Page 9 of The Vampire's Thirst
She noted lacerations on his body. Likely, he had cracked ribs. Internal organ damage. Burns on his left side melted parts of his shirt into the skin. A broken leg gave an unnatural bend to his pants.
Her gaze moved to his upper arm. A tattoo. Colorful feathers. Deadly talons. Chiara jumped away, a gasp escaping her lips.
It can’t be.
She studied his face. The dirt and blood hid some of his features. Boris and Ivan rejoined their brothers, all four dogs circling the man, yelping even though she called for them to settle. It was him. What were the odds she would run into the same stranger years apart, states away?
Stop. Focus on the present problem.
Chiara didn’t know how she could get him back to her cabin, but she would try. Of course, she planned to take the road rather than the forest route. The man was twice her weight.
First things first. Set his broken leg.
She scoured the ground for two branches to stabilize the limb after she fixed it. Finding what she needed, she returned to her patient.
“Ivan, Boris, this is going to hurt like a sonofabitch.” She grasped each side of his ankle, closed her eyes, and whispered words which drifted away on the flurry of wind. As the air shimmered, an icy breeze fluttered her hair. She tugged on his foot, holding it steady. Slowly, the bone popped into place.
The man’s body jerked, but he didn’t awaken while Chiara tied a branch onto each side of the leg with supple vines. “That’s good, Boris. At least he’s unconscious. Probably didn’t feel the pain too much. Let’s make a sled.”
She wandered the nearby woods, gathering big and small branches. Tired of her long, unruly hair lashing her face, she pulled a scrunchie out of her sweater pocket. Once she controlled her wild mane in a messy ponytail, she placed two large limbs about three feet apart in the dirt. Across those, she layered shorter ones. Satisfied with the pattern, she wove ivy vines through them to hold them in place.
Grabbing the unconscious man under his arms, Chiara lifted his shoulders. With orchestrated moves, she slipped the contraption underneath him with her foot while dragging him onto it, inch by inch. Once she settled him into the makeshift sled, she stepped away to study her patient.
Hell. I hate being cold.
She blew on her hands, warming them. Chiara pulled her wool sweater over her head and tucked it around the man as best she could. Then she hauled him to her place, her journey slow, laborious.
Her cabin was hidden deep in the forest where she’d run after the foster home. The incident there had freaked her out enough to stay far away from crowded cities. She was too dangerous.
Chiara lived alone, isolated to protect the innocent. Unfortunately, more and more people visited her. Now she had another unwanted guest.
With the door of her cabin open, she lugged the sled through the kitchen and into her bedroom while four dogs watched. “Okay, Boris, ideas? How do I get him onto the bed? Right. If we can’t bring Mohammed to the mountain.”
She snatched spare blankets from a closet to create a pallet on the floor, rolling the familiar man on top. She fluffed a pillow under his head. Once she removed her bloodied sweater, she covered him with a furry comforter.
“Don’t look at me like that, Ivan. It’s the best I can do. You’re right, though. He may be dangerous, not being human and all. I’ll restrain him until we make sure he won’t hurt us.”
With heavy rope from a kitchen drawer, Chiara tied a length to each wrist, securing the other ends to the sturdy iron bed frame. She was careful to avoid the gaping wound high on his wrist where something had been removed.
While sitting cross-legged on the floor, she observed the results of her labor. “Good God, Boris, I’m Kathy Lee Bates from Misery. Even bloody and injured, he’s delectable, but I’m not tying him down to ravage him. I just want him well enough to get on about his business. I owe him.”
She had never forgotten the man. Though he was dirty and beaten, he looked nearly as he had fifteen years ago. Inhuman. Her brain warned caution. But Chiara was rarely cautious.
Chapter Three
Perched on a rickety wood chair near the doorway with Ivan and Boris guarding her feet, Chiara prepared to escape if necessary. With an eye on the patient, she rested her elbows on her knees.
The man on the pallet starred in her dreams after the accident. When she was a child, he was her superhero, her champion without cape or tights. As she became a woman, he transformed into an ideal with a haunting otherworldly face, his cold, obsidian eyes seducing her. His muscled body pressing her to the bed. Real men, by comparison, came up short every time.
Sometimes she thought she had imagined the fangs, but she knew better.
Go ahead. Say it, crazy hermit girl. Your hero is a vampire.
“No matter what he is, Boris, the man on my floor deserves to be cleaned a bit and healed.”
Chiara pushed off the chair, still eyeballing the patient before she stepped into the kitchen to get the basin from beneath the sink. After she filled it with warm water, she snatched a sponge from the bathroom.
Kneeling beside her injured hero, she brushed his midnight hair off his face, drawing her fingers through the long strands. As she remembered, it was soft, shiny.
