to realize he’d crossed a line, for he threw up his hands in
frustration. “I can’t remain here and watch this!” he growled.

“No one asked you to,” Christiana bit out.

Percy shot her one last fulminating glare and stormed from the room.

She turned back to Sasha. “Hurry.”

Sasha nodded and set to his task resolutely. Christiana refused to leave
Elijah’s side, gripping his hand and forcing herself to watch every stitch Sasha
made to Elijah’s torn flesh. Each time the needle pierced the skin, she felt
the pain in her own body. Any time Sasha requested help, she was there, handing
him tools, blotting the blood away, trying to focus on the task at hand and not
worry about the outcome.

Elijah remained unresponsive the whole way through the surgery, which at
least spared him the pain. But he was so lifeless that a few times Sasha
stopped what he was doing to make sure Elijah was still breathing at all. She
held her own breath every time, squeezing his limp hand and preparing for the
worst – not his death, which she would
never
allow, no matter the
consequences, but that she’d have to give him her blood without his consent after
all.

The world beyond Sasha’s needle and the faint rise and fall of Elijah’s
chest ceased to exist for her. People came and went, until only she and
Matthews remained in the room. Sasha worked quickly and efficiently, occasionally
barking out terse orders to her, but hours passed before he was through. When
at last he’d sewn his last stitch, he was covered with blood to his elbows, and
his face dripped with sweat. He was immortal, but the stress of the surgery had
left its mark.

 He looked at her gravely, his face drawn tight with fatigue, but he
seemed lighter of spirit than he had when he’d begun.

“It’s all I can do, for now. And if that didn’t kill him, I am more
confident he will pull through. Slowly. And with great care.”

A weight lifted from her heart. “Thank God.”

“But I fear what is going to happen when he wakes up,” he continued. “From
the look of his arms, he’s beyond hope. Leech or not, he’s an opium fiend,
Christiana. And I’ve yet to meet anyone who came back from that. He’ll be
wanting a fix, and he’ll be none too gentle about it.”

“When he wakes up, I’ll be there,” she said with grim resolve.

Matthews cleared his throat. He was propped up against a bedpost, looking
utterly knackered. “Our Inspector’s a survivor, and the best man I know,
despite himself. I’ll be there with you, my Lady, when ‘e wakes up. For anything
you need. You’re doing the right thing, waiting until ‘e comes around before
you heal him. ‘E needs to make the decision himself.”

“What if he makes the wrong one?” she asked.

Matthews shook his head. “’E won’t. I saw it in his eyes when ‘e went
down tonight. As hard as ‘e’s tried for all these years, ‘e doesn’t want to
die. Not yet, at any rate. ‘E has a score or two to settle.”

“I hope you’re right, Constable Matthews.”

She felt a hand land on her shoulder and glanced behind her. Sasha smiled
weakly down at her. “You need rest, Christiana. Let us finish up in here.”

“I don’t want to leave him.”

“You’ll be no good to him if you kill yourself with exhaustion. You’ll
need your strength for what is to come.”

Christiana knew Sasha was right. The war to save Elijah’s life had only
just begun, and what came next … well, she’d have to be ready, both in her
heart and her body.

She finally nodded reluctantly and released Elijah’s limp hand,
struggling to her feet. Her head spun with fatigue.

“I couldn’t have done it without your help, Christiana,” Sasha said. “You
made a good nurse.”

“I did nothing.”

“You kept a cool head, even though it’s Elijah. You didn’t panic and did
exactly as I ordered. Most women – most
men
– wouldn’t have
the stomach to assist in an operation like that.”

“Well, I’ve a lot of experience with the sickroom,” she said wryly, the first
seventeen excruciating years of her life flashing through her mind.

“More and more women are going to medical school these days, you know,”
Sasha said as he walked her to the door.

She would have laughed if she had the energy.
Her,
a doctor? “You can’t
mean to suggest I attend.”

Sasha shrugged and gave her a gentle smile. “You can do anything you
want, Christiana. And you’d make a fine doctor, I think.”

“All I care about is making Elijah better,” she said.

