Sarah McCarty (21 page)
Slade looked at the gun. It was going to take days to fix this. If he put it aside, the wolves would understand, but they were already up against superior numbers. They didn’t need to be out-weaponed. Didn’t deserve to be. What he needed was more hours in the day. He thought of all the changes in the past year, all the ways he’d come up with to kill the enemy. All the ways the enemy had come up with to kill them. The endless cycle with no end because he couldn’t find the edge they needed. But he would. Eventually, he would.
“Yeah. We are.”
10
CLOSING
the door, Slade turned around, the gun in his hand. He looked entirely too natural that way for her peace of mind. Too sexy. He also looked incredibly tired.
the door, Slade turned around, the gun in his hand. He looked entirely too natural that way for her peace of mind. Too sexy. He also looked incredibly tired.
“Anything I can help you with,” Jane asked, despite her best intentions. She knew how it was to have people relying on you 24/7, to face impossible demands because it meant life or death.
Hefting the gun, he admitted, “I could use a few more hours in the day.”
“What? With all your magical powers, you haven’t managed that?”
He tossed the gun to his other hand. “I’m working on it.”
Damn him for being agreeable. It made it that much harder to hate him. “What’s wrong with the guns?”
“One of the refractions is likely off.”
“You say that like fixing it is no big deal.”
“It’ll just take time.”
“Time you don’t have.”
He didn’t deny the guess. “I’ll find it.”
“It can’t wait?”
“No.”
Paper rustled under her fingers. “Neither can Joseph.”
Slade set the gun on one of the long tables. “I know.”
Yes, he did. Jane could feel Slade’s determination and frustration as though it were her own. It was disconcerting, not only because of the force of the emotion but also because it seemed so natural in its blending with her own. Experimentally, she put her wall around it. There was a start and then a withdrawal. Interesting. She apparently did have some control.
Stacking the files, she pushed her chair back a little harder than she’d planned. She caught the chair with her heel before it rolled past the drawer labeled “Syringes.” “I guess you do.” Opening the drawer, she said, “I’m going to need a blood sample.”
“The one we got from Joseph earlier isn’t enough?” He shook his head. “You’re worse than a vampire.”
“Not from Joseph.” She prepared a vacuum tube and needle. “I need your blood.”
He flashed his fangs. “I’ll be happy to share.”
She shook her head and set the tube on the table. “You’re going to have to work harder than that to scare me. Give me your arm.”
Rolling up his sleeve, Slade took a step closer. “Interesting challenge.”
“What makes it so interesting?”
“My options.”
Delicious heat poured over her in a wave of energy as she wrapped the tourniquet across the thick bulge of his biceps. “I wasn’t aware you had any.”
He picked up the tube and handed it to her. His fingers lingered against hers as she took it. The touch was light. There was no reason for her breath to catch, or her pulse to pick up speed, but it did.
“At least two.”
Popping the cap off the needle, she asked, “Do I want to know?”
“I don’t know. How fond are you of surprises?”
“I know I don’t like bad ones.” Especially after the last twenty-four hours.
His head canted slightly to the side as she slid the needle into the vein at the front of his elbow. “What about good ones?”
Blood filled the vacuum tube, warming it, giving the impression, for an instant, that she held his life in her hands. Not a responsibility she wanted.
“I don’t know. I’ve never had a good one.”
“Really?”
Glancing up, she was in time to catch the speculation in his eyes. “Don’t go getting ideas.”
Those fingers on her hand drifted over her wrist, sneaked under the sleeve of her shirt. “Too late.”
The tube was full. She swapped it for another. Her fingers trembled, every part of her focused on the shiver of sensations radiating up from her arm. Who knew a forearm could become such a sexual focal point?
“Don’t you want to know what kind of ideas I’m getting?”
She gave him the truth. “No.”
“Why not?”
“I think we’ve pretty much established that you’re out of my league.”
The second tube filled. “Who established that?”
Glancing up, she smiled. “My last date was a shy accountant who spilled his wine when I asked him up to my place.” Brent was a very nice man, but the night and the relationship had gone nowhere after that. “Trust me, you’re out of my league.”
As soon as she removed the needle, he brought his arm to his mouth, leaving her with the gauze and tape in her hand, staring as his tongue stroked efficiently over the puncture site.
“That takes care of the bleeding?”
“There’s a healing agent in our saliva.”
“Oh.” She put the gauze on the counter. He took the tubes from her hand. “Be careful with those.”
He put them in the rack. “I will be.”
“We need to get them sampled.”
“What are we looking for?”
“A control sample.”
“You think my blood will be close enough to my brother’s to provide a control?”
“You know it is. Sibling similarity, converted by a sibling. The similarities are going to be more than the differences, but yours is untainted by any potential changes this ... mating might bring about.”
“Maybe.” He stopped her when she reached for the tubes of blood. He stepped in front of her. “In a minute.”
“We don’t have minutes.”
The table creaked as he leaned against it. The chair wheels caught on the toe of his boot, stopping her retreat. He was too close, too big, too male. If Jane could have gotten out of the chair without looking a total coward, she would have.
“I don’t like you being afraid of me.”
She didn’t like the way he said that, his drawl trailing off into speculation. No good could come of him looking deeper into her feelings. Especially when she didn’t understand them herself.
