Kissed by a Dark Prince (Volume 1) (16 page)

Glass and debris from the building covered the stone slabs. Sable adjusted her grip on Olivia and they hobbled together away from the building and towards the park. Doctors were working on the injured there, using whatever they had on hand to patch up their wounds, and there were already Archangel ambulances on site, ferrying the worst affected staff members to one of the other facilities in the area. How long had she been unconscious?

Olivia took in the chaos and the carnage, the fifty plus victims of the explosion as doctors fought to save them, and the bodies that lined the square just metres away from them. Who had done this to them?

She looked back up at the building and covered her mouth, biting back a sob as she saw the state of it. The floors above the laboratory levels were in darkness until around three from the top. The second explosion had destroyed those levels and they burned, sending smoke and sparks of fire high into the night sky.

A deliberate attack.

They had taken out the laboratory and then they had taken out the roof so they couldn’t use helicopters to rescue everyone trapped in the upper part of the building.

Olivia’s knees gave out and Sable crumpled with her to the ground.

“Pull it together.” Sable gently shook her. “These people need you. I’m going for a doctor, we’re patching that leg and that hand, and then you get on your feet and you help these people. You hear me?”

Olivia nodded, staring blankly at the burning building, numbed by the sight of it and the thought that someone had done this. It hadn’t been an accident.

A female doctor she didn’t recognise came to her and bandaged her right calf up. She placed the little finger and ring finger of Olivia’s left hand in a plastic cast and bandaged them up too. Olivia took the meds she offered and swallowed them, her eyes still locked on the building, her vision blurred with hot tears.

Awareness of her surroundings slowly dawned on her and a sense that she was being watched crawled over her skin.

Olivia looked away from the building, over her shoulder towards the park.

There was a man there.

Loren.

Olivia stood and corrected herself as her vision cleared. He looked like Loren, wore armour like Loren, but it wasn’t him.

He stared at the blazing building with a wild look in his purple eyes.

Four male hunters approached him and she gasped as two short blades appeared in his hands and he cut them down before they had a chance to draw their weapons or defend themselves. His gaze slid to her and he smiled, sending a chill tumbling through her, and disappeared in a burst of light.

“Olivia!” Loren’s voice rang out over the noise of the building, the wail of sirens as the fire engines arrived, and the cries of the injured, and she hated the way it wrapped around her and warmed her, making her feel safe.

She wasn’t safe.

A homicidal maniac had blown up a building just to hurt her.

Loren rushed towards her, dressed like a goth and looking like hell, his eyes gradually changing to blue but retaining a corona of purple around the outside of his irises, as if he wasn’t in full control of himself.

She turned away from him, limped to the nearest person in need of medical assistance, and used what the female doctor had left with her to start patching them up. She diligently sewed the gash on the female hunter’s arm, ignoring Loren as he ground to a halt right next to her, Bleu hot on his heels.

Sable was right. She was going to do everything that she could for the injured and wasn’t going to flake out now that they needed her. This was her fault after all.

No. This was Loren’s fault.

Fury turned her blood to wildfire and she tried to be gentle with her patient, not wanting to take out her anger on her. She was going to store it up and unleash holy hell on Loren once she had made sure everyone who had a shot at survival did just that.

“Olivia?” Loren said and she continued to pretend he didn’t exist, rage simmering in her veins.

She cut the thread, covered the stitches with some steri-strips and then gave the huntress some painkillers.

Olivia struggled to her feet, her right leg protesting as she put her weight on it. Loren caught her arm to help her and she smacked his hand away.

“Don’t touch me!” She shoved him in the chest for good measure and hobbled off, heading to her next patient.

Loren grabbed her arm again, his grip firmer this time, and pulled her to a stop.

“Olivia,” he whispered and she couldn’t hold back her anger anymore. She turned on him.

“Someone was here who looked a whole damned lot like you. He went through those hunters like...” She pointed towards the bodies that someone was taking care of near the park and closed her eyes, not wanting to remember just how easily the man had cut them down. “They hadn’t stood a chance, Loren. They hadn’t stood a chance. None of us had.”

