Summon Dorn (Archangels Creed) (6 page)

"
What happened?" Sally finally asked.

Jessie sat back down, struggling to get a grip on her emotions. But her heart refused, and began tallying up all the times this kind of thing happened with her sister. She always blamed Jessie for the bad things in life. From their dad
's beatings, to the many boyfriends that lost interest, and on to academic failures. There was always a
maybe if Jessie hadn't this, or that
.

The suspicion in
Sally's voice knifed its way past Jessie's strict resolve to remain untouched. She could already hear Sally's whispered explanation to their mother or someone else in the family.
Poor little Jessie, all overwhelmed with attention from the lethally handsome Leo Dade, had misunderstood his offer of simple kindness and thrown herself at him. When he accepted what he thought was a proposition, she must have become frightened, must've physically attacked him and the poor man had been forced to defend himself.

That was clearly what
Sally figured had happened. The saintly brat.

The urge to fly at her sister with her claws nearly overwhelmed
Jessie. Maybe she could scratch the truth into the carefully groomed pores on every inch of Sally's perfectly pretty face.

And then what? Deal with guilt when her sister was away at the convent? Alone?

Why did she have to care? Why couldn't she just be a witch with a 'B'? A self-righteous, mean b-witch. Was that too much to ask?

Jessie closed her eyes. She couldn
't even bring herself to
think
the 'B' word much less
be
it. Some emotional dam broke and every nasty word she'd ever heard flowed freely through her mind with no objection from her conscience. Maybe someday she'd be able to say 'bitch' out loud without fearing lightening would strike her dead. What an upstanding goal for an educated woman in her twenties!

Her shoulders sagged with the incoming wave of self-doubt and insecurity that she was all too chummy with. As always, it slithered in and rationalized with her.
Who am I kidding? Maybe this time Sally's right. I'm nowhere near the sort to drive a man like Leo Dade to violence. Any woman he wanted would hand herself to him on a silver platter. He sure didn't need to force some little plain-as-a-mud-fence klutz that couldn't keep her foot out of her mouth.
.

Shame took root and flicked indignation out of its way a
llowing despair to dispel all logic. "I'm going to get a shower and go to bed. I'm beat and I have to work tonight." She stood, barely able to push through the worthlessness that cocooned her.

And if she happened to have a good long cry in a steamy shower, no one would know the difference. Least of all her nosey sister.

"Hey, Jess?" Sally stood, scuffing one toe against the old braided rug with its bright colors watered down with time to mellow pastels, but she met Jessie's gaze. "You find out anything else about Lucian?"

Jessie
's spine stiffened. "Why? Won't do you any good. I don't see the nuns letting you keep him under your bed at the convent." How Sally of her. If a handsome man walked within a mile of her, Sally went on the hunt. It didn't matter that Jessie found him first and may like him. "Besides, you won't get far with him."

"
Hey, I haven't signed the dotted line yet." Sally's perfect bow lips curled into a sweet smile while she echoed her implied words from when she met Lucian. "I can always change my mind."

Jessie fought to keep her upper lip from crawling over her teeth in disgust. She should be past the stage of allowing her sister to make her feel insecure about herself. But even though body parts changed and she was no longer physically inadequate next to her beautiful sister, the emotional scars from her adolescent nightmare refused to go away.
"Well, you won't get Lucian." Why did she sound like a petulant, jealous child?

Sally
laughed. "Why, Jess Anna? You think he's into you?"

Jessie forced herself to chuckle off the insult. She made a show of looking down at her breasts.
"He might be if it weren't for these." A little squeeze and lift of her shoulders emphasized her double Ds and allowed her to draw attention to Sally's insecurities over her boyish figure and much smaller breasts. "Ahh, but he might actually be into you." Jessie stared with mock speculation at Sally's chest. "Since he's gay." She paused to let the barb sink in, fighting to keep her guilt from ruining the rare satisfaction.

The expression on
Sally's perfect face was priceless. The reversal of their roles confused her for a moment. "Oh, please, like you'd know."

"
I would, because I asked him."

"
You what?"

"
I asked him if he was gay. He didn't say he was, but certainly didn't deny it either." Even in all her inexperience with men, she knew any straight man would vehemently deny any hint of someone thinking he was gay, whether he was from Romania or Timbuktu.

In the silence that followed, Jessie turned for the bathroom. It might feel good to get one over on
Sally for a change, but she needed comfort and rest more than anything at the moment. It'd be great if she could count on her sister to offer those things, but that boat had sailed long ago when Sally learned to take the bulk of their father's hatred off herself by blaming Jessie's shortcomings. And inadequate little Jessie
never
fought back, just took it all in silence. So why on earth did she suddenly have the wherewithal to retaliate?

The bathroom with its powder blue fixtures and thick carpet welcomed her like a hug. Her parents had
grudgingly offered to remodel the house after her Aunt Mae died but Jessie'd declined. Aunt Mae's house had been her refuge all her life whenever Sally became unbearable, or her Dad's verbal and physical abuse got the better of her. She didn't want to change a thing about it.

With a grateful sigh she turned the shower on and waited for the steam to fill the room. Avoiding the mirror Jessie stepped into the tub and pulled the curtain. The hot water cascaded
over her, easily rinsing away her threadbare control, and for the first time, she allowed her mind to go back to the attack.

Terror reached up and dragged her back to the living room and forced her heart back
into her throat where it threatened to choke her once more. Those first few seconds, when she still hadn't been sure of Leo's intentions replayed in slow motion. Then the blow to her face told her everything she needed to know.

