Page 60 of Ruthlessly Mated
Iamsurprised we were this fucking stupid.
Middle of the day. No vampires. No obvious traps. We thought it was safe. We thought so incredibly fucking wrong. Raiders came out of the fucking woodwork, what was left of it anyway. They must have been staking out the safe, assuming we would come back to open it. And we did just that, walking right into their ambush.
Stupid.
We are getting fucking stupid. And slow. And distracted. We did not run a smuggler’s port for years by being this unaware of what was happening. The place was constantly full of those withvillainous intentions and yet we maintained perfect order. Now we’ve been routed from our home. Twice.
Getting Damon somewhere safe is the main priority.
There are so few places to go now. There’s Coastwood, a small town in the middle of the desert toward the ocean, but we are known there. Could be a good thing. Could be a bad thing. Doesn’t really matter because it’s the only thing.
“Keep the pressure on!”
“There’s more than enough pressure!” Kita shouts back. I can hear her panic. It echoes mine, though I manage to refrain from screaming it.
This all happened so quickly. Getting shot takes hardly any time at all. If Damon dies, I do not know what I will do. He is a brother to me. The three of us have depended on one another for years. We trust each other in ways we’ve never trusted anyone else. And we are bonded, not just as friends, but as mates.
“Just keep it on there, sweetie,” I call back over my shoulder.
“Sweetie?” she shouts back. “Since when am I sweetie?”
“Tailor, do you want to crawl back and help her? I’m going to keep this on track to Coastwood.”
Tailor places the weapon on the seat and goes back over to try to help. I have not felt this helpless in a long time. It feels as though our power is being stripped away from us one terrible event at a time.
I grit my teeth and swear inwardly to not only survive, but to save everyone. The vampire, the raiders, they’ll all pay.
Sooner than I expected, we’re pulling into Coastwood. It’s a small forestry town located in the hills above the bay. It’s not known for its wealth, but it is known for having five bars and four churches all laid out within two blocks. The houses here are dilapidated, vehicles rusted out from the salt air. Trees up the hill shade half the town most of the time, but the view out to the ocean has been cleared to allow people to enjoy it.
The doctor here has a good reputation. She used to get called down to the port often enough when smugglers arrived with various smuggling-related injuries. Her place is on the edge of the town as you go in, taking up space in a clearing on the right where straggly grass is growing out of control in a lawn on which we park.
“Medic!”
I shout as we pull up to the doc’s house, helpfully denoted by a big red cross painted on the wall. The paint is peeling and fading, but it’s enough to indicate we are in the right place.
I wonder, briefly, what she’s done with the money she got from her port jobs. Maybe that’s the only real income she had aside from forestry-related injuries.
Her door bursts open as if she kicked it off the hinges, and she emerges like a superhero. Graying hair, thick-rimmed glasses, a white coat just barely shrugged on over a sweater fraying at the hem, and denim pants that terminate in scuffed sneakers, she levitates off her porch and to our car.
She has the kind of bearing that suggests crossing her would be a very bad idea. She comes bustling over and barks orders at us in a very comforting way.
“Let me see. Good. Yes. In the house, the two of you, stretcher by the front door, bring it out here and let’s get him on it.”
“He was shot,” I explain. “We were ambushed down in the port. Raiders and scavengers.”
She looks down at Damon with a charming expression. “Now,” she says. “Few questions before we save your life. Is there any chance of you being pregnant?”
Damon coughs up a laugh. Blood comes with it. Fuck.
“Yes. He’s been shot,” she says, as if she’s making a diagnosis. “Go and get the stretcher, will you? He’s probably done enough bleeding out for one day.”
She is capable and confident and shifters heal far better than humans. All she really has to do is stop the bleeding and I think his body will be able to regenerate. That’s easier said than done, though.
Tailor already has the stretcher out beside the car. He and I get in the back, slipping on bloody gold coins as we lever him out as carefully as possible. Kita keeps the pressure on his stomach as well as she can until we’ve got him up and moving.
Kita
It all happens so fast. The doctor lady has Damon in her surgery almost quicker than I can blink. Tailor and Conroy are gone too. I’m standing by the car, in shock.
