The Perfect Ten Boxed Set

by Dianna Love

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  The simple question raked at his conscience with vicious talons. He shrugged. “Because I needed your blood.”

  “You needed my blood?”

  He made no reply.

  “Well, it looks like I made it easy for you, didn’t I, getting attacked like that right outside your—”

  She leapt up. Delano shot a hand out to catch her chair, saving it from crashing to the tiled floor.

  “Omigod! You engineered that, didn’t you? So I would fall into your hands, giving you a plausible reason to draw my blood twice a day for all these weeks.”

  “Yes.”

  Her chest was heaving now, as though she’d run up every one of the twenty-nine flights to this penthouse instead of having ridden the elevator.

  “I can’t believe this. You put me in the path of that monster? You had no right!”

  “You’re quite right. And I’m sorry for your pain and worry, but I had no option.” Much as he wanted to let his gaze slide away, he held her furious glare. “Don’t you see? I had to take a broader view.”

  “A broader view? Delano, this is my life. My health, my livelihood—” She broke off, but her eyes no longer seemed to see him. “The hospital… Did you have anything to do with that? Did you engineer my dismissal? Answer me, dammit!”

  “No!”

  But she wasn’t listening.

  “Omigod, of course you did!”

  Her gaze had come back into focus once more, and he felt the full weight of it. “Dammit, Ainsley, I had nothing to do with any of that business at the hospital. I swear. Didn’t I promise to answer all your questions truthfully?”

  “It makes so much sense now.”

  Delano pushed his own chair back and surged to his feet. “On my wife’s grave, I had nothing to do with your dismissal.”

  “You got me fired, then dangled this so-called job in front of me when I was at my most desperate—”

  Her gaze still looked inward, and he knew he hadn’t reached her. Dammit, she had to listen to him.

  “I did no such thing! You think I arranged for you to notice the anesthetist was siphoning off the product? And for you to blow the whistle on him?”

  “Why not? You seem capable of orchestrating anything.”

  “That’s ludicrous. Next you’ll accuse me of somehow engineering your friend’s flight from her abusive husband, thereby putting you in the financial bind that placed you at my mercy. I am not God, Ainsley. I am not responsible for every aspect of your predicament. I may have taken advantage of it, but I didn’t create it.”

  She drew her next breath in on an agonized hiss and he realized his error.

  “Goddamn you, Delano.”

  Chapter 14

  AINSLEY SAW by his expression that he realized his mistake. He hadn’t meant to give that away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Sorry?” She heard her voice rising, but there was nothing she could do about it. “Sorry? You think that makes me feel better?”

  “Of course not. But if you’d—”

  “You said you didn’t know why I needed the money. You said you didn’t care. But I guess you lied about that, too, didn’t you?”

  “No. I didn’t lie about that. Not at first. But circumstances have—”

  “I can’t believe this. You’ve invaded my life like a choking, noxious fucking … weed!” She could hear her own breathing, ragged breaths as though she’d been running. “You investigated me within an inch of my life, and decided I was the perfect patsy. Then you dangled me in front of that creature — a serial goddamn killing monster! — so you could ‘rescue’ me, then harvest my blood under the pretense of helping me.”

  “Yes, I did those things, but—”

  “Then you jeopardized my life again by keeping me under your roof in St. Cloud. Good Lord, I could have been killed when Janecek attacked that night! Then you dragged me here, where I’ve been living virtually under lock and key for these past weeks, unable to go anywhere without a bodyguard breathing down my neck.” Her fists clenched and unclenched with impotent rage. “And still I was naively rolling up my sleeve for you twice a day. Do you have any idea—”

  Her voice broke and she had to swallow a few times before she could continue.

  “Can you for one goddamn minute imagine how terrified — I mean, how scared-to-the-bone I was, thinking I might turn into a beast like the one who attacked me?”

  If she hadn’t been watching closely, she might have said his flat expression remained unchanged, but she saw the flash of agony deep in his eyes. Good. He deserved to suffer. He’d hijacked her life!

