She didn't even stir as Tegan hoisted himself over the windowsill and swung himself inside, although he moved in silence and the audio racket in her place was deafening. Tegan willed the stereo and television to mute--and that's when she suddenly shot straight up, not quite awake but jolted into a semiconscious panic.
It's okay, Elise. You're all right.
She didn't seem to hear him. Her lavender eyes were wide, but out of focus, and not just from the lack of light in the apartment. She moaned as if in pain and flopped off the futon in a clumsy sprawl, her hands casting about frantically for the remote near her feet. She grappled for the device and began pushing the buttons in a frenzy. Come on, turn on, damn it, turn on!
Elise. Tegan walked over to her and knelt down beside her. He scented more blood on her and when he lifted her chin with the edge of his hand, he saw that her nose was bleeding. Scarlet droplets stained the bright white lapel of her bathrobe, some fresh, and some from an earlier bleed. Jesus...
Turn it on! she howled, then she glanced over and saw the open window, the loose acoustic foam hanging askew. Oh, God. Who moved that panel? Who would do something like that!
She pushed herself to her feet and hurried over to repair the breach, slamming the window closed and throwing the lock. Her hands moved restlessly over the soundproofing as she tried to wedge the material back into place over the glass.
"Elise."
No response, just a deepening sense of anxiety radiating out from her petite form under the white terry robe. With a keening moan, Elise gripped her temples in both hands and slowly sank to the floor below the window, as if her legs just gave out beneath her. Huddled tight on her folded knees, she leaned forward, rocking herself back and forth.
Make it stop, she whispered brokenly. Please...just...make it stop. Tegan approached her slowly, not wanting to upset her any further. With a curse, he crouched down, and carefully put his hand on the delicate arch of her spine. Fingers spanned wide, his senses open to the connection, Elise's pain shot into him like an electrical current.
He felt the splintering agony of the migraine that gripped her, felt the hard thud of her heartbeat ringing in his ears as if it were his own. He tasted acid on his tongue, his teeth aching from the force with which she clenched her jaw to combat the torment that was riding her.
And he heard the voices.
Nasty, corrosive, terrible voices that were traveling on the air around them, silent to all but the psychically sensitive Breedmate crumpled before him on the floor.
In his mind--through the connection he held with Elise--Tegan registered the belittling argument of a couple down the hall. Across the way, a man was lusting for his own daughter. In the apartment above Elise's, a junkie was shooting a month's worth of child support into her vein while her hungry baby wailed, utterly ignored, in the other room.
Every negative, destructive human thought and experience within a radius Tegan could only guess at seemed to home in on Elise's mind, pecking away at her like vultures on carrion.
It was hell on Earth, and Elise was living it every waking moment. Maybe even while she was asleep. Now he understood the foam panels and the audio racket. She'd been trying to drown out the input with other noise--the stereo, television, and even the MP3 player that lay in a tangle of wires on the kitchen counter.
She was deluding herself if she thought she could cope like this in the human world. To say nothing of the insanity of her intent to pursue vengeance on the Rogues and their Minions.
Please, she murmured, her soft voice vibrating against his open palm, I need it to stop now.
Tegan broke the contact and expelled a curse through gritted teeth.
This was no good. He couldn't leave her like this. He should turn her over to the Darkhavens. Maybe he would. But right now she needed relief from the pain she was feeling. Even he wasn't cold enough to sit back and watch her suffer.
It's okay, he said. Relax now, Elise. You're okay.
He gathered her up into his arms and carried her back to the futon. She was so light, too light, he thought. Elise was a petite woman, but she felt as weightless as a child against his chest. When was the last time she'd fed? Holding her this close, Tegan couldn't help noticing the sharp angle of her cheekbones, the frailty of her jawline.
She needed blood. A good dose of Breed red cells would give her strength and quiet some of her psychic pain, though far be it from Tegan to volunteer. Elise was a Breedmate, one of those rare human females born genetically compatible with members of the vampire race. Feeding her from his vein would revitalize her in many ways, but putting his blood into her body would also create an unbreakable bond between them. That kind of link was reserved for mated pairs, the most sacred of Breed vows. Only death could break a blood bond, so there were few among the race who approached it lightly, or out of charity.
Elise was widowed, and the several years she'd obviously gone without a male's blood--not to mention the damage she was inflicting on herself every day she lived among humankind--were starting to take a heavy toll on her. Tegan carefully laid her down on the bulky futon mattress.
He was slow and easy as he stretched out her lean legs and arranged her in what he hoped was a comfortable sleeping position. The terry- cloth robe she had on gaped from thigh to sternum, the belt at her waist having come undone and hanging loosely. He had to work to pull the ends of the sash out from under her, all the while trying his damnedest not to notice the wedge of creamy white skin that was exposed to him in the process. It was impossible to pretend he was blind to the feminine curves, or to the buoyant swell of her small, perfect br**sts. But it was the sudden flash of a gorgeous thigh that sucked most of the air out of Tegan's lungs.