“It hurts, I know, it hurts to heal. Can you look at me? Blair? No, stay up here now, and look at me.”

Blair forced her eyes open again. Glenna swam into view, her face close. Her hand cupped the back of Blair’s neck, lifted it gently up. “Drink a little of this. Just a little now. I can’t give you too much because of the head trauma. But this will help.”

Blair swallowed, winced. “Tastes like liquid tree bark.”

“Not that far off. Do you know where you are?”

“I’m back.”

“What’s your name?”

“Blair Murphy. Do you want rank and serial number?”

Glenna’s lips curved. “How many fingers?”

“Two and a half. Vision’s a little blurry.” But she struggled to use it, to see. The room was full of people, she realized—the whole team. “Hey. Dorothy, Scarecrow, the Tin Man.” She realized then her hand was gripping Larkin’s, probably hard enough to grind bone to bone. She relaxed her fingers, managed a smile. “Thanks for saving my life back there.”

“It was no trouble. You’d taken care of most of it yourself.”

“I was done.” She closed her eyes again. “Tapped out.”

“I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

“Cut that out.” Blair would have given him a light punch to go with the words if she’d had the strength. “It’s wrong and it’s useless.”

“Why did you?” Cian asked him. “Why did you separate?”

As Larkin told them about the injured man, Blair closed her eyes again. She could hear Glenna and Moira murmuring to each other. Floating a little, she thought Glenna had a voice like silk—sort of sexy and sleek. Moira’s was more like velvet, soft and warm.

And that was a really strange thought, she decided. But at least she was having thoughts.

As they worked on her, the pain bloomed, then backed off, bloomed and died. She began to anticipate the rhythm of it before she made another realization.

“Am I naked?” She would have pushed up to her elbows, at least tried to, if Glenna hadn’t eased her back. “I’m naked. Oh man.”

“You’re covered well enough with a sheet. We had to see your injuries,” Glenna told her. “You’re pretty well covered with gashes and bruises, too, so I wouldn’t worry about modesty right now.”

“My face.” Blair lifted a hand to feel for herself. “How bad is my face?”

“Modesty and vanity,” Glenna said. “Good signs. You wouldn’t make the finals of the Miss Demon Hunter contest at the moment, but you look damn good to me.”

“You’re beautiful.” Larkin took her hand, kissed it. “You couldn’t be more beautiful.”

“That bad, huh? Well, I heal fast. Not as fast as you guys,” she said to Cian, “but fast enough.”

“Can you tell us what happened when you and Larkin were apart?” Hoyt touched her ankle. “He said there were ten.”

“Yeah, ten, and Lora, so that’s eleven. Trap worked. Dead horse down there, and weapons. We should get those weapons. They were in the ground.”

“The weapons?” Hoyt prompted.

“No, the vamps. Dug into the ground. Trap in a trap. It got dark—bam. Like a solar eclipse, but faster. And they came up out of the ground. I got the first two before they got all the way out. Realized after, later, they weren’t trying to kill me—which to be honest, is why I’m not dead. They were just softening me up for her. Cowardly bitch.”

“But you killed her.”

She shook her head at Larkin, and immediately regretted the movement. “No. Don’t think so. Couldn’t have taken her in a fight, could barely keep my feet. She knew it. Comes strutting out, talking trash. Thinks she’ll make me her lesbian vamp lover. As if. She’s hurting now, too, oh yeah. And she doesn’t look so good either. Water bag.”

“Holy water,” Larkin murmured. “Aren’t you the clever one?”

“Everything’s a weapon. I tossed as much as I could into her face. Hit her, too. Face, down the throat. I heard her screaming when she ran off. But that was it for me, pretty much all I had left. Good thing you came.”

“You had a branch.”

“A branch of what?”

“A tree branch,” he told her, kissing her fingers again. “You were swinging a tree branch.”

“Yeah. Huh, good for me. It’s sort of blurry here and there.”

“That’s enough for now.” Glenna held the cup back to Blair’s lips. “A little more of this.”

“Rather have a frozen margarita.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Glenna passed a hand over Blair’s face. “Now sleep.”

Chapter 20

S he swam in and out, and the pain was waiting each time she surfaced. Weakness would drag her under again, but not before she heard whispers and murmurs. Not before she heard herself answering questions that seemed to be peppered over her every time she came back to the world.

Why wouldn’t they just let her sleep?

Then someone would pour more tree bark down her throat, and she’d float away again.

Sometimes when she floated she went back to that field and relived every blow, every block, every movement of what she’d believed were the last moments of her life.

Sometimes she simply floated into nothing.

Larkin sat beside her, watching as Moira and Glenna took turns tending her. Watching as one of them came in to light candles, or add turf to the fire. Or just lay a hand over Blair’s brow to check for fever.

Every two hours by the clock, one of them would wake her, ask questions of her. Because of the concussion, Glenna had said. It was a precaution because she’d suffered such hard blows to her head.

Then he would think what might have happened if one of those blows had knocked her unconscious, what they would have done to her while she was alone.

Every time he thought of it, imagined it, he’d take her hand to feel her pulse beat under the scar on her wrist.

He passed the time talking nonsense to her, and for a time playing the pipe that Moira had brought to him. He thought—he hoped—she rested easier with the music.

“You should go, rest now for an hour or two.” Moira stroked a hand down her hair as she spoke. “I’ll sit with her.”