She pushed away from him again, shirking his grip, and eased down to kneel beside a young male doctor with a head injury. The gash was deep, cutting across his forehead and into his hairline, and bleeding profusely. She swabbed the blood away to reveal the extent of the wound.

“This is going to hurt, but I have to stitch it,” she said softly, and he nodded and swallowed hard.

Olivia took another needle, threaded it, and carefully began stitching the wound closed, occasionally pausing to give the young man a moment to gather himself. Loren hovered over her, Bleu his perpetual shadow.

Glass exploded from the building, showering the square. Olivia tensed and curled into a ball as quickly as she could. People screamed and she screwed her eyes shut, not wanting to think about everything that was happening. Because of Loren.

Because of that maniac she had seen.

She uncurled and realised that Loren had wrapped himself around her, using his body to shield her from the glass. Olivia hated that the self-sacrificing action warmed her even a fraction of a degree. She was supposed to be mad at him.

Olivia jerked back, dislodging him, and continued her work. The fingers of her left hand ached even though she did her best not to move them and her leg was killing her, but she kept going, stitching the wound on the man’s head. He needed her help. She couldn’t flake out now. She couldn’t, no matter how tired and weak she felt.

“You need to rest,” Loren said in that commanding snarl of his and Olivia ignored him.

She finished stitching the wound, cut the thread and then bandaged the man’s head. She checked him over for other injuries and Loren growled. Olivia knew why. She was touching the young doctor, feeling her way over his body. Her patience snapped again.

“Don’t take that tone with me,” she barked at Loren and his irises flashed purple.

Bleu’s eyes widened and he gave her a look that asked if she had lost her mind.

She had. She had lost it the moment Loren had come into her life. It was the only reasonable explanation for the insanity that had occurred in the few days she had known him, both in her world and where her feelings were concerned. She had to be crazy to have felt attracted to him.

He was rude, inconsiderate, treated everyone as though they were liable to attempt to bed her or kill her, and she’d had enough of him.

“Get away from me.” She shot to her feet, regretting it the moment the dizziness hit her and she almost collapsed.

Loren caught her and she wanted to punch him, but she didn’t have the strength. She tried to knee him in the balls instead but he blocked her and smiled softly.

“Olivia, you need to rest.” He cradled her against his chest and righted her, and she cursed herself for leaning into him, seeking his warmth and how safe he made her feel. “You are injured and need proper medical attention.”

“No.” Olivia wouldn’t let him coddle her. It would be the last straw. She didn’t need a man to take care of her, especially not Loren. He only wanted her to rest because she was in pain and that meant he was in pain too, because of this ridiculous bond. She pushed out of his arms and looked around her at the blood and the glass, the fire and the chaos. Olivia calmly brushed her hair from her eyes, wiping her tears away at the same time, and faced Loren. “I can’t take a break... because people are dying. My friends are dying.”

Regret shone in his blue eyes. “I should have anticipated this. I shouldn’t have left you here alone. It made you an easy target and I am sorry.”

“Save your apologies for them and them.” She pointed to the injured and then the row of covered corpses, and then swung her hand behind her and pointed at the building. “And them... Loren. Apologise to them... trapped in there... afraid... dying because of you.”

Olivia turned away and scrubbed the heels of her hands across her eyes, sniffed back her tears and focused on the people who needed her.

“Olivia, please,” Loren called after her but she didn’t slow down.

Sable left a group of hunters who had been helping the injured out of the building and glared beyond her at Loren and Bleu. “Want me to kill them?”

Olivia smiled and shook her head. “No. There’s been enough death today... and I do think he’s honestly sorry for what happened.”

“What did happen?” Sable drew her collapsible crossbow anyway and played at pointing it at the two men who hadn’t dared to move after her.

Which was Sable threatening?

It had to be Bleu. If it had been Loren, he probably wouldn’t have hesitated to attack her.

They had both been injured though. Had they been fighting the man who had blown up her world?

