The Vampire And The Highland Empath Read Online Free PDF Page A

lifting a square fold of linen from the box. His head snapped up, brows drawn tighter. “Different how?”
    “Cold.” Roque’s arm gave out. He slipped before catching himself.
    Alex caught him by the shoulders at the same time Edeen got there.
    Roque’s head hung down. “I’m okay.”
    “Nay. Ye are not. Lie still against me.” There wasn’t much room on the ledge, but Edeen managed to get behind Roque and ease his shoulders and head back against her. It was a testament to how much pain he was in that she maneuvered him so complacently.
    Bunching the wet shirt up, Alex pressed the cloth to the wound.
    Roque hissed, stiffening. “Hey. Ow.”
    “Sorry, princess.” Alex dabbed at the blood flow, trying to get a clear look at the round little wound. “So cold. And?”
    The Adam’s apple in Roque’s throat column bounced. “I can feel it, but I can’t push it out.”
    The men stared hard at each other, an unspoken conversation passing between them.
    “Geschopf?” Alex growled. “New kind of weapon?”
    “Designed especially for me.”
    “Dammit.”
    Edeen didn’t understand everything they were talking about, but she had come to several conclusions on her own. First being, with Roque’s ability to leap so far off that cliff, inhuman agility and enhanced vision in the dark, he was something beyond mortal.
    Something, that in normal circumstances, could perform self-healing, except this Wulf Geschopf had pierced Roque with some sort of blade that his natural ability to mend was not able to repair.  
    Her hand strayed to her neck. ‘Twas no longer bleeding, yet it stung a bit from the salt water. Vampire? Yet he’d been out in daylight. Nor did he seem like a vampire, even if she had ever met one, which she had not, but she just thought they would be…she didn’t know. Different?
    “Very well then.” Alex unfolded a long thin length of linen from the box and began wrapping that around Roque’s torso to keep the other now-bloodied square of cloth tight against Roque’s side. “We need to get you some place where I can dig the bullet out.”
    “He needs a Healer Sorceress,” Edeen insisted.
    Alex yanked the knot tight on the linen. “I wouldn’t let a healer within a foot of him.” His tone bellowed like a hound protecting its master.
    “Alex…” Roque warned. “It’s all right.”
    Head lowered, the strain left Alex’s shoulder. He shook his head and water drops fell from his close-cropped hair. His gaze sought Edeen’s. “Ma’am, would you kindly show us the way out of here.” He held the short staff of light out to her.
    “Of course.” She took it, smoothing her thumb along the strange and wonderful device. Surely a powerful sorcerer must have conjured it, trapping an eternal flame behind the round piece of glass. She pointed the end around the wet cavern, amazed at how the light beam cut so precisely through the darkness.
    She set the beam back onto the men, brows rising at the amused expressions and quickly angled the light toward the way out.
    There were three holes. The center one looked as though ‘twas the most reliable to take as the hole was as tall and wide as a large man and on the same level as the ledge. Yet she knew from childhood exploration that ‘twas the most treacherous path with unforeseen drop-offs with no end. Or at least too deep to hear any of the stones they’d dropped into it hit bottom.
    The tunnel to the left came to a dead stop several twists in, yet there was a small unassuming slant of a hole higher up on the right, that once one climbed into, opened to a sloping tunnel that led to the sheep-grazing meadow at the top of the sea cliffs.
    She set the light device down inside the hole just above her shoulder and went back to Alex and Roque.
    “We need to get him up inside there. Do ye think he can manage?”
    “You realize I’m right here and can speak for myself,” Roque muttered. “I can get in there.”
    He pulled himself straight and