Free Wolfe's Lady by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy Page B

Stella fell to her knees at his side.
    “Do something!”
    His skin had a bluish cast and he lay with such stillness that she was very afraid. Stella wringed her hands together, anxious, and worried as the ambulance crew performed CPR. When Darien gasped and began to cough, she began to cry but she put her face down beside his.
    “Darien. Darien.”
    He choked and spewed water but his lips moved in the shape of her name, Stella.
    Within seconds, he was on a gurney with an oxygen mask over his face. His color was returning but when they asked if she wanted to come along, she climbed into the back of the ambulance without hesitation.
    “Is he going to be all right?” she asked, through her tears.
    “He should be if he didn’t break his neck or suffer a spinal cord injury,” one of the EMT’s told her. “We got to him quick; he should be fine.”
    Darien stirred and when she touched his hand, his fingers curled around hers. Then he reached with his other hand to lift the oxygen mask so that he could talk.
    “Don’t leave me, Stella-star.”
    “I won’t,” she promised, voice calm even as she noticed that dusk fell around them. Soon they would know beyond any doubt if their attempt worked. If it didn’t, the emergency responders were in for a shock.
    Above them, the first stars sparkled in the sky as the moon rose, full and huge. Soon, it would be evident whether or not their attempt was successful.
    His topaz eyes glittered as he asked another question,
    “Am I changing?”
    She stretched out his hand but it looked the same, looked at his jaw but it had not elongated, and his legs had not lengthened.
    “No, you’re fine.”
    He coughed again and shook his head.
    “Fine might not be the word I would choose at this moment.”
    At the hospital, he spent five hours in the emergency room cubicle until a doctor pronounced him fit to leave, after verifying that his blood oxygen levels were normal. It was a quarter to midnight when they walked outside. Thousands of stars sparkled in the sky but the brightness that bathed everything in a silver glow came from the full moon. The moonlight felt magical and it turned the average night into a mysterious and beautiful thing.
    Darien stopped and stared up at the moon. He stretched out his hands and looked at them with a smile. Then he rubbed fingers over his face and grinned.
    “Stella, I do believe that it worked. I am cured.”
    She kissed his face with tiny butterfly kisses, first his forehead, then his cheeks, nose, and last of all his mouth. Her hungry lips devoured his, tasting and reassuring that he was well.
    “You are,” she said, pausing for air. “Your car is still at Grand Falls so I don’t know how we will get to either your place or mine.”
    He drew her close. “Is that an invitation, dear Stella, to a mortal and ordinary man?”
    “It is, for tonight and for the rest of your life, Darien. You will never be ordinary, not to me.”
    Darien stroked her hair and smiled.
    “I thought that the man was traditionally the one who asked that all important question.”
    “What question?”
    “I think you know the one.”
    She touched his lips with her finger.
    “I can guess but first I need to know a couple of things.”

    He smiled at her, his hand straying to capture her fingers with his own.
    “If one of them is how we will get to your place or mine, I suggest that we walk. Your apartment is just a few blocks away.”
    “Are you up to walking?” she asked.
    “I am—even as a mortal and ordinary man.”
    “Let me see if you are.” Stella said, with a grin and kissed him again, her lips as savage now as they had been gentle. He responded with heated ardor so strong she expected smoke to puff from his ears.
    His hands caressed her body, arousing delight each place he touched.
    “You seem capable enough to me, mortal.”
    He chuckled and then she asked, serious now.
    “Do you mind, though? You’ve exchanged immortality for me.”
    Darien’s smile