Page 85 of Don't Bite the Botanist
For a fraction of a second, there was no sound save for the perpetual thundering of the waves. And then the world exploded back into action as Saiden and Derrick blurred over to her side, and Tressa turned her attention back to her mate who was still bleeding in her arms. She closed her eyes for a second, and when they flew open, relief filled her.
“You’re going to be okay,” she told him. “Your heart is beating fast, but it’s steady. She didn’t pierce it.”
Saiden crouched down next to Ethan while Derrick plopped his ass in the sand and slapped Ethan on the thigh. “Guess you’re stuck with us.”
Ethan’s head lolled back. “Well, that’s… good to hear.”
Tressa gawked at him. “It’s ‘good to hear?’ You defeated the rogue who murdered your best friend without getting yourself killed in the process, and that’s the best you’ve got?”
Ethan dragged his head up and gave her a wry grin. “Sunflower, I’m a vampire with a wooden stake embedded in my chest. Do you really expect me to be eloquent right now?”
Tressa burst out laughing and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Fair enough. Okay, I’m going to pull this out, and you’re going to use your fancy new Gift to heal yourself, okay?”
When he nodded, she yanked the stake out and flung it into the ocean. She pressed her hand to the wound on his chest as his blood oozed between her fingers and dripped onto the pale sand. “Okay, Doc. Your turn,” she told him.
Ethan closed his eyes, and Tressa waited for the violet light to appear.
But nothing happened.
“Why aren’t you healing?” she demanded. “Ethan, use your Gift. Heal yourself.”
His eyes flew open. “I… I can’t,” he said, staring at her wide-eyed. He reached over and plucked out a piece of driftwood that had become embedded in her calf during the fight. A thin stream of blood spilled out, and his hand instantly became wreathed in a purple glow. He grazed his fingers over the small gash, and it sealed shut. But when he brought his hand to his chest, the light faded away.
“I guess my power doesn’t work on myself,” he told them.
In a flash, Derrick had his shirt off and pressed to Ethan’s wound. “It’s okay, new cousin. You still have vampiric healing. We just need to get you a couple bags of blood, a bottle of Hennessey, and a comfy bed to lie in for a few days, and you’ll be back on your feet in no time.”
Ethan groaned, and Tressa gently pushed Derrick aside so she could be the one to help patch up her mate. Most of the tension had eased out of her when she’d heard his heartbeat holding steady, but the amount of blood soaking through the shirt still had her worried. Untilshe could run her hands over smooth, unblemished skin, she wasn’t leaving his side.
Holding pressure with one hand, she used the other to wipe away the blood on his chin that had spilled from his mouth. She gazed into his eyes and sighed. “Oh, Ethan. What kind of doctor can’t fix himself?”
“The undead kind, apparently,” he said with a chuckle, and the last bit of tension in Tressa faded away. If he was able to find the humor in the situation, he was going to be okay.
They were all going to be okay.
“She will come for you. She will restore balance.”
For now.
Chapter forty-six
Ethan
Three Months Later
“You work too hard.”
Ethan popped his head up, and a wide smile spread across his face at the appearance of his beautiful mate. He dismissed the microscope he’d been bent over in favor of watching her stroll toward him. “You say that every time you come in here.”
“Because it hasn’t ceased being true,” she said, plopping her cute butt down on the stool next to him.
“Well, what do you expect me to do? The scientist in me is still trying to accept the insane fact that using apple blossom extract for my heart medication meant I accidentally created a poison for vampires that was undetectable by smell.”
It hadn’t taken long for Baylin to figure things out once Ethan had the time to sit down with him and go over everything. After that, they’d run some tests on the broken bits of glass Saiden carefully recovered from the beach. Turns out it was nothing more than water with a few drops of apple juice. Ethan had initially been disappointed that it wasn’t an actual magic potion, but that quickly took a backseatto all-encompassing horror at how such a small amount turned Renata to ash in less than a minute. It had led to Ethan being terrified of his own shadow for days, afraid there was somehow an apple lingering around every corner waiting to jump out and steal his new life with Tressa.
Of course, that anxiety faded after the fifth time Tressa reminded him that he was a vampire and could smell apples a mile away. The liquid inside the bottle may have been nothing more than juice, but since none of them had caught the scent after the witch gave it to him, the running theory was that the bottle must have been enchanted. Apparently, there was something to the whole concept of real witches after all.
And perhaps that was how he managed to survive his lab burning down. Neither the cops nor Baylin had been able to figure out how he was found lying just outside the burning building when Renata had left him for dead inside. More fuel for the theory that there were greater magical forces at work in the universe.