“His enemy just became our enemy.” Olivia trudged towards her next patient.

She focused on taking care of the injured with Sable’s assistance. The night wore on, the fire department put the blaze out and more were rescued from the building, many of them from the floors above the laboratory levels, including Mark and others she thought of as her friends. Olivia found it increasingly difficult to concentrate through the pain but she soldiered on, unwilling to give up while there were still people who needed her.

The sky lightened and the sun broke the horizon, painting ribbons of cloud in pinks and gold, but she found no warmth or beauty in it today.

The last of the injured were ferried away to one of the medical facilities used to tend to wounded hunters.

Olivia sat in the middle of the square, surrounded by blood and glass, tired to her bones.

Sable patted her shoulder. “I think he’s about to lose patience.”

Olivia could feel it in him. He had kept away from her, but had never been further than a few metres, and his eyes had constantly been on her. He had protected her from a distance, ignoring Bleu’s suggestions that they return to their world, determined to watch over her.

She lifted her heavy head and looked across the square to him.

He wobbled in her vision and darkness loomed up and swallowed her. The world came back a heartbeat later and she slowly opened her eyes and found him looking down at her, his blue eyes flooded with concern and his anxiety mixing in with her weariness and the pain throbbing deep in her bones.

“No more arguing,” Loren whispered and she nodded, too tired to resist him. He gathered her closer and she leaned her head against his cool hard chest and shut her eyes.

The scent of smoke and blood disappeared, replaced by a crisp fresh breeze that carried the scent of blossom.

He had taken her away from her world again, back to his.

She opened her eyes and looked up into his, and he softly stroked her cheek, his crystal blue eyes warm with tender concern.

“You will rest now?” he said in a low gentle voice and lifted her in his arms. Olivia curled into him, battling the call of sleep, and clung to his long black coat. He laid her down on the rich purple covers of his soft bed and she didn’t let him go. Her fingers clutched his coat lapels. Loren smiled but there was no warmth in it and covered her hands with his. “I am sorry, Olivia.”

She nodded. He didn’t need to tell her that he was sorry about what had happened. It was there in his eyes and in the connection that linked them. She could feel his sorrow and his suffering as if it were her own.

“What sort of freaky ass shit did you just do to me, you weirdo?” Sable’s voice echoing in from outside drove some of the sleepiness from her and she frowned at Loren.

A distinctly Bleu growl came next.

He must have teleported Sable with him.

“Back off... back the hell off, vampires!”

He also must have forgotten to remove Sable’s weapons first. Olivia thought she heard a few disgusted mutters about vampires and mortals.

“Excuse me.” Loren eased her hands away from his coat, released her and disappeared.

He reappeared a moment later with Sable, who promptly threw a right hook at him. Loren dodged it, held his hands up, and stepped aside. Sable’s golden-brown eyes instantly shot to her and she raced to the bed.

“They took you too?” Sable said and Olivia tried to sit up. Pain shot up her left arm from her fingers and she grimaced.

Loren was by her side in an instant, helping her up and arranging his pillows behind her. A little more of her anger towards him melted but she clung fiercely to the rest.

“I’ve been here before,” Olivia said to her friend and Sable’s eyes widened. “No... no... not like that. It’s not what it looks like. I told you... we’re just bonded and we’re breaking that bond. Loren doesn’t want me, and I definitely don’t want him.”

Much.

She kept her eyes on Sable, resisting the pressing desire to look at him and see if his expression matched the feelings flowing through their bond. Loren did want her, and his increased heartbeat and elevated hormone levels said the sight of her on his bed had him thinking about wanting her right that moment.

Bleu burst into the room.

“You want another round?” Sable raised her fists.

Bleu wiped the back of his hand across his bloodied lip and narrowed his purple eyes on her friend. He definitely wanted a second shot at Sable’s title.

“Bleu,” Loren said, and Bleu’s gaze drifted to him. “I require a moment alone with Olivia. Please show Sable around the castle and answer any questions she might have.”