Sapphamire (6 page)

“Oh, crap, you are hurt worse than I realized!” she exclaimed, her fingers lightly touching the small stream of blood. She really hadn’t meant to break the mood on where they were going, but then again, maybe it was best with his houseguest arriving that afternoon. Oh, yes, she had read the file and knew all the details. What she didn’t understand was these feelings she was starting to develop for him, and even worse, his actions toward her. She wondered how things were going to play out once Lady Jade arrived. As for her part, she would maintain complete professionalism. She could do this. She had to do this. Blain was her last chance at freedom.

“Oh,” Blain said, touching the wound and then looking at the blood on his fingers. His eyes were suddenly beginning to become heavy and lazy.

Turning to the guard, she took charge. “We need to get him back to the castle immediately. He is bleeding continuously. I don’t know how to stop it.”

“I overheard him say something about poison. I am in contact with the other guards. One of them is placing an emergency call to the Council. With a little luck, we will have help soon.”

“I hope you are right,” Natasha replied, helping him recline a bit and holding a cloth against the wound, hoping to slow the bleeding. Maybe his guards would have better luck with the Council, but Natasha wasn’t going to bank on it. All of her dealings with the pompous asses had not gone well.

As they sped down the road toward Blain’s castle, Natasha was busy categorizing a list of things she wanted changed immediately. She wanted heavy duty SUVs for outings such as this. She would be renovating the interior of the vehicles herself, and would make sure they were stocked with weapons at all times. She narrowed her eyes on him, he could just leave his ego at the door if he thought he could only travel by limo. And while there were plenty of improvements possible for a limo, such as bullet-proof glass that he obviously hadn’t ordered, the fact was, a car this size was just too big to maneuver around trees and such if caught in the forest. As far as she was concerned, this was the first and last time an attack like this would occur under her watch.

She had also learned another tactical error on their part. Blain and his guards used brute strength to defeat their enemies. They didn’t use weapons as a rule. That stopped today. As soon as this situation was under control, she would see to it each guard was equipped with, and trained on, several weapons.

They arrived back at the castle a short time later. Two guards appeared at the door the moment the car came to a stop. They helped Blain out of the car, walking on either side to help support him.

“Take him to his bedroom,” Natasha ordered in a don’t-argue-with-me tone.

She ran to the bathroom to retrieve the first aid kit. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot in it. She guessed it was because as far as she knew, other than some of the staff, there were not very many humans in the castle.

“Sophie, would you mind warming Blain up some hot broth?”

“Not at all, miss,” the young assistant cook quickly replied. Most of the house staff was now hanging around upstairs, wanting to find out what was going on with the boss man.

“I am not some invalid that you must spoon-feed me broth,” Blain growled. The moment the words were out of his mouth, his dragon perked his head up. '
Invalid, smishvalid, if our mate wants to hand—feed us, let her. I for one will enjoy watching her take care of you. Just look at her, she cares about you. She is worried sick about you.'

Natasha sent him a glare before retorting, “Don’t worry, I’m sure you will be feeling better to enjoy lunch with Lady Jade. But right now, your body needs some nutrients.”

'You screw up again. Now she won’t feed us. She is mad at you. She thinks that dragon lady is your mate. Now, I am going to sleep. You fix mate!'
And with that, his dragon went completely silent.
So she thinks Lady Jade and I are an item? She is jealous
, he thought to himself with an inner grin.

'Fix mate!'
his dragon grumbled from deep inside him.

But what about her? Was she not going to eat? She had been through a rough time today also, and as such, needed to keep her own strength up. He quickly decided to let it go for the time being. She was not happy with him, so more than likely anything he said would turn into an argument.

“Now, hold still,” she ordered a moment later. She dabbed a damp cloth at his head, first cleaning up the drying blood, and then gently and carefully cleaning the wound. He winced when the cloth first touched the open gash.

“Sorry,” she said, her body suddenly going rigid. Her hands were shaky. She had never performed first-aid on an employer, and since they were fairly certain he had been poisoned, she really didn’t know how to go about taking care of him. She was so scared she was going to screw up and hurt him more that she yelped and nearly jumped off the bed when his hands gently closed over her wrists.