Sasha’s gentle smile faded, and that grave look returned. “Prepare
yourself, my dear. One of the hardest lessons I ever had to learn as a doctor
was that you cannot save everyone. Especially those who don’t want to be
saved.”

SASHA’s
parting words chased her after she left Elijah’s sickroom. She tried to ignore
them as she retired to her own chambers. She tried to ignore them as she
cleaned Elijah’s blood from her hands and changed out of her ruined green
evening gown. But by the time she had her night rail on and she sat on the edge
of her bed, the words caught up with her and settled like lead weights in her
heart.

You can’t save everyone.

Well, she could certainly try. She was not losing Elijah, not like this.
And she was certainly not going to lose him to the morphine. She’d nearly given
up on him, but tonight had changed her mind irrevocably.

I know he deserves better than a woman who’d sit idly by for a decade
watching him kill himself
.

It had taken an obnoxious interloper to hit the nail on the head with
gutting acuity. Percy was right, had thrown the darkest fears of Christiana’s heart
back in her face. Elijah
did
deserve better. He was so afraid he wasn’t
good enough for her, when
she
was the weak one, too afraid to take a
risk.

She should have ripped the syringe from his hand that morning she’d
visited his office. She should have had Matthews and Fyodor kidnap him and tie
him up, as Aline had half-jokingly advised. She should have pushed and pushed
until he finally pushed back.

But she’d not had the courage. She’d given up, backed down, just as she’d
always done. Forty-four years old, and she’d never grown a backbone. Of course,
the odds had been stacked against her from the beginning because of her sex.
Proper English ladies of her class weren’t expected to have a backbone, were in
fact discouraged from ever gaining one. They were bred for one purpose: to
learn a few pretty accomplishments, present themselves to Society at their
debut, and make advantageous marriages. It was how her mother had been raised,
and it was how she’d been raised, even though it was apparent from early on
that Christiana would never fulfill her destiny as a wife and mother, much less
live to see her debut.

 Her illness had only made things worse. She saw that clearly now. Coddled
for so long as a child by worried parents who had already lost an heir to the
same congenital heart ailment, she’d grown accustomed to others taking care of
her. She’d let them make all of the decisions, down to the food she ate and the
clothes she wore, as she’d grown weaker and increasingly terrified of death.

But even after Rowan had shared his Heartsblood and the threat of death
was gone, she’d never grown up. She’d merely replaced her parents with Rowan,
and her old worries with new ones.

The world of Elders and Bonded companions had been nearly as frightening
as her illness had been. She’d had to readjust her entire conception of the
universe, since the old model had had no room in it for centuries’ old
immortals, or for the miraculous transformation her diseased body had
undergone.

At barely eighteen, she’d had to learn the life-or-death rules of a
Bonded companion, and to accept the fact that she could never live her life as
Lady Ana again. She’d had to give up Elijah, to even give up hope of seeing her
own father for years and years, until Rowan had deemed it safe to return to
London in their present identities. And all those years roaming the Continent
from one strange place to another with her mother and Rowan had made her cling
more and more to the familiar, the comfortable, the easy.

She’d been terrified of living as much as she’d been terrified of dying.

She didn’t want to be terrified any longer, or to live with regrets. Just
as Sasha had said, she could do anything she wanted.
Be
anything she
wanted. And she didn’t want to be Lady Christiana, society darling, perennial
debutante.

Perhaps she
should
go to medical school. Or to university, at the
very least – after she saved Elijah from himself. After she knew once and
for all why he continued to push her away, even after admitting he wanted her.
She was not going to back down again.

If he even survived the night.

Unable to settle her mind enough to even think of sleep, she changed out
of her nightrail and dressed herself in a simple gown. Restless, she wandered
the house and eventually ended up downstairs in the front hall, where the whole
nightmare had begun. She shuddered at the sight of a pair of maids scrubbing
the blood from the marble floors of the foyer. There was so much to mop up their
buckets of water had already turned scarlet.

It was
not
what she wanted to see at the moment.

She was on her way back upstairs to search the nursery for Aline when the
piercing scream of a child brought her up cold, followed by the angry rasp of a
gratingly familiar voice.

