Forgotten Sea Read Online Free Page B

“You don’t even know if it’s safe to move him.”
    “I know it’s dangerous for him to stay.”
    The demons might not hunt humans, but they preyed in gleeful retribution on the Fallen children of air. Human or not, shielded or not, Justin had made himself a target simply by coming to her rescue.
    She thrust her shoulder under his armpit, braced her legs, and pushed them both to their feet. He lurched against her to save himself from falling. Tucked under his arm, she was acutely conscious of his height. His weight. His warm, animal scent. His body was lean, but big boned and packed with muscle.
    “Get his other side,” she ordered.
    Gideon moved automatically to obey. Under the Rule governing their community, they were vowed to obedience.
    Scire, servare, obtemperare. “To know, to save, to obey.”
    She winced. So far she was failing at all three. But at least Gideon was prepared to follow her lead for now.
    They shuffled toward the car parked at the other end of the lot. Justin hung between them, his bloody head lolling against his chest, his feet dragging. Dead weight.
    Lara’s palms sweat. She shifted her grip.
    Not dead , she thought fiercely. Not dead yet.
    The last daylight faded from the sky. Shadows collected on the ground, tripping them up. As they reached the car, Justin stumbled. Lara struggled to keep them both upright.
    “Careful.” Gideon unlocked the car and opened the rear passenger door.
    Justin’s muscles trembled. She could feel his effort to cooperate as they loaded him awkwardly into the backseat, as they folded and stuffed his long body into the car. By the time he collapsed beside her, they were both damp and panting. Her heart pounded with worry and exertion. She clasped her arms around him to keep him on the seat. He groaned and tried to raise his head.
    The driver’s side door slammed as Gideon got in. “You owe me another shirt.”
    They both were streaked with blood. She grabbed a wad of paper napkins left over from their lunch in Maryland and attempted to staunch Justin’s wound. “We owe him our lives. He wouldn’t be hurt if he hadn’t helped us.”
    Gideon met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Where to?” he asked, making it clear that whatever happened next was her choice. Her responsibility.
    Her fault.
    She swallowed her resentment and her doubts. “The hospital.”
    The engine rumbled to life.
    Justin muttered against her shoulder, his speech deep and slurred.
    She stroked his tawny hair, streaked with sweat and blood. “What did you say?”
    His breathing rasped. “No . . . hospital.”
    “Sorry, pal,” she said. “You need a doctor. Stitches.”
    A CAT scan.
    “No.”
    She gentled her voice. “If you can’t afford it—”
    “No doctor,” he repeated, raising his head. “No . . .police.”
    “He probably has a warrant out for his arrest,” Gideon said.
    “But he needs help,” Lara said.
    “So we take him back to his ship.”
    “It’s not his ship.” What had Justin said? Now that the boat was delivered, he was a free man.
    His eyes had drifted shut again. His head bobbed on her shoulder. An unfamiliar tenderness wrung her heart. All that life, all that vitality, bleeding out of him . . .
     “He’s alone,” she said. “Just like we were before we were found.”
    “He’s not like us. You said so yourself.”
    For all their training and power, the nephilim were still human, with human weaknesses. Human imperfections.
    She licked dry lips. “What if I was wrong?”
    Gideon spared a glance from the road, his straight brows twitching together. “Do you feel something?”
    “No,” she admitted.
    Her power had been exhausted by the skirmish with the demons. She had only a normal physical awareness of Justin’s presence.
    Okay, not exactly normal. The whiff of demon still clung to them. Justin’s blood was on her hands. His warm, hard weight squashed her against the car door. But the powerful charge she’d experienced in the bar had faded