  “Now, your friend Janecek knows who I am. Shit, he knows where I am. And he seems to want me.”

  “We can protect you.”

  Ainsley plunged on, ignoring his assurance. “Could you explain that for me? What is it that suddenly makes me the prize in your deadly little father/son war?”

  Delano brought his hand down on the table with a resounding thump. “Once and for all, he is not my son! I wish to God I’d left him to die, a nine-year-old monster.”

  “I wish you had, too! Because now he’s an adult monster and he wants me. What I want to know is why?”

  “Your blood.”

  Delano rubbed his forehead as though trying to erase a headache. She hoped, rather viciously, that it was a migraine.

  “Oh, yes, my blood. We’re back to that. Okay, let’s have it. What’s so special about my blood that every vampire wants it? For God’s sake, I’m A positive, the same as a quarter of the population.”

  His face darkened. “I’m the one who wants your blood, Ainsley. Janecek just wants you dead.”

  Despite herself, she put a hand to her mouth. “Dead? Why?”

  “Remember I told you about those rare people with the anti-vampire agent in their blood, dating back to the earliest history of vampires?”

  Oh Jesus oh God oh no. “I’m one of them.”

  “I’m afraid it’s worse than that,” he said softly. “I believe you’re the last of them.”

  “No!” She shook her head. “No way. That can’t be.”

  “The gene was confined to the Merzetti family, a small clan with its roots in Sicily. The family was reputed to have been hunted down and eradicated by vampires centuries ago, but isolated tales persisted throughout time of the Merzetti Effect.”

  “The Merzetti Effect?”

  “If a rogue fed on a member of the Merzetti clan, he died.”

  “But I’m no Merzetti. Hell, I’m not even Sicilian! Look at me.” She lifted a fistful of white-blond hair and thrust it toward him. “I can’t be Sicilian.”

  Delano smiled sadly. “All the Merzetti’s of this strain were fair-haired and fair-skinned. I’m afraid it made your ancestors very easy to hunt in your homeland.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. There can be no doubt. You carry the Merzetti gene.”

  Ainsley’s mind whirled. “But you said they were all hunted down and killed. If that’s the case, how do you explain me?”

  “For thirty years, I studied the Merzetti family. I pored over ancient records, studied the local lore. From every angle I examined it, it appeared that one Merzetti female — the teenaged Gabriella — was unaccounted for. I theorized that she’d escaped.”

  “It took you thirty years to figure that out?”

  “I’m afraid we’re talking about an era that predates reliable vital statistics and searchable databases. I had to put it together from family bibles, church records, graveyard markers, old diaries, scraps of gossip, folk tales, you name it. The information I uncovered eventually led me to North America, where I’ve spent a good deal longer than thirty years searching for Gabriella’s offspring. Unfortunately, even as the search tools got better, the trail itself got colder.”

  It brought it all home, somehow, the reality of it all, listening to this man, who routinely made use of gene mapping technology in his high-tec
h lab, calmly discuss the cruder tools he’d had to work with a century ago. Ainsley wet lips gone suddenly dry. “And the trail got colder why? Because of the sheer size of geographic area to be searched?”

  “That was a challenge,” he allowed, “but not the biggest one. The main impediment was the propensity for the Merzetti women to bear only daughters, whom they have a habit of abandoning, immediately and anonymously, to foundling homes. And those daughters go on to have daughters of their own, which they promptly abandon to foster care. Thus the Merzetti name has long been lost to Gabriella’s descendants. And as a consequence, I’ve had to trace every female foundling abandoned on a church step or shelter in every city, town and village, for the last hundred years.”

  No, no, no! Ainsley put her hands to her ears to shut out the sound of his voice. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.

  In the next instant, Delano was there, pulling her hands down. “I know you don’t want to hear this, Ainsley, but you must. Somehow Janecek has figured out who you are. And now that he knows, the clock is ticking.”

  “But how?”

  “How did he figure it out? He lived with me for a time. While he showed no particular interest in my work, I expect he was cognizant of the nature of it.”