“Are you all right? You’re real jumpy,” he said, searching her eyes.

“I’m fine,” she tried to brush him off, but he wasn’t buying.

“Natasha.” He used his Dom voice. The tone brooked no argument.

“Sir, I messed up today in not protecting you, resulting in you getting injured. I’m just waiting for you to give me the word so I can go pack my bags,” she stated, way too openly.

“Natasha, you’re not going anywhere. What happened back there, you couldn’t prevent. But you took action the minute the bottom fell out, and I’m both glad and proud of you for doing that. Hell, you even warned me of impending danger, and I am the one who owes you an apology. I guess I just brushed off your warning thinking I was going to meet a human, female trainer. Believe me, I will be taking your warnings much more seriously in the future. Now, you wouldn’t happen to know how to stop me from bleeding to death while we wait for a magic healer, would you?”

The young cook, Sophie, gasped softly from the doorway at overhearing her boss talk so frankly and openly to one of his employees. Yes, Natasha was Mr. Barrymire’s right-hand person, and that automatically put her at the top of his staff, but Sophie hadn’t ever heard her employer give an apology for anything. She timidly walked into the room carrying the broth Natasha had requested. She kept her eyes and head down as she deposited the small tray on the bedside table.

“You’re not going anywhere, is that understood?” Blain stated to Natasha.

Natasha turned her eyes back to Blain, searching his eyes for a long moment before finally nodding. “Okay,” she answered. “Can we just stitch you up, or does the wound need to be open in order to purge the poison out?”

“Damn, but I love it when you get all sexy on me,” he teased, winking up at her.

She smiled, pulling out a needle and thread. “So, do I go ahead and close you up, or let you bleed all over your bed?”

“How do you know all of this?” Blain asked with interest.

“It was part of the military survival courses I took.”

“And being a sniper?”

“It is obvious you didn’t read my full file, did you?” she asked teasingly.

“I would much rather learn it from you rather than paper, helps in the conversation department. And yeah, go ahead and close me up. Worst case scenario, they’ll just have to reopen the wound to purge out the poison.” He flashed her a wicked smile.

“I can’t fault you there. I wasn’t like most girls growing up, even without being a
“
ticking time bomb
”,
I always wanted to be like
Lara Croft
. So I underwent black ops training first chance I got.” She kept her eyes on her work. “Stop moving, you wiggle about more than a child.”

“Would you care to be the one to spank me?” he teased, arching an eyebrow in a come-on manner.

“You are impossible,” she said with a laugh. She quickly finished up with the stitches in both his head and shoulder, then sat the tray with his broth in front of him. “Drink,” she ordered, before turning on her heel to put the first aid kit away.

She returned to the room a minute later, just in time to watch a stunningly beautiful Japanese woman glide through the door. “Blain, your doorman told me you were injured, are you all right?”

“I am fine, Jade. Sorry I wasn’t downstairs when you arrived. Natasha has just finished stitching me up, so I am good.”

Natasha thought it was odd that he hadn’t mentioned the fact he currently had poison running through him to his girlfriend. And she also knew when she was a third wheel.

“If you don’t need me anymore, I’d like to go get cleaned up.” God, the tone she used made even herself cringe. Oh well, it was out now, and he could just deal with it.

The dragon princess perched down on the side of the bed, where Natasha had been just moments before. She reached up to tilt Blain’s head in order to inspect his wound.

“Oh, of course, Natasha. Go take a bit of time for yourself. I’ll be fine here.”

Lady Jade acted like she had just realized she and Blain were not alone in the room. “Oh, you must be Blain’s right-hand person,” she held her a well-manicured hand out for Natasha to shake. “I’m Lady Jade, a friend of Blain’s.”

Natasha knew what she was about to say was wrong. But that lock on her mouth had broken a long time ago, and she tended to say what she felt. “Oh, I’d say you are a lot more than friends now, wouldn’t you?”

