Shadow Wranglers: Slade Part 33

"What were you doing so far from everyone else?"

He didn't answer.

"It's just your bad luck that I'm the one that found you. I don't know what to do to help you."

She tried probing his mind, but it was as if he'd already left his body. The anguish that struck her was unimaginable. She felt as if her soul were being shredded. Placing her palm over the gaping wound, she tried to hold him together. She wouldn't lose him like this. Not like this.

Then you need to make another choice.

Creed's words came back to haunt her. She'd been so confident in her decision, so focused on what she wouldn't be she hadn't realized what she would be without Slade. A woman without her soul.

Bracing her hands on either side of Slade's chest, she angled up, placing her lips on his cold unresponsive ones. "You don't get to be right at the expense of us."

Focusing all her energy, she sent one thought into his mind. Live.

His mouth felt foreign beneath hers. Like a stranger's. With her sleeve she wiped the smear of sunscreen from her lips. Leaves rustled in the breeze. A crow cawed. There were no sounds of battle, but beyond the one that had woken her up, there really hadn't been any. At any other time, she would have been impressed that so vicious a war could take place so far below human radar. But right now she was just panicked. And she needed help.

Slade needed blood. Vampires self-healed if they had enough blood. That's what all the best movies decreed. She rubbed her neck and then her wrist as she considered her options. Her stomach heaved as she knelt beside his head. Fear raged right alongside hope. She really wasn't GI Jane, and she really wasn't good with pain. She hated it. "Don't bite my hand off."

Closing her eyes, she put her wrist against Slade's mouth and raked his fang against her skin. Biting her free hand, she smothered her gasp. It didn't just hurt, it burned like acid.

She kept her hand there, letting her blood drip on his tongue, horror and determination vying for dominance.

Slade didn't take the bait.

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit, Slade, drink." There was no flux in his energy or his muscles. "I don't know how long I can hold them off."

Just saying it freaked her out. She wasn't Wonder Woman. She didn't have supernatural powers, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was the one making them invisible. It could be yet another residual delusion courtesy of whatever Slade had used to knock her out, but there was comfort in thinking she had some control, so she didn't completely dismiss the notion.

Pressing her hand against his mouth, she tried again to get through to him. "I'm not an outside kind of girl, you know. I'm more the kind that sits back and asks someone else to fix things. But, seeing as there's no one else around, you're going to have to help out here, Slade, because I don't know what I'm doing and you're dying." Tears clogged her throat. "And I can't live with that."

"But you expect him to go through forever without you."

Tobias. Jane never thought she'd be so happy to see the enigmatic werewolf. Wiping her tears on her sleeve, she sat back. "He's dying."

"I know."

Catching her arm, he lifted her away from Slade and turned her toward him, keeping her arm elevated so she couldn't catch her balance. Men come out of the woods, forming a solid wall between her and Slade. Those strange eyes of his studied her from head to toe.

She yanked at her arm. "Don't look at me like that."

He c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at her. "Like what?"

"Like I'm some strange species of bug you've just discovered."

He let her go. "You definitely have hidden talents."

Rubbing at her arm, she muttered, "That wouldn't come as a surprise to you if you didn't automatically a.s.sume you knew everything."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Try as she might Jane couldn't see what the men were doing. She wanted to pick them up and hurl them aside. She wanted to scream at them to move. More than anything she wanted to see what they were doing.

"You don't need to see." Tobias had been reading her mind.

"You don't know what I want."

"You want him to live."

Duh! "Will he?"

Tobias shrugged. "He's still alive."

"How do you know?"

Instead of answering, he knelt beside Slade. Men moved aside, giving him room. It was a gesture of faith and trust. She wished Tobias didn't irritate her so. She could use a bit of that confidence right now. Tobias ran his hands slowly over Slade's torso and legs, searching for something. Whatever it was, she hoped he found it. The men fell back in around Slade, blocking her view. She needed them to move. Inside, the energy built.

"Don't interfere if you want him to live," Tobias ordered.

"I'm not doing anything."

His head c.o.c.ked to the side. "You don't know, do you?"

She just shook her head.

"That means it's new."

"What's new?"

The only response he gave was a cryptic. "Interesting."

"I can't even feel his energy," she whispered.

"He's got it blocked," Tobias answered, his tone as even as always. Reaching into Slade's pocket, he pulled out a small metal device with a green light on the tip.

"Brace yourself."

