Immortal Moon (11 page)

“Sure. Why not?” she said, wiping sweat from
her face with a towel.

“Um, I don’t know, maybe because you’ve
already fought twice and the dude’s as big as a building.” Jarrett
gave her his best ‘that was an idiotic question’ eye roll.

She returned his eye roll with her own.
“I’ve got this.”

She tossed the towel down and went back to
the ring so that the ref could announce the fight.

The bell rang and as soon as the fight
started, Jarrett knew he’d been right about the man’s training. He
and Anya were evenly matched in skill, plus he had the advantage of
having observed her fighting style in her first two fights. They
traded blows for a few minutes, but it wasn’t long before the big
man had the upper hand.

It took everything Jarrett had in him to
stand still and watch as the man’s huge fists came into contact
with Anya over and over. He landed three solid punches, one to her
jaw, two to her stomach. Then his heavy booted foot swept out and
knocked her legs from underneath her. With a grunt and cry of pain,
Anya fell to the ground, blood and sweat flying. Jarret lifted his
foot to rush to her, but Pete’s arm slammed across his chest,
stopping him in his tracks.

“She won’t thank you for it, Son.”

At any other time Jarrett would have laughed
at the gravelly voiced old man calling him son. Despite his visible
age, he was more than five hundred years younger than Jarrett. But
as it was, Jarrett’s mind was filled with the need to protect Anya.
As he put his hand on Pete’s arm to move it, the old man spoke
again.

“Seriously, boy. Just hold on a minute. Anya
knows what she’s doing. She can take care of herself.”

Brushing the man’s arm aside, Jarrett took a
step forward anyway, stopping dead in his tracks when Anya lifted
her head and met his eyes. He saw a ferocity he’d never seen
before, and he knew that Pete had been right. If he stepped in and
stopped the fight, Anya would be furious with him. He took a step
back to his original place next to Pete, ignoring the man’s soft
snort of laughter.

Anya slowly and deliberately pulled herself
to her knees. It was apparent she was in some pain, but from the
vitality he’d seen in her eyes, Jarrett was sure she was putting on
a show to make her opponent think she was feebler than she was.
Before she could reach her feet the man’s foot swept towards her
mid-section. Jarrett barely had time to think what a low blow it
was before Anya turned, grabbing the man’s boot seconds before it
made contact with her ribs. She grasped it in both hands as she
used her legs to propel herself to her own feet, pulling the man’s
leg up with her. Once she was up she gave the boot a hard twist and
the giant went crashing to the ground.

Instead of kicking the man while he was
down, Anya stood back and waited for him to gain his feet. She
stood at the center of the ring, arms loose, slightly tilted to the
side as if she were favoring her left leg, head down. She looked
like she was hurt and trying to catch her breath, and she probably
was. But Jarrett was certain she wasn’t quite as hurt as she
appeared. Despite the apparent looseness in her stance, and her
unclenched hands, a tense alertness vibrated off her.

Her opponent gained his feet and went
straight for her, swinging. She stood still until the last moment,
then crouched, bending at the knee, and ducked his fist. Her own
clenched fist shot up, pummeling his stomach three times fast. Then
she rose, catching his chin with another blow. The next minute or
so consisted of Anya ducking almost all of her opponent’s swings
and kicks, and landing almost all of her own. She danced about in a
fury unleashing all of her rage and frustration on the man.

Though she was using the skill and precision
she’d had in her earlier fight, there was something hard and dark
in the way she fought now. Something that could only come from a
place of deep pain. Jarrett found himself wondering again what
could have happened to Anya to make her fight with such edgy
ferocity, and how he could soothe the pain away.

But that thought was quickly lost as Anya
delivered a roundhouse kick to her beast-sized opponent’s head and
he fell onto his back. He was still one long moment then raised one
arm in the air and waved it. “I’m done. I’m done,” he called out in
a tired, raspy voice.