Ah, yes. She’d nearly forgotten about Percy and the two children.
Apparently, one of the children disliked Percy as much as she did. When the
screams persisted, however, so loud the foundations of the townhouse seemed to
shudder, Christiana abandoned her plans to find Aline and followed the noise to
the drawing room. She wanted answers from Percy about the events that had led
to Elijah’s present condition anyway, and the middle of the night was as good a
time as any to get them.

She sucked in her breath when she found Percy waving a knife in front of a
cowering boy. He was no older than eight or nine, and red in the face from
screaming. The older girl was trying to step between them, but she looked as if
a stiff wind would blow her away. Certainly she was no match for Percy.

“What are you doing to these children?” Christiana cried.

The blond man spun around to face her, still stubbornly clutching his
blade, though he was looking a bit unnerved by the boy’s constant screeches.
Christiana was a bit unnerved herself.

“The boy’s a thief,” Percy said, holding up a silver statue of a dog that
looked very much like Ilya. “He was trying to pinch it.”

“He just wants to hold it!” the girl protested over the shrieks. She had
a small, breathless voice and a pronounced American accent and looked seconds
away from passing out. “If you let him hold it, he’ll stop.”

“You may fool her Ladyship here, but I’m not one of your marks,” Percy
shot back. “Don’t try to con me.” He nudged the boy’s shoulder with the statue.
“Stop your noise, lad.”

But the boy just ignored him and attempted to tug the statue from his
grip, never pausing in his strange fit.

“Oh, let him have the statue, for heaven’s sake!” Christiana cried,
covering her ears, her heart beating out of her chest.

Percy held on stubbornly for a few more moments, but when the boy’s
shouts became too much for him, he cursed and let go.

The boy immediately fell silent, tucking himself against his sister’s
side and stroking the dog’s back incessantly. But the pounding of Christiana’s
heart refused to settle.

His jarring shift in mood was like nothing she’d ever witnessed before.
But as she studied him more closely, it became obvious that the boy was not
quite right, and in a way that had nothing to do with the trauma he’d doubtless
suffered that night.

He was a handsome lad, with his dark auburn locks and clear, guileless
face. Indeed, there was something almost familiar about him when he moved a
certain way, a familiarity her tired brain could not quite place. But he had a disconcertingly
vacant look in his strange, almost silver eyes and carried himself with a
nervous awkwardness, as if the movements of his body did not correspond
properly to the signals coming from his brain.

She had come across a few children with similar conditions in her work
with various charities, children who were often cast aside by their families
and ended up in orphanages –
if
they were lucky. At least this boy
had a sister to mind him, even though from the look of their tattered clothes, dirty
faces, and hollow, hungry cheeks, they had fallen on hard times.

 “What the devil is wrong with him?” Percy demanded.

Christiana had had quite enough of the man. “You’re called Percy?” she
asked him tersely.

“I’m called many things,” he said sourly.

She rolled her eyes at his caginess. “You are Elijah’s friend?”

 “We are associates,” he said vaguely.

“I wonder, do all of Elijah’s
associates
threaten children at
knifepoint?” Christiana asked, glancing pointedly at the knife.

Percy just shrugged. “They were going to steal what they could and run
off.”

Christiana turned to the red-haired girl. “
Were
you stealing,
then?”

The girl shook like a leaf as she clutched her brother close. “No, miss.
Hector … he likes shiny things. He just wanted to hold it,” the girl managed to
whisper.

Percy snorted derisively at this, unimpressed.

“Shall you run off?” Christiana continued.

“No, miss. The Inspector saved our lives. And we’ve nowhere else to go,”
the girl said in a stronger voice.

Percy just snorted. “I don’t trust the word of guttersnipes,” he said.

“I’m no guttersnipe,” the girl retorted, squeezing the boy close. “Neither
is Hector.”

“I still don’t trust you,” Percy said.

“Well, I do,” Christiana retorted. “They aren’t going anywhere. And
you
shall not threaten children under this roof.”

