The interior of the vehicle had an ugly, sterile feel, as if all the scents and feel of nature had been subdued, leaving nothing but metal and machine. Even if the machine hadn't been torn and smashed, the very anti-nature of it made the inside almost painful to bear. The sense of life was still here, but the feel of it was different from anything he knew. The strangeness of it was so odd that Adam had to force his body to carry him inside.
But once he reached the woman's side, everything but her faded from his mind. His fingers brushed over her long neck first to detect if her heart still beat.
As their skin came together, he registered three soul-changing details. She was alive; her pulse fluttered weakly under his touch. The woman was not human, but Valāfrn like he was. And most important of all...
She was his mate.
After seven hundred years of waiting, his mate had finally arrived in the guise of an angel riding the back of a metal shooting star.
Once he'd recovered from the shock, he moved his hands lightly over her twisted body to determine if he could move her without causing her any more harm.
Her short blonde hair was streaked with blood from a deep and still bleeding head wound, and she'd broken both a leg and one arm. He couldn't reach her left leg to examine it. Even if it were injured also, she needed to be out of the wreckage and into somewhere safe.
"Is she alive?" Josiah asked from the doorway.
"Yeah." He didn't bother filling Josiah in on the other details. There would be plenty of time for that later. He scooped the woman up, gently cradling her against his chest, and made his way out of the vehicle.
"Where are you taking her?"
He was taking her to his bed. He buried his face in her tangled hair, breathing in the scent of her. Yes, she was injured and needed healing, but he wouldn't and perhaps couldn't let her leave his side.
"Adam? What are you doing?" Josiah growled the question even while he opened the door to Adam's home. Josiah was brighter than he looked.
Adam didn't bother to answer. He carried his precious burden directly to his bed. Once there, he gently laid her out and began loosening the strange fabric so he could tend to her injuries.
Josiah appeared at his shoulder with Adam's small medical kit. "You don't have much here. Do you even know how to help someone hurt this badly?"
Under the black fabric, the woman wore simple but feminine underclothes. The rich rose shade hinted at how lovely it would be on skin flushed with passion. "Help me set her arm."
"What do you want used for a splint?"
Adam glanced at the kit, but there was nothing there that would work. What would be strong enough but not too heavy? His gaze fell on his sister's painting hanging over the bed. The frame was of a hard wood, but finely trimmed to be light and elegant. Mary would understand.
He broke it into pieces of the right length, setting the painted canvas to the side.
"I'll straighten the break and hold it steady while you wrap it tightly with the healing cloth." Even as Adam reached for the twisted arm, he had to grit his teeth against the coming pain he'd be causing her. "Thank the Creator, she won't feel this." His grip pulled and fought her contracted muscles, wrestling the bone back in line.
"Easy, my brother." Josiah handed him a square to wipe the sweat streaming from his face. "Should I call for help? By now, others will be hovering outside and probably in your home as well."
"No, let's just do her leg and be done with it." The urgency of the moment was not faked. He'd face damn near anything to finish before she awoke. The thought of harming her when she didn't feel it was hard enough.
He lifted her long, slender leg, examining the break. It was a clean break on the bone in her upper leg. He was able to use his own healing to close the laceration over the break and then, together with Josiah, he bound the break as well as he could to offer it support in the coming hours.
"Is she..." Josiah paused while he watched the tiny cuts, which had covered the woman's right cheek, slowly heal.
"Yes, she is like us." Which explained some questions away while asking just as many new ones.
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