All Hell Breaks Loose (29 page)

She was aware of more voices in the room, but the fuzzy hearing made it hard to figure out who else had arrived.  She forced her eyes open.  Jonathon and Liam, Julius’s business manager, came through the door.  Jonathon rushed to the sofa and crouched down, peering worriedly at Gabi.

“What are you thinking, letting her feed him?” he demanded of Alexander, loud enough that even Gabi could hear him.  “She’s lost enough blood already.  Can’t you see the condition she’s in?”

Alex
ander
responded defensively, though his words were muffled.

“My choice, Doc.”
  Gabi was pretty sure her voice just cracked.  She cleared her throat. 
“My choice, not
Lex’s
.”
  She distracted herself from the agony by checking on Julius.  His colour looked better already, and she thought he might be on the verge of coming around.

“That’s enough,” Jonathon said firmly, but the rest of his words became a garbled buzz.

Alexander chipped something in, Gabi only caught the words ‘deaf’ and ‘blast’, so he must have been talking to the doc.  Fergus moved then, and Julius’s eyes blinked open.  His gaze was uncomprehending and distant, dark with bloodlust.

“
Enough,
Sire,” Fergus rumbled.

Gabi let out a small groan as the fangs sank deeper into her flesh for a moment.  In a flash of movement, Fergus jammed his fingers into Julius’s mouth, forcing his jaws apart, and Jonathon pulled Gabi’s wrist free.  As Julius lunged, snakelike, to grab hold of her again, Fergus forced his own wrist into Julius’s mouth.  Gabi curled her arm protectively into her stomach but didn’t move as she watched Julius with concern.  Jonathon pulled at her shoulder.

“
It’s
okay, Gabi,” he said loudly enough for her to hear him.  “Fergus’s blood will shock him out of the bloodlust.  He’ll be fine in a few minutes.  Come and let me look at your injuries.”

She wriggled back from the sofa, allowing Fergus to take her place, and hauled herself to her feet.  She was aiming for the chair at the little kitchen table, but her feet just couldn’t seem to get her there.  The distance stretched out, and the room suddenly filled with sparkly dots of glitter.

“Whoa,” she said, trying to steady herself.

Someone caught her and lifted her up.  She struggled half-
heartedly,
she’d had enough of being carried around for one day.  Her butt hit a chair, and firm hands pushed her head down between her knees.

“Breathe, Gabi, deep as you can, in and out,” Jonathon’s calm voice instructed.

She tried, but she ended up in another coughing fit.  For once, she wished she could pass out at will. There wasn’t a part of her that didn’t hurt, and a week-long coma sounded like an attractive proposition.  There was a flurry of movement at the sofa, and she looked up, alarmed.

“Julius—”  “Sire, calmly—”  “It’s okay—
”  Too
many voices were shouting at once.

“Gabrielle, where is Gabrielle?” Julius roared over them all.

Ah, he was conscious.  The tight knot of anxiety in Gabi’s chest finally vanished, and she felt tears in her eyes. 
Proper, stupid, heartfelt tears.

“She’s fine, she’s fine,” Alexander repeated.  “Jonathon is taking care of her now.  Don’t try to move yet.”

“I’m here, Julius,” she croaked, once the coughing subsided.  She wiped at her face, grateful that her tears could be explained away as smoke induced.

Then Fergus moved out of the way so that Julius could see her.  His face ran through a gamut of emotions: anger, relief, concern.

“Lea,” he said finally.

She couldn’t hear it, but she could see the word leave his lips.  He glanced at Alexander, then back to her with narrow-eyed concern.  Gabi smiled and relaxed back against the chair, her eyes not leaving Julius’s as he rose slowly, uncharacteristically unsteadily, and came over to her.

The wave of bloodlust receded from his mind, leaving Julius swaying with exhaustion.  Dizzy and confused.  It took him several seconds to recall what had happened. 
The explosion.
 
Gabi falling.
 
