Page 11 of Mated in Flames

Luciana

It takes a moment, but my medical training overtakes my horror and shock. Before I know it, I’m dropping to my knees beside my neighbour, reaching out to feel for a pulse. I’m not surprised to find that there isn’t one, and no breath stirs his chest. I find his heart and press against it, heedless of the blood soaking my hands, hoping against hope that it might still be beating.

It isn’t.

He’s definitely dead, killed protecting me. I don’t even know his name.

“…iana… Luci… Luciana!”

I jerk at the sound of my name and blink at Warwick, who has joined me on the ground, staring at me over the corpse of his friend. I expect to see grief on his face, but, instead, there is just an odd sort of urgency.

“Luciana, you with me?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, rousing myself; I have seen death plenty of times. Now isn’t the time to fall apart.

“I need you to help me move him out of view,” Warwick says. “Can you help me? I’d ask you to help me take him home, but it’s too far. We’re going to need to borrow a room in your house.”

My brow furrows for a moment and then clears. Right. Warwick must be in shock. He doesn’t have the same sort of training I do.

“Of course,” I say, drawing on all my experience on dealing with loved ones that have just lost someone. “What’s his name, Warwick?”

“Dane,” Warwick says distractedly. “He’s my younger brother.”

Fuck, that’s not good. Warwick had just watched his brother die. The man may be an absolute idiot, but I would never have wished this on him.

It’s awkward but, between us, we manage to move Dane into the house, carrying him until we reach my spare bedroom. Blood drips on the floor around us, and I’ll have to clean it up later, but I can’t care about that right now, not when Warwick is looking so stressed and oddly determined.

We drop Dane carefully to the floor in the middle of the room, staining the floorboards and then we straighten, staring down at him. He’s pale, now, and I’m glad Warwick had the forethought to close his eyes.

“The police will probably be on their way, soon,” Warwick murmurs after a moment. “Dane called them as soon as we heard the first shot, on our way here.”

As if on cue, I hear the sirens coming closer.

“Luciana.”

I blink and look at Warwick. There’s an intense look in his eyes as he reaches out and grips my shoulders.

“Don’t tell them about Dane,” he says.

“What?” I ask, taken aback; there’s no way we can hide that someone died here.

“Please,” Warwick says, and his voice shakes ever so slightly. “Just for now.”

I search his face. The desperation in his eyes tells me how much he needs this right now. I sigh.

“Fine,” I say.

I can easily call them up later and explain that his brother was currently in intense denial. He’s going to need to face it, but maybe it might be better to do so after his brother’s killers are out of his reach.

Five minutes later, the knock comes on my door. Feeling incredibly tired, I open the door. This was definitely not the way I expected to spend my evening. I had two poachers unconscious in my yard, a dead body in my spare room and a grieving brother sitting beside him and watching him with an intense gaze. Nothing about this situation is normal.

“Hello,” one of the officers greeted me as I opened the front door, her smile kind. “We had reports of shots on your property.”

“Yes, some poachers attempted to attack me,” I say, stepping outside. “They had guns. My neighbours heard the attack and came to help me.”

“Can you show us?” the other officer asks as he pulls out a notebook.

The two poachers are, thankfully, still unconscious. The female officer calls for backup and a forensic team on the radio, eyeing the puddle of Dane’s blood on the ground. I can hear the animals making movement in the barn, restless by all the unusual sounds and their hunger.

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