Jessie
's guts tightened at the next scene in her mind. Leo screaming and grabbing his head. A different, buried terror wove along her spine as she watched him rise into the air, his body bowing. And then the absurd thought that she'd somehow caused it. But as she watched him contort into impossible configurations, she wondered if something out of the ordinary had happened.

Maybe she could find out more over the next few days. Perhaps Lucian would need someone to help him understand the medical jargon?

By the time the water started to cool, Jessie's muscles were loose and her skin tingled. She pulled on her favorite nightgown, made of pale blue cotton so finely woven it almost felt like silk, and covered it with her ratty old robe for the trek to her bed.

Chapter Six

Lucian stared at Leo, still and silent at the center of a tangle of wires, tubes and monitors. The soft sounds of his regular breathing were nearly drowned out by the beeping, whirring and buzzing of the instruments. The ruggedly handsome face was unnaturally pale, the starkness relieved by the black smudges under the eyes and the extreme flush to the high cheekbones. He must have fallen hard, judging by the lurid bruise along his cheek and jaw, displaying an incredible range of colors.

Seeing his older half-brother in such a vulnerable position shook Lucian
's world. Leo had looked out for him since his arrival in the States. When their father rejected Lucian as his long lost Romanian son, Leo had stood against the old man, taken Lucian in, shown him how to live in this world. He'd saved his life, really.

Every soul in the small
Romanian village knew about Lucian's mother's fiery affair with the American athlete, and how his rich and powerful family had forbidden their love. And when Lucian was old enough to ask about his real father, everyone was certain the cold-hearted matriarch of the American family would fall in love if ever she'd see her handsome and talented grandson.

When Lucian finally arrived in America and found his father, the man had laughed in his face, called him a
stupid little bastard.
When Lucian tried patiently to explain, his father had backhanded him and split his lip. Voice breaking with fury, the man insisted he couldn't tell one hairy Commie whore from another and he wasn't taking on one's bastard kid.

None of it had existed. No hopeless love. No monstrous mother who refused to let her misunderstood son have love. No promises.

Could
his mother really have been so delusional? The possibility that everything she'd told him—stories of desperate romance and unrequited love—could be outright lies, or figments of her imagination was completely at odds with what he knew about her. Only much later did it occur to him that maybe she never expected Lucian to act on those stories. But then she'd died before he could tell her he intended to go to the U.S. for school.  

The whole event bulldozed Lucian
's confidence and perception of reality. Leo was all he had, and if he didn't recover, what would Lucian do? It wasn't like he remotely wanted to go back to Romania. No, returning whipped, tail between his legs, would ruin the memory of his dead mother and satisfy only his stepfather. Lucian wouldn't bother to piss on that brute if he were on fire. He'd suffered far too long at the bastard's cruel and perverted hands.

The hum of voices outside the ICU unit drew his attention just before a half-dozen people in white lab coats crowded into the tiny space. Lucian tried to make himself small enough to be out of the way, but ended up crowded into a corner with the IV pump.

A middle-aged man with a scraggly graying ponytail and patchy beard read from a clipboard. "Male, late twenties, no significant medical history, suffered an intra…"

The rest of the discussion left Lucian completely lost. Even if English had been his primary language, he wouldn
't have understood the jargon and medi-speak. After a moment, he gave up trying, and just waited for one of them to say something directly to him.

Finally, the aging hippy looked up long enough to search Lucian out.
"Mr. Dade? I'm Dr. Riv-"

"
Constantin."

The doctor looked up with a heavy scowl, his faded blue gaze sweeping over Lucian.
"Mr. Constantine. I'm-"

"
Constantin. Not Constantine." Dammit, why wouldn't his mouth just stop? Was that how Jessie felt when she chattered nonsense? The thought brought those warm black eyes and thick lashes to mind. She had no idea-

"
Mr. Constant
in
, then. Would you like to know about your brother's condition?" Lucian heard the sarcastic
or would you prefer to continue debating the pronunciation of your surname?
in his sandpaper voice.

Lucian was torn between embarrassment and anger. Of all times for his absentee assertiveness to kick in, just when he needed to shut up and listen.
"I can see his condition. What I need to know is what caused him to be this way, and how long before he recovers."

The doctor harrumphed and his companions – students? – shuffled nervously.
"Okay then. He's in this condition because a blood vessel ruptured and flooded his brain with blood. The blood put excessive pressure on the brain tissue, similar to swelling in a traumatic injury. The swelling squeezed the brain and prevented it from working and eventually cut off the higher functions, first things like speech and reasoning, then on to senses and movement, until everything he would do of his own will stopped. Essentially, at this point, he's left with breathing and circulation, and some basic neurologic reflexes. So far, it does look like his intestines are still functioning. We assume the rupture was quite explosive with heavy bleeding, since the nurse who was with him at the time described seizure-like symptoms, which are unusual for this kind of event." While he spoke, the doctor flipped through several sheets in a chart, pausing to scribble something on a few of them.

"
You mentioned intestines. Is that important to his recovery?" Lucian couldn't imagine how, but hoped.

The scratching of the pen on paper seemed deafening in the quiet room.
"If his intestines don't function, we'll have to feed him intravenously. It will be far better for him long-term if they do work and he can be fed with a feeding tube installed through the abdominal wall."

"
What caused this… rupture?"

"
We don't know yet. More tests later today might reveal the cause. Usually, a head injury or high blood pressure, even an aneurysm, will be behind this kind of stroke, but there's no evidence of any of those with Mr. Dade." The pen disappeared into the breast pocket of the lab coat.