  “No, those women! How could they give up their babies?” A tear broke from her eyelash and streaked down her right cheek.

  Delano’s grip on her wrists softened. “They had no choice. It was imperative for the survival of the bloodline. The offspring had to be hidden.”

  She gripped his wrist now, her fingers digging fiercely into his flesh. “But how would they know? The foundlings … if they never knew their mothers, never heard this story, how could they possibly know of the danger to their offspring? What would possess them give up their own daughters?”

  “Somehow the instinct was born in them, and thank God for that miracle. Else there’d be no hope of a successful vaccine.”

  Oh, this was too much. Too fast. Too awful. It couldn’t be true. She released her grip on him and stepped back, glancing wildly around the room.

  “Ainsley? What is it? Do you need something? A drink of water?”

  Yeah, she needed something. An argument to refute everything he’d said. She choked back a laugh. Lord, did she really think she was going to find one lying around the kitchen?

  “Ainsley?” He moved closer. “Are you all right? Do you need to sit down?”

  “No.” She lifted an arm, both to fend off his concern and to prevent him from getting any closer. “I don’t need anything except answers.”

  He didn’t look persuaded, but he accepted her assurance. “Very well. Then ask a question.”

  She took a deep breath, exhaled, then another one. What to ask first?

  “Okay, presuming all of this is true, how do you know if I actually carry the Merzetti blood? Huh? If I’m the first candidate you’ve caught up to on this side of the Atlantic, and if my ancestors on the other side of the pond were slain hundreds of years ago, how can you be sure?”

  “DNA retrieved from the skeletal remains of one of your ancestors confirms it. You are most definitely a Merzetti, from the port town of Licata, in provincia di Agrigento.”

  Nausea roiled in her stomach. “Oh, my Lord, you dug someone up? You dug up one of my ancestors?”

  Delano drew himself up to his full height. “Before you accuse me of grave robbery, it was all part of sanctioned research, I assure you. And yes, we obtained a legitimate exhumation order from the proper authorities.”

  “So that proves what?” She lifted her chin in challenge. “That I’m descended from the Lucata Merzettis?”

  “Licata.”

  “Okay, the Licata Merzettis, then. Great. Wonderful. If the DNA says that’s the case, I guess I’ll have to accept it. But who’s to say I have this mysterious anti-vampire agent in my blood? After all these generations, it must be well and truly diluted.”

  He shot her an offended look. “Of course you carry it. Do you think I’d have put you through all this if I weren’t absolutely certain?”

  This time, a sharp, hysterical laugh did escape. “Frankly, Delano, I don’t know what to think. I no longer have any idea what degree of manipulation you’re capable of.”

  “Okay, I deserve that, I guess.”

  The words came out calmly enough, but she saw the way his hands clenched into fists. Good. She hoped his leashed tension was adding to his headache.

  “Damn right you do! And now you’re going to tell my why you’re so certain I have this agent in my blood.”

  He held her gaze. “Because when I located Edward Webber, he was already dying.”

  Oh, dear Lord. “Dying? Because of my blood?”

  “The short answer is yes. Though I’m not sure of the mechanism.”

  She laughed, a harsh sound echoing dully in the small kitchen. “The mechanism? I should think that would be obvious. He bit me and he died. Ergo, I killed him.”

  “No.” His eyebrows drew together in a fierce scowl. “You mustn’t think of it that way. If anyone should be held to account for that, it’s me. I’m the one who put you in his path. I’m the one — the only one — who knew what might result if he attacked you.” The timbre of his voice dropped down a notch. “Simply put, you were victimized, Ainsley. By both of us.”

  “I killed a man.”

  “You did not!” He seized her wrist again, using his other hand to tip her head up so his gaze could bore into hers. “Have you heard nothing I said? I killed him. Me. You’ve known it all along. I don’t know how, but that night as you lay in the hospital bed in my house, you knew I went in search of your attacker. And later, I confirmed that he’d been eliminated. Remember?”

  “You think I could forget that?”

  “You managed to find peace with that fact once, and you can find it again. Because I — not you — am solely responsible for his death.”