“I’m not.”
She pushed on his thigh. The movement she meant to be sharp slowed as her palm conformed to the hard muscle. For some reason, she’d expected a bit of give, but there was none. The muscle clenched, her fingers curved. Energy arced between them in a tangible bolt, racing up her arm. This close, it was impossible to miss his arousal. She licked her lips, the sight not as shocking as it should be.
Slade’s finger came under her chin, tipping her face up to his. His expression was considering, his eyes watchful. The stroke of his thumb over her bottom lip sent a shiver to her toes. “No, you’re not.”
She needed to reestablish herself or the man would run roughshod over her. “I believe that’s what I said. Now, I need you to bite me.”
Not a blink or a twitch of muscle betrayed his shock, but she felt it. Almost as if it were her own. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who projected.
“Why?”
As if his thigh wasn’t the biggest temptation she’d faced in an age, she reached over and opened the drawer on the other side. Paper rustled as she pulled out another vacuum tube. “Because I need a before and after comparison to see how a normal vampire’s blood absorbs the intake of human blood.”
“I have slides you can look at.”
“How old are the slides?”
“Five or six years.”
That would never do. “There might have been changes. We can’t risk that.”
“I can’t bite you.”
She arced her brow at him. “Afraid of losing control?”
“Yes.”
Good grief, he wasn’t bluffing. A little of the fear she said she didn’t have came calling. This man, out of control, would be very scary.
“I’ll make a point to remind you when you’ve have enough.”
“How will you know?”
“I’ll make an educated guess.”
It was his turn to cock an eyebrow at her. “You don’t really believe in vampires, do you?”
“It’s a stretch.”
“Do you believe in life on other planets?”
“It would be illogical not to.”
He took the tube from her hand and put it on the table beside him, then pulled her to her feet.
“What’s the difference?”
“I can’t get around the fact that, if vampires were real and they live forever, there’d be so many around by now we couldn’t help but trip over them. Especially as each has the ability to create countless more.”
“Ah, but there’s the hitch in your get along.”
“Excuse me.”
His fingers drifted up her arm, grazed her shoulder, skimming the goose bumps that anticipation sent racing ahead. “Not everybody can be converted. It’s actually a very small percentage of the population that has that possibility.”
“What happens to the ones who fall outside that percentage?”
A tug and her braid came over her shoulder and slid down over her breast. The goose bumps spread along with the anticipation. Her breath caught in her throat as his fingers followed its slide forward, grazing the top of her breast. Her lip slid between her teeth. Excitement hummed along beside arousal. He wouldn’t, would he? He didn’t. His knuckles stopped mid-curve, his gaze holding hers, while her breasts swelled and ached. She couldn’t catch a thought. A breath.
“Their blood turns to acid in their veins. They die an extremely painful death. Scalded from the inside out.”
Strange lights seemed to glow in his eyes. His hand didn’t move.
Two heartbeats passed before she could find a response.
“Wonderful.” It still didn’t explain the small numbers. “Even an incremental increase would aggregate over time.”
“Ah, but you’re not allowing for human nature.” His hand opened, cupped. “You change someone, give them absolute power, and they tend to want to test the limits of that power.”
“You mean they kill each other in pursuit of control.”
“Not much else to do but fight when you live forever.”
She so wanted to lean into his hand, into the pleasure that had her nipples burning and her knees weakening. “You could cure world hunger.”
“Ah, but the vampires aren’t the ones going hungry.”
“Good point.” She looked around the lab. “You and your brothers seem to have done well.”
He shrugged. “If trouble didn’t come calling, we didn’t feel the need to court it.”
It was always “we” with him, as if his brothers and he were one unit. “You and your brothers are close.”
“Close enough that it won’t do you any good running to them for help.”
It wasn’t help she wanted now. “Uh-huh.”
That hand inched lower until he palmed her nipple, shifted until the hard nub was centered, and then pressed. She grabbed the edge of the desk. He smiled. “You think they’d side with you against me?”
“I think they’d do what was right.”
Another start. Did he think she hadn’t figured that much out? What she needed was something to pull her away from the maelstrom of lust threatening to pull her under. She wanted to melt to the floor, entice him with a spread of her legs. She wanted to invite him into her body, her life. Dear God, she wanted him. Shaking her head, Jane pushed back her chair. It took effort to get air into her lungs. Once there, she held it until the need for air replaced the craving for his touch. “Can you take blood without converting someone?”
“Yes. It’s a matter of how much.”
She shrugged out of her coat. She needed to get this over with. “Then do it.”
His eyes narrowed. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Why not? I assume you need to eat.”
“Every couple months I go out for a bite.”
The man was impossible.
“Well, consider this feeding time.”
“This is different.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re my mate.”
“You really have to let that go.”
His gaze dropped to her breasts. “It’s not something that can be wished away any easier than mating lust can be ignored.”
“Do you have to make everything sound like something out of a bad movie?”
“You stop making cute faces when I do, and I might consider it.”
“I am not cute.”
Slade shook his head. That’s where she was wrong. She was cute, sexy, and highly intelligent, and if she kept looking at him that way, things were going to get out of hand fast, despite his resolve. He’d touched her to remind her of their connection. To remind himself of his promise not to convert her. To give himself strength. “I guess it’s all in the perspective.”
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