Meg Cabot - Insatiable

Wouldn’t that be a slight conflict of interest?

“I wish you would come work with us, Meena,” Alaric said, his gaze fixed on hers. “I don’t want to die. A heads-up from you about when to expect it would be very nice. I know everyone else would appreciate it, too.”

She took the scarf from him. His eyes, even in the semi-darkness, were very blue. “I’ll…think about it,” she said.

Then she bent to concentrate on making a tourniquet with the scarf and a piece of wood she’d found in the rubble. Fortunately, she’d written the dialogue for the episode of Insatiable where Victoria Worthington Stone had been forced to put a tourniquet on the leg of her half brother when that plane they’d been on had gone down in the jungle of South America. Victoria had radioed a local medical clinic for instructions, and Meena had been scrupulous about getting the details exactly right, just in case any of their viewers ever happened to be in the same situation…

She had never in a million years imagined she might be one of them.

But the tourniquet worked. The blood stopped gushing from his leg.

Either that, or the blood flow had stopped because Alaric was dead.

But when she looked down at his face, she saw that he was still gazing up at her, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“So?” he asked.

“The bad news is, you’re a terrible kisser,” she informed him with mock gravity. Better to use humor to make him think the situation wasn’t as grave as it was than let him know the truth. “The good news is, you have time to work on your technique. You’re going to live.”

“No,” he said. He reached for her hand, not seeming to care that it was covered in blood. His blood. “I don’t mean about that. I mean about the other thing.”

She shook her head. “Alaric,” she said, laughing shakily. “I’m not moving to Rome.”

He seemed to think about this. “Would your psychic powers work over Skype?” he asked finally.

Then he passed out.

He didn’t let go of her hand, though. He was still holding tightly to it, in fact, hours later when firefighters broke a hole through the rubble and asked if they were all right.

“I’m fine,” Meena called. “But my friend needs an ambulance. His leg is badly hurt.”

“All right, ma’am,” the firefighter said. “Just stay back. We’ll have you both out in a minute.”

“What about everyone else?” Meena asked worriedly, thinking about Lucien…but also, she told herself, about Abraham Holtzman and Sister Gertrude and the others. “Is everyone else all right?”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that, ma’am,” the firefighter said.

“As far as I know, you two are the only survivors.”

6:00 P.M., Friday, April 23

Lenox Hill Hospital

100 East Seventy-seventh Street

New York, New York

Alaric was deeply unhappy.

It was bad enough that he was in the hospital.

But to make matters worse, he had been there for almost a week, and no one had thought to bring him his own things from his room at the Peninsula. His silk pajamas, or his sheep’s-wool-lined slippers, or even a robe.

Nothing.

So he was stuck-in traction, no less-in a wretchedly uncomfortable hospital bed, on inferior hospital bedsheets, with one of those flat, inferior hospital-bed pillows, in a hospital gown. A hospital gown!

It didn’t even properly close up the back. So if he’d wanted to take a walk around the floor (which he couldn’t do because he was in traction; he’d been told he wouldn’t be walking for weeks-weeks!-and they called themselves doctors), he couldn’t, because he’d be exposing his backside to the whole of the ward.

And his hospital room television didn’t get any premium movie channels.

And there was no minibar. Not that he could have walked to one and opened it if there had been, since he was in traction. If he wanted so much as a drink of water, he had to ring the nurse for one.

He couldn’t even walk to the bathroom.

He had never been so humiliated.

Alaric would have discharged himself if they hadn’t told him there was some kind of infection raging through his veins, requiring him to receive IV antibiotics. Which he wasn’t even sure he believed. He’d always been extremely healthy. How could he have gotten an infection?

“Perhaps because you nearly bled to death from a severed artery in a building collapse and Miss Harper had to use her bare hands and a tourniquet made from a scarf and a stick in order to stop the bleeding and save your life?” Abraham Holtzman had suggested when Alaric had posed this question to him.

But Holtzman was only cranky, Alaric knew, because he’d lost most of his eyebrows and suffered burns on 10 percent of the rest of his body thanks to Lucien Antonescu’s parting shot-which had killed most of the Dracul and singed Sister Gertrude’s habit straight off.

How Alaric wished he’d been there to see that.

Not that he got any particular kick out of seeing naked nuns.

But he’d have enjoyed witnessing all of them trying to flee down into the secret catacombs that existed beneath all the Catholic churches in the city before the fire department descended onto the place with their hoses.

“It’s your fault,” Holtzman had said, chiding him, the first time he’d come to visit Alaric in his hospital room. “If you’d just followed through like you were supposed to and gone after the beast instead of the girl, we’d have had him. But no. You had to go see if Meena Harper was hurt. And so because of you, the prince of darkness got away. You’re never going to live this one down, Wulf.”

There weren’t enough painkillers in the world to make a post-assignment berating from Abraham Holtzman bearable. The fact that Alaric wasn’t on any because he didn’t like how fuzzy they made his head feel made this even worse.

“So I was just supposed to let her lie there?” he’d demanded. “With a possible concussion, or worse? She’d just gotten thrown across the room by a dragon!”

“Lucien Dracula was never going to hurt that girl.” Holtzman obviously wasn’t feeling too swell himself. He’d lost the first layer of skin on his hands and face. He looked incredibly comical without his eyebrows.

But of course, Alaric couldn’t say anything about that. Though he did plan on taking a couple of cell phone photos of it, just as soon as he got the chance, and sending them to Martin, for laughs.

“You knew that,” Holtzman said. “You ran after her instead of doing your job, because you’re sweet on her. I have grave reservations about Miss Harper and this idea of yours of hiring her to work for us. I think it will only lead to disaster. Especially since Lucien Dracula is still at large and obviously in love with her himself.”

“I’m not sweet on her.” Alaric had never in his life heard anything so ridiculous. But a part of him wondered, Is it that obvious? “But if you can’t see the advantages of having someone who-”

“Oh, I see the advantages.” Holtzman took out his handkerchief and dabbed at a spot where one of his burns was oozing. Alaric looked away. Although he didn’t suppose he looked much better himself. How he hated hospitals! “And, unfortunately, so do our superiors, since they’ve already put through the appropriate paperwork to start a special task unit here in Manhattan, with myself in charge.” He added glumly, “They want you on it as well.”

Alaric, surprised, tried not to show how happy this information made him. Except for the part about Holtzman being in charge, of course.

“I, of course, informed them that Miss Harper isn’t the only one about whom I have grave reservations.” Holtzman folded his handkerchief and put it away, fixing Alaric with an eagle-eyed stare. “I saw your behavior in the field last week, and I found it far from acceptable. If you want to be part of this new unit, you’ll first have to take that mandatory two weeks’ psychological R and R you never took after Berlin.” Looking down at Alaric’s leg, Holtzman grunted, then added, “Well, I suppose you’ll have to do that in any case. But you’re getting counseling as well. Agreed?”