  “But my blood—”

  “May or may not have killed him.”

  She blinked. “But you said—”

  “Edward Webber died that night, but unfortunately, he fed again, several hours after he bit you. It’s entirely possible — perhaps even probable — that your blood merely caused a reversal of the genetic mutation. If that’s the case, the second feeding might be the one that killed him.”

  She tore her hand away from his to press both hands to a head that felt like it might explode if she had to absorb one more piece of information.

  “I don’t understand. How could the second victim kill him?”

  “I ran blood work, Ainsley. He died of an acute hemolytic transfusion reaction. It’s possible that reaction may have been caused directly from infusing your blood. On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that the Merzetti agent merely reversed the vampiric mutation. If the reversal had already begun before the second feeding, he may have lost his ability to infuse blood regardless of type.”

  “Are you saying he might have died from a simple ABO incompatibility between himself and his second victim?”

  He nodded. “Simple but catastrophic.”

  She blinked rapidly. “So you really don’t know how this anti-vampire blood thing works?”

  “No.”

  “Can’t we test it?”

  His eyebrows soared. “I’m sure you know there’s a limit to what we can do in a test tube. It needs to be field-tested. Ethically, the only candidates I’m prepared to try it on are serial killers who happen to share your A-positive blood type, pre-mutation.”

  Geez, did he think she was nuts? “I wasn’t suggesting you try it on our clinic patrons, for goodness sake. Of course it would have to be a predator.”

  He loosened his collar. “I’m glad we agree.”

  Agree? Panic made her stomach clench. “No! No agreement. I’m not agreeing to anything until I’ve had a chance to process everything you’ve told me. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Of course.”

  Thank God. Some breathing space to t
hink about this stuff. The tension coiled in her muscles slackened ever so slightly.

  Of course, “processing” this new information was a lot easier said than done. Right now, a lifetime didn’t feel long enough. On the other hand, she’d gone from thinking of vampires as mythical creatures to performing venipunctures on them, practically overnight. Amazing how quickly one could normalize the freakishly abnormal.

  She wet her lips. “Okay, hypothetically speaking — because I haven’t agreed to anything, you understand — I have a technical question. Why would the predator have to be my blood type?”

  Immediately, she sensed his relief to be fielding a question that wasn’t rife with emotional landmines. Dammit, it was maddening how she could read him like a large print book on something as inconsequential as this, yet he could conceal the fact that he’d been playing God with her life for weeks now. What was that about?

  “Ainsley? “

  Belatedly, she realized that he’d been speaking, and she hadn’t absorbed a word. “Sorry. My brain went AWOL for a sec. Can you give that to me again, from the top?”

  “Of course. The mutation renders us — all vampires — universal receivers. We are not hampered by ABO compatibility issues, antibodies, or any kind of blood-borne pathogens. But if your blood — the Merzetti blood — does indeed reverse the mutation, we need to make sure it’s compatible with the attacker’s original blood type. Ideally, I’d like to see what happens to such a candidate — one who is prevented from feeding again — after being infused with your blood. If your blood is compatible with their pre-mutation blood type, and we still see massive hemolytic reaction, we can assume your blood itself is the lethal agent. However, if we see only a progressive reversal of the mutation with no hemolytic crisis, we’ll know it operates only to counter the mutation.”

  “But what about non-compatible…” She paused a moment to search for the right word, opting finally for Delano’s descriptor. “…candidates? Don’t we need to know what happens when they receive my blood?”

  “We do.” He nodded. “Presuming it works the way I’ve theorized and produces a reversal in a compatible subject, we’d then proceed to test it on a non-compatible subject. Again, we’d have to ensure they didn’t feed again after infusing your blood. Then we’d need to see if they experience the same mutation reversal. Finally, we need to observe whether or not they experience a hemolytic reaction following the reversal, brought on strictly by your blood and no one else’s, and how severe that reaction might be. It’s entirely possible it might be manageable. Webber’s wasn’t; he’d just infused too much incompatible blood.”