Kerrelyn Sparks: Sexiest Vampire Alive

She hugged him, turning her head to press her cheek against him. “Gregori.”

At the top of the stairs, by the entrance of the Buddhist temple, she saw Master Han.

He stood quietly watching the battle, then vanished.

“He’s still bleeding!” Abigail cried as she tossed a blood-soaked towel into a plastic tub, then grabbed a fresh one to press against one of the wounds on Gregori’s back.

Angus pressed a towel against the other wound. He’d removed both daggers from Gregori’s back, but they’d had no luck in stanching the flow of blood.

“Here, we try this.” Kyo pushed her hand aside and slathered a paste onto the wound.

“What is it?”

“ Yunnan Baiyao . Secret medicine to stop bleeding.”

“What’s in it?”

“If I tell you, it’s not a secret!” Kyo smeared more of the paste on the second wound. “But it has some very good things in it—ginseng, myrrh, and dragon’s blood.”

Instead of streaming from the wounds, the blood slowed to a trickle, then finally stopped.

She collapsed on the floor beside the bed and burst into tears.

“There, lass.” Angus patted her shoulder. “ ’Twill be all right.”

“But he’s lost so much blood,” she wailed.

“Aye, if comes to, he must drink several bottles.”

She nodded. She’d wanted to take him to a hospital in Tokyo, but Angus had forbidden it. Couldn’t risk Gregori falling into his death-sleep there, or being put into a room with sunlight.

With a groan, she hefted herself to her feet and sat on the bed next to Gregori. “Don’t die on me. We’ve been through too much together. I don’t know how to go on without you.”

He lay there still unconscious.

At least Kyo’s secret medicine was working. She thought back to that terrifying moment when she realized Gregori had taken the daggers meant for her. She’d clung to him on the temple steps, crying. When Angus had tried to pull her away to teleport her here, she’d actually struggled to keep hold of Gregori.

He’d finally tugged her loose while Robby had picked up Gregori. They had teleported them both to Kyo’s estate.

She wasn’t sure of all the details of what had happened at the compound. She knew that once Angus had brought her here, all the Vamps had returned. They seemed to be celebrating, so they must have experienced a victory. But she’d seen only about thirty soldiers at the compound. The majority of Han’s army was traveling back from the Yangtze River, so they hadn’t been there for the battle.

No one, other than Gregori, had been seriously hurt. Howard and Rajiv were brought back. Howard’s wounds had mostly healed when he shifted back to human form.

One Vamp did not return with the others. Russell. Angus sent a search party after him when his homing device indicated he’d returned to their first base. A sleeping bag and some bottles of blood were missing, and on the floor in a small pool of blood, they’d found his tracking chip.

J.L. led the search party to the second base. It looked like Russell had been there, since his backpack was missing. J.L. and his team had gathered up everyone’s belongings before returning to Kyo’s estate. She had her backpack now, but no samples of the Demon Herb or the third plant.

Kyo brought her an ice chest filled with bottled blood and set it beside the bed. “If he wakes up, he must drink.”

She nodded. “Thank you, Kyo.”

As dawn approached, Angus came in periodically to check on Gregori. And he brought some visitors to meet her. She met Yoshi and Yuki, two of Kyo’s friends, who had answered Angus’s call to battle.

“I had only an hour to get an army together,” Angus explained. “And I had to draw from areas that were in darkness. Luckily, we had a few volunteers from Down Under.” He introduced Rick, Steve, and Bryan from Australia.

“Thank you for coming, lads,” Angus said.

“No worries, mate,” Rick said. “We’re always looking for a good fight.”

She smiled and shook hands with them. “I’m delighted to meet you. I’m Abigail Tucker.”

“Oy, anyone with the name Tucker has got to be good,” Steve said.

“Nice place you have here, mate.” Bryan rested an arm across Kyo’s shoulders. “Have you got any more of that Bleer?”

Kyo laughed. “Come with me. We find it before Yoshi and Yuki drink it all.”

Rajiv and Howard dropped in to see her, and she started crying again.

“Don’t cry, Miss Abby. We okay, see?” Rajiv smiled, but tears glimmered in his eyes, too. He hugged her, then quickly left, no doubt to keep from crying.

Howard patted her awkwardly on the shoulder, then lumbered from the room.

The room grew silent once more. She sat beside Gregori, and thought about how close and caring the Vamps and shifters were. They were like family.

It was a family she wanted to be a part of.

Shortly before sunrise, Angus and Robby returned to see how Gregori was doing.

“If he makes it to his death-sleep, then he’ll be fine,” Robby said.

“But what if he really dies?” she whispered. “How would I know the difference?”

“He would turn to dust,” Angus said. “Just a few minutes to go, lass. Once he falls into death-sleep, he’ll be fine.”

They left the room.

“How could death-sleep make you fine?” she asked Gregori, but he just lay there.

It was hard to know exactly when the sun rose, for the thick aluminum shutters on the window blocked out all the sun. But she did notice when he stopped breathing.

“Gregori,” she whispered and stroked his hair.

She pulled a blanket up to his shoulders, then lay beside him, wrapped in a comforter. Hours of fear and sheer terror had left her exhausted, so she fell into a deep sleep.

She woke when Gregori’s body jolted beside her. He dragged in a deep breath. He’d been lying on his stomach, so when he sat up, he was in the middle of the bed.

She blinked. “You’re all right?” She sat up, grinning. “You’re all right! Oh, thank God.” She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.

His body trembled. “Stay back.” He grabbed her arms and pushed her away. His eyes glimmered an intense green. “ Hungry .”

“Oh, right.” She probably looked like breakfast in bed. She scrambled to the ice chest and pulled out a bottle.

With a groan, his fangs shot out.

She twisted the cap off and handed him the bottle.

He guzzled it down, even though his fangs were in the way, and some of the blood trickled down his chin and neck.

She grabbed another bottle and removed the cap. He was so hungry, he didn’t seem to care that the blood was ice-cold. When he tossed the empty bottle aside, she handed him the next one.

She eased around him to check his wounds. The paste was dry and flaking away.

She couldn’t find the wounds.

He turned toward her. “I’ll need another bottle.” His fangs had retracted, so he finished off the second bottle without drizzling blood down his chin.

She handed him another one. “Are you really okay?”

“Yes. Just hungry.” He drank some more.

She went to the bathroom, washed up, then brought a damp towel to clean off his back.

“You don’t need to do that,” he grumbled.

She ignored him and climbed onto the bed behind him to wipe off the paste. The wounds were gone. As if they had never happened.

She skimmed her hand over the smooth skin. “You’re completely healed. How?”

He shrugged. “It happens during our death-sleep.”

She recalled how Robby and Angus had said he would be fine if he only made it to his death-sleep. “How can such a miraculous change occur when you’re dead?”