Panic danced across his face as he lunged forward and grabbed her upper arms.
“Whoa-whoa-whoa!” John tried to intervene, or at least to break the bruising grip, but couldn’t.
“What are you doing here?” Richart demanded, his accent so thick and his words so slurred she had difficulty understanding him. “It’s too dangerous. You must go.”
Jenna gently clasped his arms. “Richart, we’re in my apartment. Do you understand me? We’re in my apartment.” She spoke slowly and deliberately, heart pounding in her chest.
His brows drew down in a deep V. “Your . . . ?” He glanced around. Releasing one of her arms, he rubbed his eyes and looked around again.
She could feel him trembling. The hand that gripped her shook violently. And he began to slowly press downward as if he had to use her to prop himself up.
Jenna watched him take in the sofa, the stained coffee table, John, and their abandoned dinner.
Relief softened his features as he swayed. “We made it out? I got us out?”
Before she or John could ask out of what, Richart looked around again. “Where is Ami?”
Jenna felt the sharp glance John sent her. “Who is Ami?” she asked.
His frown returned, as did the alarm. “What?”
“I don’t know who Ami is, Richart. You just . . . appeared . . . out of nowhere. Alone.”
“She wasn’t with me? I left her there?”
John stepped forward. “Left her where? Who’s Ami? What the hell is going on?”
Richart began to mumble in French again.
Jenna gave him a little shake. “Richart!”
“I must go back,” he said, face stricken. He released his hold on Jenna and, breaking her own, staggered away two steps.
When he listed to one side, Jenna hurried forward to steady him.
He pushed her away. “Don’t touch me,” he wheezed. “I’ll take you with me.”
“What?”
John grabbed her by the shoulders and drew her back.
Richart reached beneath his coat and drew out two very lethal looking daggers.
John swore.
Richart squeezed his eyes closed, so wobbly on his feet the faintest breath of wind would have knocked him on his ass.
As Jenna stared at him, his form began to fade, becoming translucent. Her breath caught. She could actually see the other side of the room through him.
“What the . . . ?” John whispered.
Then Richart became solid again. He opened his eyes, saw them, and growled with frustration. Stumbling a couple of steps to the left, he thrust out an arm and pressed a bloody fist against the wall until he could regain his balance, then straightened. He squeezed his eyes shut, brow crinkling with concentration. Again his form began to fade, becoming phantomlike.
“Mom . . .” John said. “Are you seeing this?”
Jenna didn’t have to look up at him to know he was as freaked out as she was. “Yes.”
Once more, Richart’s form solidified. He opened his eyes, spoke vehemently in French, then lurched forward. His knees buckled. Losing his battle with gravity, he crashed through her coffee table, reducing it to large splinters as he hit the floor hard.
Her heart now lodged in her throat, Jenna jerked away from John and knelt at Richart’s side. “Richart?”
Rolling onto his back, he stared up at her with unfocused eyes. “I left . . . her there,” he whispered, those eyes—dilated she could see now—filling with moisture.
“It’s okay,” she murmured, combing his damp hair back from his face.
He shook his head. “I left her. They’ll . . . kill her.” A tear slid down his temple. His weapons thunked to the floor as his hands went limp. “They’ll”—his eyes closed—“tear her . . . apart.”
As Jenna watched in horror, he sighed. Then his chest rose no more. “Richart?”
Nothing.
Burying her hands in his bloody shirt, she shook him. “Richart?”
No response.
“Richart!”
John knelt by her side. “Mom . . .”
Unable to speak past the lump in her throat, she shoved her fingers against Richart’s throat above his carotid artery. Seconds ticked by, passing as slowly as hours. Her vision wavered as tears filled her eyes and spilled over her lashes. “I can’t feel a pulse.” Her breath hitched. “I can’t feel a pulse!”
John shoved her hand away and pressed two fingers against Richart’s neck.
She gripped Richart’s arm. “There’s nothing.”
“Shh.” He lowered his ear to Richart’s chest.
“He’s—”
“Shh!”
This wasn’t happening.
Whatever the hell this was, it wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be!
“John—”
“Quiet!” her son ordered harshly.
Jenna stared at Richart’s face. How could he have come to mean so much to her in such a short time? The thought of losing him . . .
More tears welled.
“I’ve got a pulse,” John blurted, face pinched as he sat up.
“What?”
“He’s alive.”
Jenna rose onto her knees, hope a frightening force that lent her strength despite her trembling. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. It’s slow as hell, but it’s there.”
Elation filled her, rendering her weak again. “We have to call nine-one-one.”
He caught her wrist and stopped her before she could rise and lunge for the phone. “And tell them what? That your vampire boyfriend needs medical attention?”
And there it was. The V-word she had been trying her damnedest to avoid.
“There are no such things as vampires.”
“Proof of their existence is currently passed out on our living room floor.”
“He isn’t a vampire,” she denied.
“His eyes glowed and he had fangs.”
“But he doesn’t now!”
“Exactly. Fake fangs don’t retract into your gums. Glowing contact lenses don’t have an on/off switch.”
She stared at her son, wanting to cling to denial a little longer.
“And humans don’t have pulses so slow as to be virtually undetectable,” he pronounced.
“But he ate food.”
“Maybe vampires can eat food in real life.”
“Do you realize—”
“Yes! I realize how ludicrous that sounds, Mom, but . . . !” He drew in a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know what the hell he is, but I do know what he isn’t: human. And since the news hasn’t been filled with vampire reports, I’m guessing he’s been keeping it a secret.”