It should have been reabsorbed by now, like the wounds should have closed. Hell, they should have closed instantly! But there’d been a minute or so when he’d been fighting a whole coterie of mages all on his own, ones armed with weapons that killed most vamps on contact. How many times had he gotten hit?
“How many times were you hit?” I demanded.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters!”
“Why?” Blue eyes suddenly burned into mine. “I thought you no longer cared for me?”
I glared back at him. “This? This is the moment you take for that conversation?”
“Why not? According to Claire, there are things I do not understand.”
“The only thing you need to understand right now is, there’s the bed.” I pointed. “Get in it!”
“No.”
I glared at him some more.
It didn’t seem to help.
“I’m coming with you,” said the most stubborn creature on earth.
Make that the second-most stubborn. “No way in hell.”
“And why not?”
“Because I’m not sure you can take her!”
I opened the door; he shut it again. And splayed a hand over it to keep it that way. “That’s what this is about? You think she is stronger?”
“She’s a first-level master!”
He arched an eyebrow at me.
“And she has freaky abilities—”
“The same could be said of any of us.”
“Not like this!” I tried to open the door again, but it may as well have been cemented in place.
“Like what?”
“Let go of the damned door!”
“Answer the question. Like what?”
I turned on him. “Like inhabiting a rat scurrying through secret passageways, looking to kill the consul!”
Louis-Cesare blinked at me a few times. “I’m . . . going to call somebody.”
“Call Marlowe. He’s just down the hall. Or he was. He can get her away before Dorina finds her—”
“Get who away?”
I stared at him. “Are you listening to me at all? The consul!”
Louis-Cesare licked his lips. Then he pulled me into an embrace I didn’t want, but when a first-level vamp decides he wants to hug you, you just go with it. We stayed there for a moment.