“You.” His dark blue eyes narrowed as he recognized me.
I tried to smile. “Yeah, surprise, surprise.”
When I’d met him in Clancy’s last night, he’d appeared attractive but a bit boyish. He didn’t seem boyish anymore. This was a man who knew pain, who had been through hell and managed to come out the other side. He hadn’t died, as I’d assumed, but something about him had died. That much I could tell. I reached out to grab his tense, firmly muscled arm. There was nothing weak about Quinn. Nothing soft. He pushed me away and scooted farther back in the shadows. His jaw was clenched tightly, and he looked at me as if I’d been the one who bit him.
“Stay away from me… you… you…”
“Bloodsucking monster?” I finished for him. “Look, buddy, I’m not the one who did this to you. You’re lucky they didn’t kill you.”
He laughed—a short, wild sound that raised the hair on the back of my neck. “No… they didn’t kill me. Worse than that. Much worse.”
“You need to get to a hospital.” I tried to touch him again, but the look on his face made me stop.
“Too late for hospitals. Just leave me the hell alone.”
He managed to stagger to his feet, but immediately doubled over again, clutching at his stomach and moaning loudly in pain.
Oh, no.
I recognized those symptoms. Jesus, they’d done it. Dan and his friend. I thought they’d wanted to kill Quinn in revenge for killing Dan’s wife. But they didn’t kill him. They made him into one of us. They made the big, bad vampire hunter into the thing that he hated the most in the world—a vampire. It was almost poetic.
Only, as with me, they hadn’t finished the job properly. He was in pain. He needed the blood of a full-strength vampire, or he was going to die for real.
“Come on.” I shifted my purse to my other shoulder and reached for him again, and this time he didn’t have enough energy to pull away. He leaned against me. It was either that or fall to the cement again. Our eyes met.
“I hate you,” he said.
“There’s that charm I remember. Come on, I know that’s just the pain talking.”
“Leave me. I want to die. I want to get over there.”
I followed his pain-filled gaze. He was looking over at Clancy’s. Filled with his beer-drinking, vampire-killing buddies.
“You think they’re going to help you out?”
“No.” His voice was low and deadly. “They’ll kill me. Put me out of my misery.”
“Well, it’s just your dumb luck that you ran into me, huh? Because I’m not planning on letting you die.”
However, as I half supported him, half carried him back through the doors of Midnight Eclipse, I figured that I should be more concerned about myself. As soon as Thierry saw what the cat dragged in, I figured he might kill me instead.
Less than five minutes after I’d sworn never to step foot inside Midnight Eclipse again, I was back for more. And this time I’d brought a date. Quinn had stopped being a dick for the time being. He was too busy dealing with the pain. It was almost a blessing. I quickly made my way through the tanning salon, then pushed the black door to the club open with my foot and half dragged Quinn inside with me past the fake potted palm tree.
George ran over to us. “Oh, my God! What is this? Another hunter attack?”
“Nope.” I pushed Quinn toward George so I didn’t fall over from bearing his weight for another minute. “Vamp attack.”
George frowned as he closely eyed Quinn’s neck wound. “Did someone order takeout?”
“He’s a victim, not a snack, you dope. And please don’t tell me you’re serious.”
He shrugged. “He looks tasty. I can’t help it.”
“Where’s Thierry?”
When I turned around, my face bopped off Thierry’s silk-covered chest. Hadn’t even heard him approach. I took a step back from him and tried to look composed.
“What is going on now, Sarah?” he asked wearily.
I nodded toward Quinn. “Vampire attack. They turned him, but he’s in major pain.”
Thierry eyed Quinn, and I couldn’t get any sense of what he was thinking, since his expression was the usual controlled blank one that seemed to be his trademark. “And why did you bring him here?”
“Because you can help him, like you helped me.”
Thierry’s gaze moved to George, who was studying Quinn as if he were the catch of the day. “Take him to my office.”
George opened his mouth to protest, but then closed it He grabbed Quinn and effortlessly swung him over his shoulder, as if he weighed next to nothing, then strode through the club.
I smiled. “So you’ll help him?”
“No.” Thierry didn’t look at me. He went to sit back down at his nearby booth. “But it would be distracting for the customers to let him die out here.”
A rise of anger flooded my body. “You’re not going to help him?”
“No.”
I gritted my teeth and tried to breathe normally. “You’re an asshole.”
He stood up and was in my face in one smooth motion. His hands were balled into tight fists. “No one speaks to me as you do. Do you have any idea who I am?”
“Yes. An asshole. I thought I just said that.”
I turned away from him with a dismissive flick of my hand and tried to walk as calmly as possible to the office.
George had put Quinn onto the sofa. It was sure getting a lot of action today. Quinn was writhing and clutching his stomach.
Zelda appeared at the doorway to see what the racket was all about.
“Come on,” I said to them. “Somebody help him.”
George shook his head. “No way.”
Zelda just shrugged. “Sorry, but the boss says no.”
I felt my face flush in anger. Dammit, did I have to do everything myself? I opened my purse. I didn’t need anybody’s help. The bottles of newbie special were waiting there, looking pink and innocent at the bottom of my bag. I pulled one out, unscrewed the cap, and approached Quinn.