“No doctor,” he repeated, raising his head. “No . . .
police.”
“He probably has a warrant out for his arrest,” Gideon said.
“But he needs help,” Lara said.
“So we take him back to his ship.”
“It’s not his ship.” What had Justin said? Now that the boat was delivered, he was a free man.
His eyes had drifted shut again. His head bobbed on her shoulder. An unfamiliar tenderness wrung her heart. Al that life, al that vitality, bleeding out of him . . .
F o r g o t t e n s e a 27
“He’s alone,” she said. “Just like we were before we were found.”
“He’s not like us. You said so yourself.”
For al their training and power, the nephilim were stil human, with human weaknesses. Human imperfections.
She licked dry lips. “What if I was wrong?”
Gideon spared a glance from the road, his straight brows twitching together. “Do you feel something?”
“No,” she admitted.
Her power had been exhausted by the skirmish with the demons. She had only a normal physical awareness of Justin’s presence.
Okay, not exactly normal. The whiff of demon stil clung to them. Justin’s blood was on her hands. His warm, hard weight squashed her against the car door. But the powerful charge she’d experienced in the bar had faded to a faint static along her skin, as if she’d never been driven from her bed to seek him. As if . . .
Her breath caught.
As if her compulsion was satisfied now that he was found.
Now that he was with her.
“Maybe we’re meant to bring him with us,” she said.
Gideon’s shoulders stiffened. “To Rockhaven.”
Recklessness seized her.
“We can’t bring an outsider into the community. He’s a threat.”
“Hardly a threat now,” she pointed out. “He can’t even hold his head up.”
*
*
* Their voices rol ed like a fretful tide, rushing, retreating, never stil . Justin tried to focus on the words, but pain sank red talons into his skul , gripping his brain.
2 8
V i r g i n i a K a n t r a
Just a bump on the head. He’d survived worse.
He shook his head to clear it.
Bad idea.
Agony seared his temples, speared his neck. His gorge rose as his stomach lurched in protest. He gritted his teeth, swal owing beer and bile, fighting not to vomit in the back of the moving car.
“Easy.”
Grateful y, he inhaled her scent, absorbed her touch, letting himself fal into the comfort of her body against his, sweaty, soft, female.
The white lane markers flashed and faded in the beam of their headlights.
Jesus, he was dozing off. Or passing out. He clung to consciousness, fighting to snatch meaning from the conversation taking place over his head.
“Treat him at the infirmary,” Lara was saying.
“Assuming he survives the trip.” From the boyfriend.
“Wow. I am so touched by your concern,” Lara said.
“You know what concerns me? Trying to explain to Axton what we’re doing with a dead body in the backseat.”
Justin felt Lara stiffen. “Would you rather explain why we left him behind to die?” she asked.
He wasn’t dying, he wanted to tel her. He was remarkably hard to kil .
