“Let me help you,” I tell him, fully aware that some people have issues letting others help them in general. Lucas has been a big bad vampire for years. This has to be so weird to him.
“I’m—”
“Don’t even,” I warn. We get so far as opening the door to the house before Eliza comes rushing through the house.
“What the fuck is going on?” she demands, blue eyes flashing as she takes in the sight of Lucas.
“Help him in,” I tell her, struggling under Lucas’s heavy frame. Eliza pushes me out of the way and slips her arm around Lucas, easily able to hold him up.
“What the fuck is going on?” she repeats, voice cracking. “What happened?”
“Are you alone?” I ask, shutting the door behind us and taking my shoes off, realizing now just how much blood is all over me.
“Yes.” Eliza walks Lucas through the mudroom and into a sitting room right off the kitchen. She helps him onto the couch and steps back, eyes wide with fear as she looks at him. “What did you do to him?”
“She didn’t do anything but save me,” Lucas grunts, eyeing Eliza with fatherly annoyance.
“That looks like fucking witchcraft.” She points to the sigil on Lucas’s chest. Her voice is tight, and I can tell she’s on the verge of crying.
Girl, same.
“It’s angel-craft.” The words sound stupid coming out of my mouth, but I just shake my head and grab a towel from the kitchen, wetting it and rushing into the sitting room with Lucas.
“The fuck does that mean?” Eliza’s British accent gets stronger when she’s angry or scared. I kneel down and start wiping the blood off Lucas. “Callie!”
“I honestly don’t know,” I tell her and feel the adrenaline start to wear off. I close my eyes and rock back, tears pooling behind my closed lids yet again. “I don’t know.”
“Hey,” Lucas says softly and reaches for me. “It’s okay.”
“How the fuck is any of this okay?” Eliza throws up her hands and sounds like she’s about to cry as well. “Why are you bandaged up? You smell like your blood and hers, and someone needs to tell me what the fuck is going on right now!”
“He was cursed,” I say and push back up. “By necromancers. He’s not healing right now. I think…I think they’re trying to bring him back to life.”
Silence falls over the room, and the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner of the room echoes in my ears.
Eliza looks at me, unblinking, for a few seconds. “The fuck?”
I turn back to Lucas and wipe more of my blood off his chest.
Eliza grabs my shoulder and pushes me back, making me look at her. “Un-curse him. Now.”
“Enough,” Lucas booms, drawing his fangs.
Eliza steps back, and tears fall down her cheeks. I’ve never seen her cry before. Hell, I’ve never seen her with anything but an annoyed, cocky look on her face.
Seeing her like this is unsettling.
She looks at Lucas again with a trembling jaw and then drops down to her knees, hugging him as she cries. Lucas wraps his arms around her and kisses the top of her head.
“It’s going to be all right,” he soothes and looks up at me.
“It is,” I say. “I’ll figure out a way to break the curse.”
“Figure out?” Eliza jerks her head up and zooms to her feet. “You mean you don’t know?” Her fangs slide down, and she angrily wipes away her tears.
“No,” I say and feel like the ground is slipping out from under my feet. “I don’t know. Not yet. Which is why you need to rest,” I tell Lucas. “And then we need to go home. There are a few curse-breaking spells in my Book of Shadows, and I’ll get ahold of Evander. The Academy has a section in the library devoted to breaking curses.”
“We should go now.” Eliza reaches up and starts undoing the system of complicated braids she has her hair wrapped up in.
“I think Lucas should take a nap first.”
“A nap?” Lucas scoffs. “I’m not a baby, Callie.”
“You lost a lot of blood, and you’re not healing. You need to rest as much as you can, and when you wake up, you’re eating again.”
He shakes his head. “I already took enough from you.”
“I’ll be fine,” I say.
“You won’t die from blood loss, but you will be weakened,” he counters. “Even when I’m not cursed, we all know you’re the most powerful one in this room. I need you at full strength since I’m not.”
“I’ll order dinner,” Eliza says, and I know that means she’ll call a service that sends someone over to be willingly fed from. Abby’s warning rings through my head. I have no idea what kind of screening “to-go meals” go through. Probably none, since viruses and diseases don’t affect vampires.
And what if they have a cold?
“No,” I rush out.
“You’re fucking kidding, right?” Eliza spits out, rounding on me. “I know you two are exclusive or what-fucking-ever, but make a fucking exception, princess.”
“Eliza,” Lucas scolds again. “Stop saying fuck.”
She glares at him and turns back to me, hand going to her hip. Everything about Eliza is soft and delicate. She’s insanely pretty, with sky-blue eyes, cream-colored skin, and long, thick blond hair. She’s a few inches shorter than me, thin, but has an ample ass and chest.
And somehow the rage in her eyes enhances her beauty, making her look all the more dangerous.
“If you love him, you’ll go get someone yourself,” she sneers, and I have to remind myself her anger is a result of her fear.
“He does need to eat,” I start, stopping to close my eyes for a second as everything whirls around me. I can’t keep Lucas’s fate from him, and suddenly I get why he didn’t want to tell Eliza what happened.
It’s awful telling someone you love bad news.
“If part of Lucas really has come back to life, then he could get sick. And drinking unfiltered blood is a really good way to get a terrible disease.”
Eliza purses her lips, and more tears fill her eyes. She blinks them away, but a fat tear escapes, streaking mascara down her cheek. “Fine. I’ll…I’ll be right back then.”
Without another word, she speeds out of the house, slamming the door shut behind her.
“Where is she going?” I ask.
“A blood bank,” Lucas mumbles, eyes falling shut.
“Oh.” I don’t want to ask if she’s breaking in or murdering everyone inside in order to steal bags of filtered, safe-to-consume blood. “You should try and sleep until she comes back.”
“So should you.”
“I’m going to keep watch over you. I’ll sleep when we get home.”
Lucas takes my hand and tugs me to him. I perch on the side of the couch, eyes going to the bandage on his stomach. It’s not stained with blood, which is good, but I’m too scared to look at the wound. I don’t want to see his skin torn and bruised.
“You’re always covered in blood.”
I look down at my shirt and nod. “At least this time it’s not mine, right?”