Percy’s expression grew grim. “Oh,
I
shall do what I must. And
these two do not leave my side. They are the key to everything Elijah and I
have worked towards for decades,” he said fiercely.

She wanted to ask what he meant – burned to know the trouble Elijah
had landed himself in – but she had a point to prove. This man had gone
from bullying her to bullying these children, and she wasn’t about to let him
continue to do so. Now that the shock of Elijah’s near-fatal injuries was
beginning to fade, she found she was spoiling for a fight. Especially with the
blond stranger who had done nothing but nettle her all night.

“I don’t care. I will not have these children exposed to any more
violence.”

“Thank you, miss,” the girl said solemnly, still trembling. “I am hardly
a child, though. I am eighteen. But Hector … he’s quite upset. He needs a quiet
place.”

She sighed in relief when Fyodor unexpectedly entered the room with Aline.
They must have heard the shouting.

“
Now
we’ll see if you dare to keep that knife in your hands,” she shot
at Percy.

Percy opened his mouth to retort, then shut it abruptly when he saw
Fyodor lumbering in their direction, scowling at the knife. “Bloody hell!” he
murmured in awe, all of his bravado draining away.

When the red-haired girl turned to see what had caught Percy’s attention and
spotted the approaching Abominable Soldier, the faint color in her cheeks
leeched out, and her eyes rolled into the back of her head. She crumbled to the
floor in a dead faint.

Clearly, seeing Fyodor had succeeded in finishing her off for the
evening.

Christiana was certain she caught a flicker of hurt pass over the human
side of Fyodor’s face as the girl fainted, but he quickly recovered and stooped
down on one mechanical leg to aid her, the consummate gentleman as always.

But the boy, Christiana noticed, didn’t even react to his sister’s
predicament, or to Fyodor’s fearsome appearance, to Christiana’s relief. He just
stared in Fyodor’s direction with his wide silver eyes as he stroked the statue,
as silent and grave as Fyodor himself.

“Well, she’s definitely not going anywhere
now
, is she?” Christiana
said dryly to an edgy Percy.

Fyodor rose to his feet with the girl cradled in his arms. He held her as
gently as he did Aline’s newborn children, as if she were just as fragile, and
stared down at her pensively. Then he raised his glance to meet Percy’s, and
his mouth set in a forbidding line. Apparently, Percy had gained yet another
enemy.

Percy recovered his scowl, but he finally surrendered under the weight of
Fyodor’s silent imperative and tucked the knife into his waistcoat.

Satisfied, Fyodor deposited the unconscious girl on a comfortable divan
and backed up a step to let Aline examine her.

“I shall have Sasha take a look at her when he comes down,” Aline said
after a moment. “She is definitely unwell. And hungry, I’d wager. In the
meantime, I shall go tell Madame Kristeva to prepare refreshments for our
guests
.”
She eyed Percy doubtfully, making it clear he was excluded from that category, and
turned to Fyodor. “Why don’t you stay here, Fyodor, in case Lady Christiana has
need of you.”

Fyodor glanced at the occupant of the divan with a worried pucker creasing
what remained of his forehead, but nodded. He had not liked frightening the
fragile young woman one bit, and he tried his best to make his massive bulk as
inconspicuous as possible in one corner of the room as Aline hurried away on
her errand.

Surprisingly, the boy followed after Fyodor, as if tethered to him, and
stood staring up at him in that unnervingly vague way. Fyodor seemed to squirm
under the close scrutiny.

Christiana took up a seat beside the girl, holding her hand as she had
held Elijah’s a short while ago. It was chapped and cold and bone-thin. No, the
girl was not well at all.

Aline returned in short order carrying a tea tray, with Sasha in tow. He
had changed out of his bloody clothes, for which Christiana was thankful. One
more reminder of the last few grueling hours was something she did not need at
the moment. He took Christiana’s place on the divan and slowly coaxed the girl
back to consciousness.

The girl’s eyes fluttered open weakly, and after a frantic scan of the
strangers hovering over her, she tried to sit up. “Hector,” she said in a
panic, catching sight of the boy near Fyodor. “Come away from that … that
thing
!”

Fyodor
definitely
winced at that word. Poor man.