“Natasha!” Blain sharply reprimanded. Yes, Natasha was his mate, even though he hadn’t told her yet. But that did not mean he was going to sit and watch her start a cat fight or in this case, a dragon fight, with Jade.

Natasha rolled her eyes at him, refusing to back down. For some reason, every time she as much as thought of another woman touching Blain, she was ready to tear them to shreds. Unfortunately, neither woman had a chance to finish the debate, as one of the guards appeared in the bedroom doorway to announce a Ms. Hazellette of the High Council had just arrived.

Blain never got the chance to tell his guard to send her in. The woman simply pushed past his guard and started making her way to the bed. Natasha automatically moved herself closer to Blain. She knew deep down he was safe, the Council was supposed to be fair and just, never causing harm to anyone unless it was in punishment. She had never understood this concept though. She had never done anything wrong to anybody, well, at least not to anyone who didn’t already have it coming to them. No, the Council viewed her as a threat. They didn’t know what she was capable of. They didn’t know if her powers would someday hit all of a sudden, making her dangerous. And, she had to face facts. Even a group of what humanity would deem “different and dangerous”, they were still judgmental against their own kind if said being was different from the norm.

Ms. Hazellette was the witch who sat on the High Council board and was in charge of all beings that practiced sorcery and magic. She was Blain’s best option for removing the vile poison running through his system. “Tell me about this run-in you had with a magic user.” She placed her hand over the closed wound on Blain’s shoulder and shut her eyes briefly. When she opened them, she snapped her head up and threw a glare at both Natasha and Lady Jade. “You two, leave now.”

Lady Jade looked to Natasha to see what she was doing. Natasha looked to Blain. She would not leave if Blain thought he might need her. But a few seconds later he nodded his head, letting her know that she and Jade needed to leave the room.

The two women walked downstairs to find several of the staff complaining about their latest house guest. Hazellette was well known not to show any emotion to anyone. Whether she came by this personality naturally, or if she had learned over the years to have thick skin while working with the other Council members, was anyone’s guess.

Lady Jade walked over and plopped down on the couch. “Who in the hell is that woman?”

“That would be Hazellette, the witch who sits on the High Council. She’s in charge of all magic users.”

“Oh,” Lady Jade replied, the very air seeming to leave her suddenly. “I didn’t realize she was a witch. I guess it is a good thing that she came then. She should be able to help Blain and put a stop to these kinds of attacks.

She turned and looked at Natasha. “What did happen out there today?”

Figuring they were going to be there for a while, Natasha sat down on a stool and started with their leaving, and how she had a feeling that something bad was going to happen. Then she went into how everything seemed fine when they arrived, and that none of the guards had even smelled anything different. “It’s like she masked not only her scent, but the scent of all the others. But what was really weird was after she died, once we were able to gain the upper hand on her merry band of misfits, they killed themselves. Every last one of them. I think they may have had some sort of “insurance policy”, so when they got caught, they broke open something hidden in their mouths, swallowed it and bam! It worked almost instantly.” She stopped there, figuring the princess had heard enough.

“Wow, so once they all died, that was the end of it?” Lady Jade asked, horrified.

Natasha snickered. “I wish. No, more of them chased us most of the way home. There were three cars. On two, I only shot the tires out, so by now they have made it back to tell their boss.” She stopped and cocked her head, thinking out loud for a moment. “What I don’t understand is what the motive really is.”

“Does Blain have any idea why these people were after him?”

“Evidently he turned down a business proposition from a Mr. Boragello recently. I just started here, so I am not up-to-date on all of his prior business deals. This bitch he was supposed to be training with, Danielle, said, ‘Mr. Boragello sends you his regards. No one walks away from Mr. Boragello.’”

“You’re joking! All of that just over a business deal? It must have been some business deal for the man to get that bent out of shape that he sends a small army to kill Blain? It makes no sense!” Lady Jade exclaimed.

“I know, and I agree, it doesn’t make sense. I wanted to wait until he was feeling better to try to piece the puzzle together a bit more,” Natasha confirmed.