Chapter Twelve
The words came through to me as if through a dense fog.
“—think we should get a doctor. She’s been out for two hours now. Maybe she’s seriously hurt.”
“I’m not hurt,” I said, amazed that my mouth was working even before my brain was. I opened up my eyes, even more amazed that I was still alive. My last cognizant thought before my brain had shut down had been that Bael’s power must surely have burned me up and left me nothing but a crispy shell of my former self.
Former self . . . for some reason those words wiggled around in my mind until I sat up, clawing at the blankets that covered me, gasping, “Alec!”
“Is out with Kristoff dumping Brother Ailwin in the river. At least that’s what they said they were going to do. I don’t think they really would, but there are times when I just don’t want to know, and this is one of them,” Pia said, smiling at me. “How do you feel?”
“Groggy.” I put my hand to my head, surprised to find it intact. Alec?
You’re awake? Good. Are you sitting down?
Yes, I’m awake, and why on earth would you want to know if I’m sitting?
Because I intend on lecturing you for a very long time, and it would be better for my peace of mind if I knew you were comfortable during it. For the love of the saints, Beloved, do not ever do that to me again ! If I had been mortal, you would have stripped at least twenty-five years from my life span!
I giggled. Pia raised an eyebrow. “Is he giving you hell? ”
“Yes, I think he’s about to.” I laughed again.
“It’s probably best if you let him work it out of his system. I’ve found that the vampires may look all urbane and in control and stuff like that, but they get grumpy if you don’t let them have their drama queen moments. I’ll be downstairs when he’s through. I should probably check that Eleanor hasn’t gone on a rampage while I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”
All right, I told Alec, sitting on the edge of the bed. What happened? How come you escaped being fried to a crisp, or blasted into kingdom come, or whatever would have happened to you if Bael’s power had hit you?
You told me to hide. As soon as I realized we had been Joined, I threw myself out of the window.
But I saw someone get nailed.
It was the other lich the dark power struck. He is no more.
Poor guy. Should have been his boss. Hey, you went into the sunlight? Oh Alec! How badly are you burned?
I’m not now. I wasn’t much burned then, either, because the Joining was complete. How are you feeling?
I took stock of myself. Arms and legs seem to be moving OK. I’ve got a bit of a headache, though. What happened to Brother Ailwin, and are you really dumping his body into the river?
He’s not dead, although that thought is very tempting. When you collapsed and he realized that he couldn’t use you again until you were conscious, he tried to carry you out to his car. I stopped him.
There was a distinct tone of satisfaction in his voice that I knew I should protest against, but honestly, I felt Brother Ailwin had it coming to him. You beat the tar out of him?
That’s one way of putting it, yes. Kris helped a little because he threatened Pia. But he let me have most of the fun.
So now you . . . I stopped, feeling awkward and suddenly a bit shy. After all that protesting I had made about Alec being a vampire, it was a bit too much like eating crow to admit that I was willing to bind myself to him for the rest of our lives.
Yes, now I have my soul back. Thank you, Corazon. I know you did not want to do this. I know you did not want to share my life.
You know, if you were anyone else, I’d say you were fishing for a compliment, I said somewhat testily. And if you were any sort of a gentleman, you wouldn’t make me eat my hat.
He laughed.
Fine, have it your way, you obnoxious man, you. I did it because I wanted to, not because I felt I had to. And I know you’re not really a murderous bloodsucker. Happy now?
With regards to you? Beyond your imagining.
His words, and the emotions behind them, warmed me for the next hour as Pia and I waited for the two men to return.
“Well, if this doesn’t just take the rat’s ass and make it into a hat!” Eleanor snarled, stomping into the room with Pia’s cell phone in hand. “I just called the lord in charge of the hour where I live, and he says I can’t come back. He says liches are not allowed into the Underworld.”
“Uh . . .” Pia blinked a couple of times at Eleanor.
“So now what am I supposed to do?” Eleanor demanded. “Alec would rather shack up with her than me, and I can’t go back home, where at least I had a life and a friend with benefits, and roses who loved me, not to mention the class I was thinking about starting on how to spin yarn using a drop spindle and dog hair, and now I can’t!”
“Er . . .” I said, at a loss. “What’s an hour? And there really is an Underworld?”
Eleanor sighed and slumped into a chair. “The Underworld is divided into twelve hours, each ruled by a lord. I live in the seventh hour. It is very pleasant. The lord there is English, so the hour looks like a quaint little English village with thatched cottages and digital cable TV and high-speed Wi-Fi Internet access. I won’t tell you how many of my favorite shows I’m missing on the Home and Garden TV channel, but you can rest assured that I am not happy about it!”
“Since Kristoff and I were responsible for bringing you here, we’ll be responsible for getting you back,” Pia said after a moment’s thought. “I’m not sure how we’ll do it, but there must be a way.”
“No, Alec and I will do it,” I said, turning back to Pia’s laptop, where I had been trying to find a phone number for the Guardian Noelle. “Ultimately, she’s our responsibility.”
“I really dislike being spoken of as if I’m not here,” Eleanor said with a surly look to both of us. “And I really don’t care who fixes things, I just want them fixed.”
“Want what fixed?” Alec asked as he and Kristoff entered the room.
I quickly explained the situation with Eleanor before she could unload yet another tirade.
“Ah. Yes, we’ll find some way to get you home if that is what you desire,” Alec reassured her.
She gave him an injured sniff, and kicked her heel idly against the chair.
“I won’t ask you how it went because I can tell by the looks on your faces that you got rid of Brothers Ailwin and Godwin. You didn’t do anything really bad to them, did you? ” Pia asked, immediately moving over to her vampire, her hands all over him as if to check he was OK.
Kristoff looked cranky. “Alec only let me have a couple of shots at Ailwin, so no, I didn’t.”
“I owed him more than you,” Alec replied, cracking his knuckles and looking very pleased with himself as he came over to see what I was doing, his fingers trailing across the back of my neck in a caress that had me shivering with arousal. “All we did was rough them up and hand them over to the watch with a complaint of assault, Pia. I don’t expect them to be held for long, however, so we will have to be on our way soon.”
“You’d have to leave anyway with Julian hanging around,” Pia said.
I slanted a look up at Alec, warmed to my toenails by the passion in his eyes. You can’t possibly want to—I almost killed you, Alec! How can you want to make love to me when I could be used to destroy you?