The thin, denim overall clad referee rushed
to the center of the ring and held up Anya’s arm to the roar of the
crowd. When he let go, Anya walked to the edge of the ring. When
she was still several steps away from Jarrett, her knees buckled,
and she went to the ground.

Cursing, he was by her side in an instant,
scooping her up into his arms. He carried her to the wooden crates
stacked against the wall where Pete had been perched when they
arrived earlier in the evening. The massive owner of the fight club
had been standing next to Jarrett when Anya collapsed and was now
close on his heels.

“I’m fine,” Anya protested from Jarrett’s
arms. “I’m fine.”

Jarrett ignored her and laid her on the
crates. She promptly sat up.

“I told you I’m fine,” she groused.

“Yeah? So you were just inspecting the
cleanliness of Pete’s floor?” he asked.

“I had a twinge in my ankle.”

“Your ankle? Which one?” he demanded, his
hands automatically running over her legs.

“Left,” she said lifting it up slightly, and
Jarrett saw the grimace she tried to hide.

He unlaced her boot and gently pulled it
off, followed by the sock. Anya hissed.

“Okay, a little more than a twinge,” she
admitted when he gave her a hard look.

He pushed her pant leg up to reveal a large
expanse of swelling, blue-tinged skin.

“Here, let me take a look,” Pete said.

Jarrett gave a start. He’d forgotten the man
was next to him and turned to look at Pete with his huge, beefy
hands. No way was he touching Anya.

Pete obviously read the thoughts on
Jarrett’s face because he gave a deep, hearty laugh. “I won’t hurt
her, boy. I’m a med-mage. Low level, to be sure, and I can’t heal a
paper cut, but I’m excellent at diagnostics. We need to see if her
leg or ankle is broken.”

“It’s okay,” Anya said, putting her hand on
Jarrett’s where it rested protectively on her knee.

Reluctantly Jarrett stepped aside and let
Pete work. Pete rubbed his hands together for a long moment,
holding them over Anya’s ankle before he finally touched her,
lifting her leg until it was straight out. A dark, raw jealousy
clawed at Jarrett’s stomach as he watched Pete’s hands slide down
the bare skin of her calf to her ankle.

He knew it was ridiculous, and not just
because the man was at least three decades older than Anya.
Jarrett’s jealousy was completely bonkers because Anya was in no
way his property or possession to claim. Other men had touched her
before, and in less than two weeks he’d be long gone from here,
leaving her free to be touched by any other man she chose.

The thought elicited a rough growl from his
throat.

“I’m okay,” Anya said, patting his arm.
She’d obviously mistook his sound as one of concern. He didn’t
correct her.

Pete sighed. “You are, but your ankle isn’t.
Nothing seems to be broken, but there are some torn muscles.”

“Torn?” Jarrett asked, trying not to let his
alarm show in his voice. That didn’t sound good. He’d torn muscles
before, and broken bones, but he was a vampire. He healed within
hours and as long as the injury had been set properly, he had no
lasting effects. But Anya was norm. A torn muscle for her could be
disastrous, couldn’t it?

“Don’t look so stricken, both of you,” Pete
said. “A torn muscle is serious, but it’s not anything to really be
concerned about as long as you can get to a healer capable of deep
healing. You’ll want to find someone within the next twenty-four
hours.”

“We’ll go right now,” Jarrett said, not
giving Anya a chance to speak.

Pete pulled Anya’s pant leg down and eased
her sock on her foot while Anya grimaced and bit back a moan of
pain. “Don’t put the boot back on. Oh, and Jarrett, have them do a
full body diagnostic on her. The healer will automatically heal
that nasty cut above her eye, but I’m not convinced she fell
because of her leg. A concussion could cause dizziness.”

“When I’m on both feet I’m going to remember
you two talking like I’m not even here, and kick both your asses.
And I wasn’t dizzy. It was my leg,” she groused.

“Don’t you get lippy with me, young lady,”
Pete growled. “I’m telling him what to do because he’s going to see
to it that you are well taken care of, or he’ll answer to me.”

