Page 67 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

“It was necessary,” Tobias reminded me. He took my hand. “Are you ready to do this?”

“What are we doing, exactly?”

“You heard the nurse. Annie Reynolds is dying. But you and I are going to stop that. We’re going to save her life.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE || BRYAN

With Tobias’s words still ringing in my ears, I followed him into Annie’s room.

It seemed immensely strange to me, that we had just barged into a stranger’s hospital room and decided that we were going to fix her. And part of me—a big part, if I’m being perfectly honest—wasn’t entirely sure I believed this was going to work.

What if it didn’t?

Tobias took charge the moment we stepped over the threshold. He pulled the curtains shut, concealing us from anyone who happened to pass by. I hadn’t seen any other nurses, just the one Tobias had used his magic on. But that meant very little. Surely there were others attending to their patients. We pulled up chairs and sat next to Annie, on either side of her. There was a folding chair hanging on the wall beside the door, which Tobias took, and then another chair made of cheap plastic and laminate, which Tobias instructed me to use. After that, he removed the breathing tube from Annie’s mouth.

It was a good thing he was the one to do it, because I don’t know if I could have. She looked so frail lying there on the bed, hooked up to about a half-dozen machines. Her skin looked chalky and entirely too thin. Her hair was a shock of black spread around her head and bony shoulders. Her face had probably been a nice one under normal circumstances: wholesome, kind, friendly. Now, it was unsettling, with skeletal thinness and ghastly hollows. There were deep shadows under Annie’s eyes that were so dark they almost looked like bruises. And her heartbeat was a mere struggling whisper in her chest. Some instinctive part of my vampiric nature, which understood how to decipher the sounds a heart makes, knew she had only a matter of hours left.

Perhaps less than that.

“Then we’d better get to work,” Tobias said.

I felt another small jolt of surprise at the easy way he’d read my mind. It wouldn’t be hard to get used to. Because, strangely, it wasn’t a bad feeling at all, knowing that he could hear my thoughts. It was almost nice, to have another person understand what I wanted and needed, so easily and immediately.

Shaken by this realization, I merely nodded.

With the breathing tube gone, one of the machines seemed to recognize that something was terribly wrong, and a wild beeping filled the room. Tobias silenced it with a spell.

Then he held his hand out to the door. He spoke a few words that I recognized as Latin. There was a sensation around us, almost like the room had depressurized in an instant.

“We’re sealed in here,” he told me, after he’d finished his spell. “No one will interrupt us for the next few minutes at least.”

I found that I was mildly impressed. I hadn’t realized how powerful—or useful—magic was. But I also felt the tiniest bit wary. This side of him wasn’t the warm and sweet man I’d come to know these past few days. It was calm, collected, and decisive. Here, I was seeing a highly trained warlock in action, rather than the man who seemed willing to do anything for me.

“Always remember that they’re the same person,” Tobias said, replying to my unspoken thoughts. He glanced up at me and gave me a small smile. “Any part of me would do just about anything for you, Bryan.” Then he paused and added, “I think we can begin now. Are you ready?”

Though about a million doubts surged up in me, I found that I trusted Tobias completely. And if he thought we could do this, I found that it was easy to believe him.

I nodded.

“Take my hand,” Tobias instructed me, holding out his other hand to me. “I’m going to link our minds and energies. It will help us to share power, so we can work together more effectively.”

I took his hand and held it across the bed, over the blankets covering Annie. His touch was warm, firm, and reassuring.

Then Tobias spoke another spell and my skin dissolved.

Or, at least, that’s what it felt like. It wasn’t unpleasant, exactly, but it was extremely weird. It no longer felt quite like I had a body. Instead, I felt weightless and free, with intoxicating power coursing through me. And I wasn’t alone.

Tobias’s mind was pressed right up against mine so abruptly and completely that I realized that it probably had been all along.

Can you hear me?

His mental voice was clear as a bell and filled with urgency. His mind was beautiful. It was kind, warm, and surprisingly gentle. And filled with light. There was pain there, too. And grief at the losses he’d endured. But those hadn’t twisted him. If anything, they had made him more of who he was.

Bryan. Tobias’s mental voice sent a little jolt through me. I removed the breathing tube from Annie, so if we don’t act quickly, she will die before we can save her. Can you hear me?

His silent words jolted me, causing me to pull back from his mind enough that the world around me seemed to reassert itself. I focused on Annie, listening with my vampiric hearing, and realized he was correct. Annie had stopped breathing.

She was dying.

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