I don’t know how long I slept for, or how I’d even managed to fall asleep with all the chaos in the corridor.
“Lanni.” Someone spoke softly, like how Mom used to wake me up when I was little. “Lanni.”
A hand squeezed my shoulder.
I opened my eyes, trying to get my gaze to focus on the face hovering just above mine.
“Lanni, where are you hurt?” Alec asked.
I blinked again, making sure it really was him.
His face was gray from fatigue and streaked with dirt and dried blood.
“Alec.” I moved to reach for him and gasped as pain shocked from my hurt calf to my spine.
“Careful.” Alec eased a hand behind my back, helping me sit up. “Where are you hurt?”
“My calf.” I winced as I lifted my leg down from where I’d propped it against the doorjamb. “I think everything else is just sore. Are you okay? They said the Outer Guard had been attacked.”
“We were.” He brushed my hair away from my face. “But I’m okay. We need to get you to a doctor.”
“Other people need help more.”
“They’ve already gone through most of the injured. Let me carry you over.”
“I can’t leave Mari and Walsh. They’re locked in.”
“Everyone on the Council has been called up to Incorporation Headquarters.” Alec scooped me into his arms. “No one else is going to have a key to Tate’s office. And we can’t let you sit here wounded while you wait for Captain Tate to come back.”
“I can’t leave Mari locked in there.” I pushed against Alec’s chest.
“If you let a doctor look at your leg, I’ll see what I can do about getting a key to let them out. Deal?”
I chewed my lips together. I’d pissed Tate off. Alec had survived an attack in the city. He had a better chance of getting a key.
“Deal.” I let him carry me down the hall even though I could’ve made it on my own two feet.
Having Alec hold me close made all the people lying on gurneys in the hall seem less like a nightmare that would swallow me whole and more like another awful day I could survive.
The gurneys stopped when we reached the medical corridor proper. But the smears of blood staining the floor and sounds of sharp orders coming through the closed doors were almost worse.
Alec carried me into a room at the end of the hall. Five beds had been set up. A pile of linens poured out of the hamper in the corner.
“More?” A young man strode into the room behind us. “Put her on the far bed. We have to keep patients in order in case we have another disaster.”
Alec laid me down on my assigned bed.
“I’m really fine. I just have some metal in my calf,” I said.
“Shrapnel is never fine.” The doctor shined a bright light into my eyes.
“Have you heard anything about Gideon Pace?” I asked.
“Last I heard, he was in surgery,” the doctor said. “Seems like he was the worst of the wounded from the atrium.”
“He protected me.” Heat burned in my eyes. “Isn’t there anything you could be doing to help him instead?”
“No.” The doctor tucked his light into his pocket. “Lie on your stomach.”
I lay down, hating putting myself in such a vulnerable position.
Alec held my hand as the doctor cut the sleeve I’d used to bandage my leg and sliced away the bottom of my pants.
“Doesn’t look like the shard is too big,” the doctor said. “We should be able to pull it out without surgery.”
The band on the doctor’s wrist began to beep.
“What’s happening now?” Alec tensed, reaching for the gun on his belt.
“I’m needed in another room. Don’t move.” The doctor bolted back into the corridor.
We sat quietly for a minute. Someone down the hall screamed in pain.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Alec kissed the back of my hand where I hadn’t managed to coat my skin in blood.
“Yeah.” I pulled him closer to me so I could feel his arm pressing against mine. “The killer is dead, but I’d really like to be done with explosions. Never seeing a bomb again would be great.”
“Yeah. It would.” Alec’s eyes darkened, like he was drifting away into the shadows.
“What happened out there?” I twisted my wrist, taking my turn to kiss the back of his hand.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.” I pushed myself up onto my elbows, ignoring the ache in my spine. “Tell me.”
“Our briefing said a few Vamp dealers and up to twenty vampires. We were going in during the day to ambush their shelter. It just all went wrong.”
“How?”
“They had explosives. They’d rigged the street to blow right over a fuel line. It was like the depot all over again. Just fire scorching through everything.”
“I’m so sorry.” I tightened my grip on Alec’s hand.
“We finally broke through to their nest.” Alec wrapped an arm over the back of my waist and leaned close to my ear. “They weren’t vampires. But I don’t know what they were. We busted out the roof, they should have sun burned, but it didn’t bother them. I’ve heard rumors of other altered humans, but these were―”
“Werewolves.” I twisted to sit up, needing to be facing the door. “You went into a den of werewolves.”
Alec kept an arm behind me, like he knew damn well the screaming in the back of my mind had started again as the color of the blood on my hands sharpened, like my body wanted to be sure I didn’t miss the danger creeping in around me.
“I don’t know what kind of monsters they were,” Alec said. “The way they fought, it was like they enjoyed feeling our blood on their hands. I wish I’d never seen that kind of violence, but I keep going through it in my head. Planting bombs near fuel sources. Having altered people who can move in the sunlight. We’ve seen it before. The attacks are too similar. I think their group followed us from the depot. Attacked there and made their way to the city on the other side of the mountain. It just makes too much sense.”
“I need you to get to Mari.” I pulled Alec’s arm out from behind me. “You have to get her out of Tate’s office. She’s not safe in there.”
“Even if I’m right, there are dozens of levels of security between the city and here.”
“Get to Mari.” I shoved him toward the door.
“What’s wrong?”
“You have to protect her. Walsh isn’t―” I couldn’t make myself say it. Not even to Alec. Not even with wolves at our door.
“Lanni?”
“He isn’t an Outer Guard.” The words seemed like they were coming from far away instead of my own mouth. “He doesn’t understand what’s happening in the city. If the alarms go off, Mari can’t be locked in with only him to protect her. Alec, go. Please.”
Alec kissed my forehead and ran out into the hall.
Everything around me seemed to buzz as the horrible reality of the coming battle crashed into my chest.
I’d lived my life in a world full of monsters. If the time had come for the demons to fight each other, I wouldn’t be the one to stop the war.
But I had to protect Mari. I had to get her out.
No matter what her freedom cost.
Lanni’s journey continues in Eye of Stone.