Grabbing at her with his power, desperate to cushion her impact with the concrete floor.
  He barely remembered his own
plunge,
the pain of the fall had been nowhere near as severe as the pain exploding in his head from the mental overload.  Fergus grunted and removed his wrist from Julius’s mouth.  His men reassured him, tried to calm him, but only actually seeing her in the chair across the room quieted the angst coursing through him.  Alexander warned him that she was mostly deaf from the explosion.  As he took her in, he realised it wasn’t just her eardrums that had been damaged.  The men finally got out of his way and let him up off the couch to go to her.

Jonathon was pressing a large swab to the right side of her head.  Blood matted her hair and soaked her shirt, which was charred and torn in several places.  Her face was cut and bruised, a thin trail of blood trickled from one ear, and Liam was holding an ice pack to her wrist.  Only one of the pieces of tape strapping her fractured finger was intact.  And still she turned her face up to him and smiled through the tears and the blood and the soot.

“Hey, Superman,” she whispered hoarsely, “thanks for the catch.”

A snort of surprised amusement escaped him.  A look sent Liam moving out of the way as Jonathon applied a small tube of superglue to the gash in her head.  Julius felt the sense of unease run through the room as he took over supporting her wrist.  He glanced around at his men; none of them would meet his gaze.  It took him a second to work out what had sparked the discomfort, and then he peeled the ice pack away to reveal her swollen, bruised wrist complete with two raw, ragged-edged fang marks.

“You allowed her to feed me? 
In that condition?”
  He struggled to keep the roar from his voice as he spun to glare at his second in command.

Alexander dropped his gaze but stood his ground.  “The feeders were off the property for a party, Sire.  They are on their way, but will still be several minutes,” he explained.

“Jules, babe,” Gabi drew his attention, knowing full well that the nickname and her tone would irk him, “it was my choice, not theirs.  Your men don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do.”  She was deliberately trying to draw his anger away from his men and onto her.

He was caught between wanting to strangle her and wanting to kiss her into submission.  He allowed the anger to drain from him.

“Julius, you need to sit,” Jonathon told him.  “You haven’t had enough blood, and it would be better if you were conscious to help us deal with the police and fire brigade.”

The doctor made sense, but what they didn’t realise was how potent Gabi’s blood was.  As he crouched there, he could feel the strength seeping back into his body as it consumed her blood.  He would take blood from a feeder when they arrived, but only to keep up appearances.  What he did need was to have Gabi in his arms.  He couldn’t quite banish from his mind the terrible vision of her plunging towards the ground.

“Come and treat her over here, Doc,” he said, scooping her up and going back to the sofa with her.  He settled the two of them so that she was pressed close to him, but accessible to Jonathon.  The doctor followed with a syringe.

“Do you think we can risk giving her some of my blood yet?” he asked the doctor.

His blood would heal most of her wounds within minutes, but they’d been extremely cautious about giving her anything more than a small taste after
Danté
had tried to drain her and turn her into one of his.  With so little factual information on
Dhampirs
, no one knew if it was easier or more difficult to
Turn
them.  Even with a normal human it wasn’t an exact science, so he had no idea what was safe for her.

“I’m fine, Julius,” Gabi told him, taking the pressure off Jonathon.  She held her arm out for the doctor to inject the morphine.  “It’s only cuts and bruises.  I’ll be good as new in a day or two.”

With a little sigh she settled the uninjured side of her head against his chest and closed her eyes.  Jonathon finished his ministrations and left her to Julius.  Julius lifted her damaged wrist to his mouth, gently running his tongue over the ugly wounds.  It would at least numb the pain a little and stop the punctures seeping blood.  He sent Liam a mental command to find some food and something with sugar in it for Gabi
to drink, knowing if it just arrived she’d take it with less fuss.  Liam ghosted from the room.

“You sure know how to scare a girl,” she told him suddenly.

