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I’m not sure how, but he managed to bend and scoop up my keys without ever letting me go. I glanced over his shoulder, seeing nothing but a blackened spot of soot where Pit-bull boy had fallen.
Jude put me in the passenger seat, buckled me in, then disappeared for about ten seconds and slid into the driver’s seat, tossing the sword in the back. As if he’d owned the car all his life, he shifted from first to third gear in seconds. We zoomed down St. Charles, heading into the heart of New Orleans.
“You missed the turn for the Medical Center,” I murmured, watching a pool of crimson seep across my tank, coloring my blue jeans purple. “You’re going the wrong way.”
“We’re not going to the hospital.” He punched into fifth with violent force. “We’re going to my place.”
4
My reservations about this guy suddenly escalated from wary to holy-hell-I’m-being-kidnapped.
“Jude—” I focused on breathing in slow, steady breaths. “I’m hurt pretty bad. You need to take me to the hospital.”
His eyes never left the road as he hung a hard right onto Canal Street.
“I know how badly you’re injured.” His voice was eerily calm, but there was a dangerous vibration in his low rumble. “I’m going to take care of it myself.”
“Listen, Dr. Demon-hunter. Your philosophy degree doesn’t qualify you with the skills to stitch me up.”
“I have many skills, Genevieve.” A searing glance. “Including the ability to tend your wounds.”
“Why won’t you just take me to a hospital?”
“Because the two demons who got away know you’re injured. They’ll be searching for you.”
“How would they know which hospital I went to? Let’s head to one farther out.”
“It wouldn’t matter. They’d find you.”
“How?”
His eyes slid to mine, scanning my body in a millisecond. “You’re like a beacon now, shining in the dark. They can sense you.”
Feeling faint, I let my head fall against the headrest, trying desperately to understand all this. Did this mean I would always be looking over my shoulder? That I would live in a constant state of fear?
Careening down Decatur, he barely missed a group of tourists in front of Jackson Square. I winced at the growing pain in my stomach. My vision blurred. We passed under a street sign, Ursulines, taking a sharp left onto Dauphine. He squeezed into a spot on the first block.
I barely realized we’d stopped before the passenger door opened, and I was in his arms again. Not that being in such a position hadn’t crossed my mind once or twice, but somehow I had envisioned something more romantic and less, well, bloody.
He carried me through an open brick archway into a dark alcove, stopping at a tall, wrought-iron gate. Leaning against the wall for about two seconds, he fit his key into the lock. The gate swung open and clanged shut behind us.
We passed through a small courtyard, water gurgling somewhere. My head felt heavy, falling onto his shoulder as he opened the door to the house. The small foyer led straight up a flight of stairs into a spacious living room.
He set me down on a plush, tan sofa. A shiver ran through me as he strode down a hallway.
The décor was stark but beautiful in warm colors of brown, red, and gold. An old fireplace was set in the far wall, the cherry mantel in Baroque style with an elaborate roaring dragon curling along the top of the fireplace. French doors stood behind me, most certainly leading to a balcony overlooking the courtyard. I pivoted onto my side to get a better view, wincing with pain.
“Damn.” I hissed in a breath, lifting my red-soaked tank.
A six-inch slash cut through the skin and muscle from my belly button down to the top of my jeans. Jude settled beside me, placing some kind of kit on the mahogany coffee table. Adrenaline spiked, my pulse racing. From seeing the injury or Jude’s sudden closeness, I wasn’t sure.
“Lay back. Relax.”
“Do you really know what you’re doing? I don’t want to get butchered. Or an infection.” My voice quavered, not as confident as my words.
“I know what I’m doing.”
“I don’t even know you,” I protested. My stranger-danger antenna kept popping up, then lowering at random. This guy could be a killer. Hell, I knew he was. I just watched him stab a guy to death on the street.