Anya rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever you
say Pete.” There was a smile in her voice, and she leaned over and
kissed the older man on his cheek.

Pete flashed a wide grin before carefully
schooling his face back into a scowl. “Go on you two. I’ve got to
get back to work. I’ve got a fight house to run, you know. Can’t be
playing healer all night.” He turned and walked back to the crowd
around the ring, as Anya and Jarrett laughed.

Once he was gone, Anya looked up at Jarrett.
“Just take me to River; she’ll know what to do.”

Jarrett scooped her up. “You’re going to the
hospital. You heard what Pete said, you need a healer experienced
in deep healing. I know River has some healing talent, but I don’t
think she can do what you need.” He shifted her weight against him
so that she was cradled comfortably in his arms as he strode out of
the warehouse. “Besides, no way am I walking into Pinky’s with you
lying in my arms covered with blood. I wouldn’t live long enough
for you to tell him I didn’t do this to you. Not that it would
matter. He’d hold me responsible just for being in the room with
you.”

Anya screwed up her face in agreement.
“Yeah, there’s that.” She sighed in defeat and laid her head
against his shoulder. “Okay, take me to the hospital.”

Jarrett
expected Anya to protest him carrying her all the way to a healer
but she didn’t. She’d only asked once, when they’d started across
the bridge to the other side of the river, why he hadn’t hired a
rickshaw. She’d accepted his explanation without argument that
carrying her would be faster because he wouldn’t get caught in
traffic, and it would jostle her ankle less and cause her less
pain. To Jarrett’s mind, her acceptance was a sign of just how much
pain she was in. Anya wasn’t nearly as cantankerous as Fiona, but
like her sister, she didn’t like giving up control. Though they
hadn’t known each other long, he knew her well enough to know that
under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t allow herself to be
carried across the street, much less across town.

In an effort to get her healed as quickly as
possible, he jogged across the bridge, careful to keep her ankle
from bumping his body, and all the way to the clinic. It wasn’t
until Anya opened her eyes and saw where they were that she gave
protest.

“Jarrett, this is City Hospital. You can’t
bring me here. They only treat employees of the city-state or
Blades. I’m neither, so they won’t treat me. There’s a public
clinic further down Broadway.”

He didn’t trust her health and her ability
to walk on the chance that the med-mage at the public clinic had
enough power and skill to take care of her properly. Though the
healer’s guild had high standards in the med-mages they certified
to work in the clinics around the city-state, the fact was not all
healers were created equal. They had different levels of power, and
though every clinic was supposed to have at least one high-level
med-mage on staff, there was no guarantee they would be on shift at
the clinic. And, the city’s public clinics usually worked with a
minimal staff. City Hospital, located directly across the street
from the Blade Headquarters, was the only place he knew of that was
guaranteed to have several high-level med-mages on shift at all
times.

“There’s no guarantee there is a healer
qualified to help you at the other clinic, but there is here. Don’t
worry, they’ll treat you. You may not be a Blade, but I am,” he
said, giving her a wink. Then he tilted his head and grinned. “As a
matter of fact, not to brag or anything, I’m a pretty high-ranking
member of one of the most elite special squads in the Blades.
They’ll treat you.”

“But…”

“No buts, you’ll see a med-mage, the highest
ranking I can find, and you’ll hush about it.” He signaled the end
of the conversation by shifting her weight against him so he could
use one hand to push open the door.

He stepped into a small, sterile-looking
lobby with a large desk in the center. The young man at the desk
idly looked up as they walked in, and then jumped up. “How can I
help you? Do I need to call an emergency team down?”

Jarrett would have laughed at the young
man’s flustered reaction if he hadn’t understood it so well. In the
short time it had taken him to get across the river and the few
short blocks to the clinic, the bruises that covered Anya had
turned from blue-tinged to deep purple. The cut above her left eye
had continued to bleed so that blood streaked down her face and
soaked her shirt. She had more blood smeared from the right corner
of her mouth down her chin from a lucky punch landed by the
opponent in her second fight.