Diana threw open the door as Benjamin carried Ryder into the condo.
Even with vampire healing at work, Ryder was in terrible shape, barely conscious.
“Can you help me get him upstairs?” she asked as Melissa rushed in from the dining room where she had been trying to keep little Mariel entertained. Diana glanced that way and saw Sebastian had taken over for his wife.
“I'll meet you up there in a minute,” Melissa said, and hurried back to get her physician's bag.
Benjamin nodded, and with Ryder's almost nonexistent assistance, he and Diana managed to get him up the stairs and onto the bed in their room.
“He'll need to feed to heal,” Benjamin warned, and shot her a look. “But not from you. You're still too fragile from the turning and...you’re different,” he said with a twist to his lips.
She wanted to ask what he meant, but her sole concern was with Ryder at the moment. He lay on the bed, too still for her peace of mind. Along with cuts and bruises on his face, he was still bleeding from a wound on the side of his head. As she went to place a pillow under it, her hand came away wet with blood from another wound at the back of his skull.
He moaned as she gently lifted his head. He made a feeble grab for his left shoulder. “Hurts like a bastard,” he said, so weakly she could barely hear him.
“Do you have blood bags?” Benjamin asked. “The plastic kind, I mean.”
“Probably,” she said as Melissa walked in with her medical kit and went straight to the bed to examine Ryder.
“Maggie and I brought up a half dozen IV bags for you, but we didn't use them. They're in the fridge in Ryder's office,” she said.
“I'll go get them,” Benjamin said, but for some reason he still seemed uneasy.
Melissa sat down and went to work checking Ryder's vital signs, and examining his head wounds and collarbone. When she was finished, she opened his shirt, revealing mottled bruises all across his ribs and midsection.
From the look on her face, she was as concerned as Diana about his condition. She beckoned Diana away from the bed, and whispered, “It's not good. He has multiple skull fractures and his collarbone is broken. There may be internal bleeding from the blows on his body as well.”
Diana’s knees weakened, but she forced steel into them and straightened her backbone, refusing to accept what Melissa wasn't saying—that Ryder might be dying.
That was not going to happen.
They had fought too hard to be together, and she had no intention of it ending like this.
“We’ll take care of him. He will get better,” she said, and returned to his side. She slipped her hand into his, but when he took hold of hers, his grip was weak and his skin was cold. Ice cold, and damp with the sickly sweat she recognized all too well. It was the death sweat that took hold in a vampire's body when they were too weak to sustain life.
She yanked up the sleeve of her shirt and was moving her wrist toward his mouth when Benjamin returned and rushed to her side.
“No, Diana. It's too soon for you to do this. He can feed from me. My Slayer blood may give him the jolt that he needs to survive.” With a gentle hand, he urged her away from Ryder.
Diana wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep it together as Benjamin sat and bent over Ryder, offering him his wrist. Coaxing him to feed.
Ryder's dark head barely moved, but the slight jump in Benjamin's body confirmed that Ryder had listened and obeyed. For long minutes, the only sounds were Benjamin urging him on and the slight sucking noise as Ryder drew sustenance from the Slayer vampire.
When Benjamin finally allowed Ryder to fall back onto the pillows, he stood, his legs wobbly. “Give me a little time to rest, and we'll have at it again,” he said, and lurched drunkenly toward the sitting area where he plopped down in one of the chairs.
Diana approached him while Melissa began feeding Ryder with the IV blood bags. She kneeled in front of Benjamin, laid a hand over his where it rested on the edge of the seat and said, “Thank you.”
At her touch, he stared down at her hand and frowned. “Michaela fed you during your turning?”
Diana nodded. “She did. She helped save my life.”
Benjamin tilted his head at Ryder. “Go take care of your husband. We can talk about why your turning is different later,” Benjamin said, sounding weary but satisfied.
Just then, Michaela flew through the door of the bedroom, Jesus behind her, bloodied, but okay. She strode to the bed, and as Melissa removed the empty blood bag, the dhampir Slayer took a spot next to Ryder and offered her wrist to him.
Diana moved to Jesus's side and took in the wounds along his forearm and the blood splattered across his shirtfront and sleeves. “Are you okay?”
“Nothing major. Most of the blood is from Connall.”
“You shot him?” she asked.
“Several times, but he managed to get away. Still, I was using silver rounds, so he'll be weakened.”
“Good. That'll make him easier to take down,” she said, then focused her attention back on her husband. As with Benjamin, Michaela allowed him to feed as long as she could before weakness set in. When she stood, she was unsteady, but she also wore a satisfied smile.
“I think he's past the worst of it,” she said, and Diana skimmed a hand across Ryder's arm. It was warmer, and the sickly sweat was gone.
She hugged the other woman, and said, “Thank you, Michaela.”
Michaela returned the embrace awkwardly, making Diana want to hug her even harder.
“See to your man while I see to mine,” Michaela said, and pulled away to go to Jesus where he stood by the bedroom door.
“Please, let me do it,” Diana said to Melissa, and held out her hand for the blood bags.
Melissa offered her a relieved smile. “Call if you need me. I'm going to take Mariel to the guest room to sleep.”
“Thanks, Melissa,” she said, and hugged her hard, too, so grateful for the cadre of friends who always had her back.
Diana sat beside Ryder and he stirred, dragging his eyes open. “Failed you,” he whispered.
She shook her head and laid a hand over his heart, encouraged by the stronger beat there. “Never, Ryder. Don’t you dare think that way. You kept him from us.”
“Benjamin...did,” he said, too weak for anything more than a few short words at a time.
“No, not Benjamin. You held him back. But now is not the time for this. You’ve got to feed and get better.” She brought the blood bag to his mouth, but he turned his head away.
“Full. Need rest,” he said, and closed his eyes.
She battled her concern, but more about his emotional state than his physical one. The feedings from the two Slayers had brought him strength to hang on, and with time and more sustenance, she felt sure he would heal physically.
“Okay,” she said reluctantly. “Sleep now.”
Placing the bag back into the cooler Melissa had used to bring up the blood supply, she gathered up some washcloths and a basin so she could clean him up and get him more comfortable.
Gently as she could, she washed away the drying blood on his face and the wounds on his head. The skin had already knit, but she was cautious, aware that there were fractures beneath that would take longer to heal.
Stripping him of his clothes, she winced at all the bruises still visible beneath his pale skin. Connall had done a real number on him.
Which brought a whole new wave of concern, this time about Michaela.
If Connall could do this to someone as big and strong as Ryder, what chance did the young Slayer have against him? She understood that, despite her fear, this was something Michaela had to do.
Michaela had to put the past to rest so she could choose the right path to follow into the future.