Page 84 of Rapture's Edge (Night Prowler 3)
“Demetrius, please—”
“You can’t expect dogs and cats to play nice together—”
“Alexi is not a dog!”
D smirked, and Eliana glared back at him. “He’s a dog, all right. I noticed him at the catacombs, Ana. He’s a pedigreed, pampered little yipper who likes to bury his bone all over town.”
Eliana’s mouth dropped open. Her face went pale and then flushed red. She opened her mouth to, no doubt, excoriate him, but at that moment the little yipper decided to show up.
He burst through a set of etched glass doors at the opposite end of the glistening foyer with his arms held out, worry lines bunching his golden brow. Blond and tanned and fit, he was one of those men who managed to look well groomed and wealthy even in bare feet, torn jeans, and a tight Rolling Stones T-shirt, which served double duty as an “I’m-too-rich-to-be-bothered” fashion statement and a showcase for his gym-hardened physique.
Without a glance in D’s direction, Alexi enveloped Eliana in a tight, possessive embrace.
D’s hate ratcheted up to a thermonuclear malignity. He did want to see this poser’s head torn from his body—torn from his body and impaled on a post. A growl, low and threatening, rumbled through his chest, and he stepped forward, bristling.
Eliana broke away from Alexi and angled her body between them. Alexi looked at D, and to his credit, he didn’t balk. He gave him a swift, disdainful once-over, as if just noticing his presence, and then said, “Ah. You.”
“The feeling is mutual, pretty boy,” D snarled, curling his hands into fists.
Without looking back at him, Eliana reached out and laid her hand flat on his chest. It had the intended effect. D stopped dead in his tracks, distracted—disabled—by her touch.
“What he meant to say was thank you,” Eliana said smoothly, “for what you’ve done. We’re in your debt.”
He’d be damned before he’d be indebted to this smug, priggish dilettante, but Alexi reacted as if he’d been stroked on his head. He purred his pleasure in lilting, flowery French.
“Bien sûr. Quelque chose pour toi.”
Anything for you. He’d said the same thing to her on the phone, and from the tone of his voice and the look on his face, D had no doubt it was true. Eliana sensed his growing fury and stepped back toward him, still with her hand on his chest, which Alexi noted with flattened lips and a fleeting glance at him that telegraphed, This means war. His gaze settled back on Eliana, and it softened.
“Your family is upstairs resting comfortably. I’ve prepared a bedroom for you, as well. You can stay as long as you like, of course—”
“Mel can take my bedroom. She’s downstairs in the car. We’ll bring her in now.”
“Mel!” he exclaimed, eyes widening. “Wait—you said she was shot.”
Silent, Eliana slowly nodded.
Alexi threw his hands in the air. “Why isn’t she in the hospital?”
“We can’t…we can’t go to hospitals,” she said lamely.
Alexi looked at her with narrowed eyes for a beat and made a little noise of disbelief or disapproval in his throat. Then—apparently accustomed to this kind of thing from her—he rolled his eyes and sighed. “I’ll phone my private physician. He gets paid enough to be on call. He should be able to be here within the hour.”
“A doctor?” Eliana whispered with something odd in her voice.
Through the fabric of his shirt, D felt her fingers tremble. He reached up and placed his hand over hers, an action not meant as anything but comfort, but Alexi took note of it, his mouth puckering as if someone had just stuck a lemon in it.
“Yes, a doctor, Butterfly,” he said sourly. “That is who normal people go to see when they’ve been shot. Right before they go to see their lawyer.”
Eliana said, “Lawyer. Um…”
Alexi crossed his arms over his chest and went into problem-solving mode. “What’s her condition now? Is she stable, conscious? Where exactly was she injured?”
“She was shot in the chest, and she’s still not conscious, but she’s stable, she’s been…operated on…”
Alexi’s golden brow crumpled to a frown. “I don’t understand. You said she hadn’t been to a hospital.”
“Er, no…”