Before she could ask "For what?" he pressed a b.u.t.ton. The light died out. Energy blazed into her mind. Slade. She almost sobbed as the void filled with Slade's pain, Slade's confusion, Slade's worry. She covered her mouth. Even stretched out within kissing distance of death, the man was worried about her. And he was alive.

Tobias pa.s.sed the device to her. "Hold this."

She took it. It felt oddly heavy.

"Now turn it on."

"Why?"

"Humor me."

She did. Her eyebrow c.o.c.ked up.

"Interesting," Tobias said again.

Jane shot him an angry look. "You need to be helping Slade, not irritating me."

"Am I irritating you?"

"Yes. And enjoying it if your expression is anything to go by."

"You don't read people well, do you?"

"I do fine with people. It's werewolves that give me trouble."

As if on cue, Derek stepped into the little clearing. Like Tobias, he had presence. And like Tobias, he was intimidating, but unlike Tobias she knew he loved Slade. Tobias stood and made room for him. She watched as he knelt beside Slade. Sunlight gleamed off his blond hair. She reached for his energy. And found nothing. So either he had a device or he could block her, too.

"He's lost a lot of blood," she called.

"They can see that," Tobias interrupted.

"I told you before, leave me alone."

"You don't have to worry. We won't let him die."

"Pardon me if I don't take your word for it."

Derek rolled up his sleeve. The men leaned in, Slade's pack, Slade's family all gathered around him. There was room for all of them at his side. But not for her.

She blew out a breath. "I hate this."

To her surprise, Tobias took her hand. "I know."

Comfort flowed over her, dampening her panic and replacing it with a sense of... calm. She left her hand in his.

"Are you sure he's going to be all right?"

"We got here in time."

"Good."

Again he gave her that strange look. "What are you thinking?"

"That I don't do Wonder Woman well."

"Oh, I don't know about that. I was just thinking you had potential."

She pulled her hand from his. "Then you'd be wrong."

Because, once again when it had mattered, she hadn't been able to do a d.a.m.ned thing.

16.

THEY were picked up by a convoy of heavily armored vehicles. No one spoke, which was fine with her. She was exhausted, sh.e.l.l-shocked. She'd killed two men-things. Almost lost Slade, and had a few home truths shoved down her throat by the events of the day. If she were an ostrich, she'd be standing with her head in the sand. Instead she was riding on the floor in the back of one of the vehicles, holding Slade's hand, pretending she didn't feel the censure of the others. She wasn't alone in her a.s.sessment that she'd failed Slade.

By the time they were halfway back to the compound, Jane realized everybody was also looking at her strangely. She didn't care. She was too worried about Slade. He lay across the backseat too quiet. Too pale. His energy a mere echo of the force she was used to. She brought the back of his hand to her lips.

Live, d.a.m.n you.

Tobias turned around from where he sat in the front. "You know a Johnson is too d.a.m.ned stubborn to die from a flesh wound like that."

"Two attempts at consolation in one day? Be careful, Tobias, or I might start thinking you're a good guy."

"We wouldn't want that."

She threaded her fingers through Slade's unresponsive ones. "What was he doing out there alone so far from everyone else?"

Leather creaked as Tobias s.h.i.+fted position. "He was pretending to be you."

"Please."

Tobias ran his hand through his hair. "Your mate is a very intelligent man, capable of many things. And what he's not capable of physically, he finds a way to do mechanically."

"In other words," Jace said from the far back, "he was able to project your presence."

"How would something like that work? I mean, as soon as somebody got close enough to ..."

"See," Tobias finished for her. "Yes, but we didn't need them to believe it forever."

"If they thought we were sneaking you out, it would bring them all to one place," Jace explained.

"And give you the advantage you lost by being outnumbered," she finished.

"As I said, your mate is a very intelligent man."

And devoted to those he loved to the point he'd sacrifice his life without batting an eye. Stroking the backs of her fingertips across his forehead, she whispered, "He's a scientist. He shouldn't have been out there at all."

As soon as she said it, she knew it was wrong.

I'm the bada.s.s vampire who can kick Sanctuary's b.u.t.t.

Tobias snorted. "He's a Johnson. They're more outlaw than anything else."

Outlaw. Such an old-fas.h.i.+oned term. But then again Slade had been born one hundred and fifty years ago, and the majority of a person's personality was formed in their first years of life. Slade's had been formed in the Wild West where survival depended on a person's ability to adapt. Slade was a master of adaptation.