Alexander broke into a sarcastic chuckle.  “That’s rich, coming from you, Hellcat,” he said.  “I would’ve thought it was impossible for a Vampire to get grey hairs until I met you!”

“What’s wrong,
Lex
Boy?” Gabi drawled, cracking one eyelid open.  “Did you find a grey hair today?”

As amusing as their childish banter was, there were bigger problems to be dealt with.

“Someone
explain
to me what the hell just happened,” he demanded.

Gabi heard a commotion at the door, and then Nathan and Kyle strode into the cottage.  Nathan was Liam’s brother and Julius’s fiercely loyal head of security.  She lifted her head so she could hear what he had to report.

“Car bomb,” Nathan said in a grim voice.

“Gabi’s car,” Kyle
added,
his voice bleak and angry.

“What?” Gabi wheezed, jerking upright in shock and trying to suppress another coughing fit.

“You’re sure?” Julius asked.  “It wasn’t a mechanical malfunction, gas leak?”

“No,
Sire
.”  Nathan shook his head.  “Wolf found the remains of a remote detonation device and accelerant.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense.”  Gabi’s voice was still hoarse.  “Why wait until I wasn’t in the car, why blow it up now?”

By the looks on the faces of the other men, she had a point.

“I’m guessing it was sent in like a Trojan horse,” Nathan replied.  “They weren’t just after you.  They wanted to take as many lives as possible.  Whoever placed the bomb probably didn’t know the layout of the Estate.  It’s possible they thought we’d all be together in one place, and they hoped the car would be close enough to take, if not all, then a good portion of us out.”

“Well, that just sucks,” Gabi huffed.  “I loved that car.”

“Could be interesting filling in the insurance claim form,” Kyle teased, coming over and pulling off his track suit top to hand to her.  Gabi was confused until she looked down at herself and realised that there wasn’t much left of her shirt, or bra for that matter.  Julius helped her into a sitting position and must have sent a pointed look around the room, as every other male in the room, including Jonathon and Kyle, who’d both seen her in a lot less, suddenly found other things to look at.  He gently helped her pull the remains of her shirt off, carefully peeling bits away from drying scabs and running his tongue over a few spots that were still bleeding.  Kyle’s top felt good and warm once it was
on,
and she realised she felt chilled all over.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Gabi asked Kyle as she resettled herself against Julius.

“I, uh, came to check on Trish,” Kyle replied.  “I got here a couple of minutes after the explosion.  I felt the shockwave in the van.”

“Sire,” Liam said as he returned with a plate of sandwiches and a steaming mug of hot tea, “a fire engine and an ambulance are at the front gate.  Do you want us to let them in?”  He set the plate and mug down on a table near them.

Gabi sat up in interest to investigate the offering.  She needed caffeine in a bad way.

“Yes, let them in,” Julius said.  “Let them put out the blaze, but keep the
Werewolves
away from them.  Tell them the house was empty, and we suspect a gas explosion.  We can deal with the fire inspector later.  Be sure not to let any of them wander unattended around the Estate.”

Liam gave a sharp nod, and he and Nathan left.  Gabi wrinkled her nose at the mug of tea.

“Drink it,” Julius ordered.  “Once that’s finished, you can have coffee.”

She levelled a narrow-eyed glare at him.  He ignored her and leaned forward to pick it up and place it in her uninjured hand.  As much as she would never admit it out loud, the tea smelled appealing, and the heat from the cup warmed her a little.  Julius must have felt the small shiver run through her, as Fergus suddenly disappeared in the direction of the bedrooms.  He returned swiftly with a blanket and draped it over her shoulders.

“Wolf,” he rumbled at Kyle, “any chance ye can identify who else touched Gabrielle’s car tonight?”

Kyle shook his head, concern and regret on his face.  “No, the scene of the explosion is just too saturated with the smell of chemicals and fire.  Besides that, it’d take me hours just to find the pieces of her car.  It was lucky the car was almost in the centre of the building, or the shrapnel may well have taken out other buildings, too.”