Kerrelyn Sparks: Vampire Mine

He straightened slowly. Roman was watching him curiously while Laszlo readied a tray of surgical instruments.

“Well?” Roman tugged on his gloves. “Is she a vampire?”

“Nay.” Connor took a deep breath. “I doona know what to make of her.”

“How dramatic.” Laszlo gave him an amused look as he set a stack of towels on a table close to the gurney. “She’s definitely female. She doesn’t have the scent of a shifter, so I think we can safely assume she’s human.”

“Ye doona think her blood smells a wee bit odd?” Connor asked. “ ’Tis verra rich.”

Laszlo tilted his head, sniffing. “True. I can’t quite detect her blood type, and I usually can.”

“Enough talk.” Roman marched up to the gurney. “Let’s take a look at her before she bleeds to death.” He whisked the bloody tartan away and tossed it on the floor.

“Nay!” Connor quickly pushed her onto her stomach and shot Roman an annoyed look. “I’ve already checked her for injuries.” With vampire speed, he nabbed a towel off the nearby table, flipped it open, and covered the woman’s rump. “ ’Tis only her back that needs tending.”

She moaned a few mumbled words.

“ ’Twill be all right, lass,” he answered as he carefully tucked the towel around her hips. Did the sound of her voice affect the other men like it did him? Perhaps not, since Laszlo possessed the same politely helpful expression he usually had.

“Did she just say, ‘Don’t touch me’?” Laszlo asked.

“Aye. She said that when I first found her. She may be afraid her nudity will incite men to abuse her.” Connor noticed that her hair had fallen over her face when he’d shoved her onto her stomach. He brushed her hair back to make sure she could breathe. “Doona fash, lass, we willna harm you.”

“Don’t . . .” Her eyelids flickered, then closed.

“Och, she’s out again.” Connor straightened and discovered Roman regarding him again with a curious look. His cheeks grew warm. So he was displaying some normal human kindness. Was that so strange? He lifted his chin. “So do ye plan on helping this woman or letting her bleed to death?”

Roman’s eyes glinted with amusement. “Let’s get her cleaned up, Laszlo.”

The short chemist passed Roman a bottle of antiseptic cleanser and some gauze pads. When Roman doused her burns with antiseptic, the woman moaned.

“Ye’re hurting her,” Connor protested.

“We have to protect her from infection.” Laszlo smoothed some ointment over the burns. “This will help with the pain and promote healing.”

“She may end up with some scars,” Roman commented as he began to clean the wounds across her shoulder blades.

She flinched, then moaned again.

Connor grimaced as he saw the two cuts now clearly defined on her back. Each one looked about six inches long. Fortunately, they had stopped bleeding.

Roman finished cleaning her wounds, then tossed the bloody strips of gauze into a metal pan. His eyes narrowed as he examined the cuts. “This is . . . odd. At first, I assumed the slashes were caused by a sharp instrument like a knife or sword, but if you look closer, you’ll see the skin is burned.”

“Perhaps she was cut by a laser?” Laszlo leaned over for a closer look. “It is odd.” He glanced up at Connor. “Are you sure this was an attack of violence?”

“Of course it was violent. She was bloody well wounded.”

Laszlo frowned as he fiddled with a button on his lab coat. “The two wounds are perfectly symmetrical. I would wager the lengths are exactly the same down to the millimeter. This sort of precision would not occur in a normal fight.”

“Laszlo makes a good point.” Roman selected two forceps off the surgical tray and gently examined one of the wounds.

“What are ye doing?” Connor asked. “Ye should be closing the wounds, no’ opening them.”

Roman drew in a sharp breath. “Laszlo, look at this.”

Laszlo nudged Connor aside so he could get closer. “What is that? Some sort of bone or cartilage?”

“Yes,” Roman whispered. “And it’s been severed.”

Laszlo straightened with a jerk and grabbed a button on his lab coat. “I’ve never seen anything like that on a human.” He turned to Connor, his eyes wide. “What have you brought here?”

Connor swallowed hard. She wasn’t human? He touched a lock of her hair. She felt so human.

“Is there anything else you know about her?” Roman asked. “Did you hear anything—”

“They were arguing.” Connor closed his eyes briefly, struggling to remember everything that had happened before he’d been blasted into a tree and had the sense knocked out of his head. “The man, Zack, was yelling at her. She had disobeyed three times. She was being banished.” He opened his eyes and gazed down on her beautiful face. “He called her Marielle.”

Roman’s eyes widened, then his gaze dropped to her wounds. “God’s blood,” he whispered. “Surely it can’t be.”

“What?” Connor asked.

Roman stepped back, his face pale. “Gabriel, Michael, Rafael.”

Laszlo shook his head, nervously twirling the button on his lab coat. “No. Just because her name happens to rhyme, that doesn’t mean—”

The clinic doors swung open, and Shanna ran to the sink to wash her hands. “Why didn’t you call me? I just heard about the injured woman. Emma thought the Malcontents might have tortured her.”

Connor shot a worried look at Roman. The medieval monk appeared awestruck. Laszlo was clutching a button so hard his knuckles were white. If they were thinking what Connor suspected they were thinking, they had to be wrong.

Shanna dried her hands and grabbed a pair of synthetic gloves. “Why so quiet?” She gasped. “She hasn’t died, has she?”

“Nay,” Connor said. “She’s unconscious.”

Shanna snapped on the gloves as she approached. She grimaced at the sight of the wounds. “How terrible. Did you give her a local anesthetic?”

Roman shook his head. “No.”

“I think you should before you stitch up the wounds,” Shanna said.

“I’m not sure what to do,” Roman murmured. “I think we’d better call Father Andrew.”

“Why?” Shanna’s eyes widened. “You mean for Last Rites? Surely we can save her.” She placed her hand on Marielle’s head in a protective gesture. Her eyes rolled up, and she crumpled.

“Shanna!” Roman grabbed her as she fell.

“Oh my!” Laszlo rushed toward them.

“Shanna?” Roman patted her face. Her limp body sagged in his arms, and he settled her on the floor. “Shanna?”

Connor watched, his innards growing cold with horror. He didn’t want to believe his eyes. Or his ears, for no matter how hard he strained, he could barely hear a heartbeat. Laszlo had to be thinking the same thing, because he fell to his knees and grabbed Shanna’s wrist to feel for a pulse.

“Shanna!” Roman screamed and shook her.

“Sir,” Laszlo told him quietly. “She’s fading fast.”

“No! She’s going to be fine. She— Oh, God.” He seized his wife’s face. “Shanna, wake up!”

“Roman!” Laszlo shouted, his eyes glittering with emotion. “She’s dying.”

Roman glared at him. “No. She just fainted, that’s all. She—”

“She’s going to die,” Laszlo yelled. “You have to change her now!”

“It’s too soon! The children are too young. Sofia’s only two!”

“You have no choice,” Laszlo gritted out.

Roman shuddered, then gazed down at his wife. “Oh God! I can’t lose her.” He looked wildly about the room, and his gleaming eyes landed on Connor. “What have you done?”

Connor stepped back from the accusing eyes. “I dinna mean . . . please, change her before it is too late.”