“Why?” The whisper was hers, but then she noticed . . .
Something was happening to Tanner’s hands. A faint glow appeared around his fingers. Frowning, she stepped closer. She’d never seen anything like that before, and in her very long lifetime, she thought for sure that she’d seen everything. “Tanner?”
“What the hell?” Riley’s voice. He’d seen it, too.
Kali’s gaze flew back to her patient. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to make this bastard live! If he doesn’t take the blood, he’ll—”
“No.” Marna cut through his words. She was almost close enough to touch Tanner now. Only she was afraid to touch Tanner. That light . . . “What are you doing with your hands?”
Tanner stared at her, face tense; then he looked down at his hands, resting on Cody’s wounds. At the fingers with their faint white light.
“You’re a healer.” Kali’s voice was relieved. “Jeez, man, you should have said that right away. I thought you were a shifter—”
“I am.” He was still staring at his glowing fingertips.
Cody wasn’t jerking any longer. His eyes had closed. Were his wounds trying to close, too? It looked like less blood was pouring from him, but maybe she was just hoping too much.
Kali leaned in closer and stared at Cody’s wounds. “Then how the hell are you doing this?”
“I don’t know.” The light began to dim.
Cody’s body trembled.
“Don’t stop!” Marna realized she’d yelled and cleared her throat. “Your mother, Tanner . . . your mother was a healer.”
His hands weren’t glowing any longer. He stared at his fingers and clenched his fists. “But I’m just a killer.”
No, he was so much more.
He sucked in a deep breath. “I told you, I didn’t get any of her power. I’ve never been able to—”
Marna grabbed him and yanked him back around to face her. “Just because you haven’t before, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t using that power now.” Who knew what had happened. Maybe he’d just gotten desperate enough to unlock a magic buried deep inside himself. She’d sure heard of wilder things in her time. His mother had been a healer, and maybe Tanner hadn’t realized it, but she’d passed on her gift to him. “You’ve got your father’s beast inside, but you’ve also got part of her in there, too.”
He stared back at her. She could see that he wanted to hope but he was holding back. Too many years of facing the darkness alone?
He wasn’t alone anymore. “You can do this,” Marna told him. “Just try, Tanner. Try for me. Try for Cody.” If it didn’t work, she’d shove her blood down that demon’s throat. Marna wouldn’t stand by helplessly while Tanner suffered.
Losing his brother would make her shifter suffer. She wouldn’t allow that. No one was hurting him any longer. Not while she was there.
It was time someone started to protect Tanner.
The ridges on her shoulder blades seemed to burn and itch again, but Marna ignored them. Right then, Tanner was all that she could think about.
“Put your hands back on him.” Kali’s voice. Sharp.
Tanner stared at Marna a moment longer; then he put his hands over Cody’s wounds. “Nothing’s happening.” Fury ripped through his words.
“Because you’re not making it happen.” Kali’s eyes were blazing with dark heat. “I’ve seen a healer work before. I’ve been walking this earth for three hundred years and been patching up the wounded for most of that time. You really think you’re the first to come my way?”
She barely looked twenty-one. Vampires . . . so tricky. And . . . Marna would have once thought . . . evil.
Once. But Riley was different. This Kali, she was different, too. Not mistakes as some of the angels claimed. There was far, far more to them.
Hope. Passion. Life.
“You’ve got to pull the power up from inside.” Kali put her hands on top of Tanner’s. “You have to want him to live more than you want anything else. You have to take your power . . .” Her gaze dropped back to Cody. “And give it to him.”
Jaw clenching, Tanner stared down at his brother. Cody wasn’t moving now. Barely breathing. “I’m . . . trying,” Tanner gritted. “Nothing’s happening.”
Fighting to keep her voice calm, Marna told him, “You can do this.” But if he didn’t do it in about the next thirty seconds, she’d make—
A faint glow appeared around Tanner’s fingers.
“Sonofabitch. ” Riley’s stunned voice.
But Tanner didn’t look his way. He stared at his hands, so did Marna, and she watched as, very slowly, Cody’s wounds began to heal. What had been slashed now slipped back together, mending, bonding, and it was one of the most amazing things she’d ever seen.
Then she felt Tanner’s body tremble against hers. Her gaze flew to his face. He was pale—no, white and sweat had beaded his upper lip. “Tanner?”
He didn’t answer her.
Then she understood, too late.
You have to take your power. That’s what Kali had said. Take it—
And give it to him.
But if he gave Cody everything, then what would be left?
Cody’s breath was coming easily now, the wounds almost closed. He could survive them now.
“Stop,” Marna told Tanner. But he didn’t. He just kept pouring his power right into his brother.
“Stop!” This time, Marna didn’t wait for Tanner to obey. She shoved him away from that bed, and he stumbled back a few feet. His sluggish movements told her just how weak he’d become.
She didn’t like him this way. She wanted him strong. He fell to the floor. His eyes began to sag closed.
Cody was fine, but what about Tanner? Marna lifted her arm toward the vampire. “Get your needle ready.” Because she was going to make sure Tanner was back to one hundred percent strength and power.
It was her turn to take care of him.
“It’s the blood.”
Tanner heard the words, muffled at first, but they pushed through his consciousness, and his eyes opened.
He was on a bed. A bed that still carried Marna’s scent, but she wasn’t around.
His brother sat in a chair just a few feet away, watching him.
Tanner leapt up. “You’re alive!” He ran to his brother and yanked him out of his chair. The bear hug he gave the guy could have crushed bones, but, hey, Cody was a demon, he could stand a little pain.