by Cynthia Eden
At first, she thought he’d pull away from her. Instead, Eric’s fingers tightened around hers. Then he lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, right before the elevator doors slid open.
They were on a new floor. A higher floor. Agents bustled around the hallway. And a woman with black hair, wearing an elegant suit stood a few feet away, just watching them. There was something about her stare—it was a little too intense, and Ella had the uncomfortable feeling that woman could see right through her.
Then the woman smiled. It was a friendly, open smile. It should have reassured Ella. It didn’t.
The lady stepped forward, offering her hand. “Hello, my name is Olivia, and I’m here to help you.”
At those words, Ella stiffened. “I didn’t realize I needed help.” But she took the offered hand, shook it quickly, then immediately let go.
“We can all use some help,” the woman said. Her black hair was secured in some kind of twist. She motioned toward the hallway. “Why don’t you come with me?”
Ella had left the elevator, but now she hesitated. Her gaze turned to Eric. “What’s going on?”
“Olivia needs to ask you some questions.”
This wasn’t right. Ella licked her lips and said, “If you have questions, Eric. Ask them. Don’t you think you can trust my answers?”
His mouth tightened. “This is Olivia’s area of expertise.” Then he backed away. “I have to check in with my team. I’ll be back to collect you shortly.”
Collect you. “You collect things,” she said as he stepped into the elevator. “Not people.”
His gaze flickered.
The doors shut.
Olivia cleared her throat. “Shall we get started?”
Ella rolled back her shoulders. “At least you aren’t the kind of doctor that likes to cut me open and see what makes me tick.” She headed to Olivia’s side. Together, they walked down the hallway. Their steps were oddly in sync. “I’m guessing you’re just the kind that peeks into my head and tries to find all of the secrets that I have.”
Olivia stopped near an unmarked door on the right. “I’ve helped a lot of your kind.”
Ella had to laugh at those particular words. “Trust me, you haven’t. I don’t think you know anything about my kind.” But she went into the room. No exam tables were inside. Just comfy chairs. A desk. Even a couch. Classic shrink set-up. “I guess the doctor will see me now,” Ella murmured.
The door shut behind her with a soft click. “It’s all right, Ella. This is a safe place for you. It’s just us—”
But Ella laughed. “You think I don’t know when he’s watching?” She’d already spotted the tiny camera in the upper left side of the room. “He’s always watching.” Goosebumps rose on her arms.
Olivia’s gaze shot toward the camera. Her eyes widened with what looked like shock. As if Ella would buy that. She shook her head and got comfy on the couch. She could play mind games with the best of them.
Only…
She wasn’t really in the mood to play games any longer. “Let’s just get this over with…”
***
Eric booted up his computer and a few taps on his keyboard had the feed to Olivia’s office immediately opening on his screen. Olivia would be pissed when she found out about the camera. She always wanted total privacy when she dealt with her paranormal patients, but if Olivia’s little side trip to Purgatory had taught them anything…it was that the paranormals couldn’t be trusted. Olivia had been attacked when she went in to help the paranormals in Purgatory.
The camera was a security measure that had to be utilized. For Olivia’s safety.
Even if the patient was Ella.
Ella was on the couch now, stretching out. She appeared totally relaxed, a bit surprising to him. He’d thought she’d completely rebel when she saw Olivia and fully realized just what was happening. When he’d had her in containment before, he’d considered sending Olivia in, but he’d hesitated. I wanted her stronger first.
She was plenty strong now. Hopefully, she’d face the demons in her past and Olivia would get Ella to talk all about those demons. So I can learn how to fight them.
Questioning Ella directly wasn’t an option. Ella just looked at him with that sexy gaze of hers, and he wanted to hold her. Screw her secrets. And as the director of the Para Unit, he couldn’t have the luxury of overlooking Ella’s past—and her secrets just might be a matter of national security.
What the fuck is wrong with me? When did I lose all objectivity?
A knock sounded at his door. The door opened before he could say anything and his sister Holly marched inside. “You’ve been drinking from her?” she demanded.
Trust Holly to learn his secrets. Had Connor been the one to rat him out to her? Probably.
At least she’d shut the door before her big announcement. He waved her closer and looked back at the scene. “I don’t really have time for this now,” he said, “look, I’ve got—”
Her hands slammed down on the desk. “You make time.”
His brows lifted as he glanced over at her.
There were tears gleaming in Holly’s eyes. “You make time. You listen to me.” Her breath heaved out. “I’ve been doing more tests on the blood we took from her. Her blood…it’s not like any normal vampire blood I’ve ever seen. You know we always thought that vampirism was a virus—”
“Spread and activated through the blood exchange. Yes, I know,” he said carefully. The virus only activated if the human prey was at the brink of death during the exchange. The human had to both give the vampire blood and take the vampire’s blood. And death had to be seconds away. So close. Then the body entered its final moments and fought ferociously for life, and during that fight, the virus activated.
He and Holly had been working to try and find a cure for the virus, only he’d pretty much given up hope of ever finding that cure. He’d adjusted. He’d become something…else.
“I mixed her blood with regular vampire blood,” Holly said, swallowing. “I studied the results to see what would happen…”
He stood up.
“Her blood took over the cells. It—it just…annihilated them. There was no transformation. There was just destruction. Her blood isn’t some kind of secret to a cure, if that’s what you were hoping.”
No, no, he hadn’t—
“I think her blood can kill vampires.” Her lower lip trembled. “And if you’ve been drinking it like Connor said…”
He had sold Eric out.
“Then I need you in my lab immediately. I have to do blood work on you. I have to make sure that she hasn’t killed you.” Her breath heaved out. “Because you could be dying right now and not know it. Her blood could be killing you as we speak!”
Eric sagged back against the chair. “That’s not possible.”
But Holly flew around the desk and came to his side. Her hand grabbed his wrist and held on tight. “It is possible! I ran the tests a dozen times. Her blood is lethal to vampires, and if you’ve been taking it, you could die.” She tightened her hold on him. “I can’t let that happen. You protected me. You made me live, and I’m going to make absolutely certain that you do, too.”
Eric shook his head. Holly didn’t understand. His gaze slid back to the monitor. To Ella.
A lethal package to wipe out vampires? “She transformed Keegan. Gave him her blood—”
“He was an alpha werewolf, not a vampire. So he had a different reaction to her. That’s probably why he was walking around like the living dead, covered in burns when he should have been on his way to hell.”
His gaze slid to her. “Connor sure has been talking to you a lot.”
“Your agents brought the body to me. He should have been killed in that fire, but something kept him alive. That something—it’s her blood.” Now her eyes slid to the screen even as she kept her hold on Eric. “She’s dangerous, Eric. A complete unknown. And I don’t…I don’t usually say this, you know I don’t, but…f
or everyone’s safety…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think she needs to be contained.”
Chapter Nine
“When were you born, Ella?”
Ella stared up at the ceiling. “A very, very long time ago.”
“You were born a vampire? Or you became one?”
Ah, well, at least the lady wasn’t beating around the bush. “I don’t understand why Eric didn’t just ask me these questions. I mean, we have a deal. It’s not like I’d lie to him.”
Silence. Was she supposed to be uncomfortable with silence? Was it supposed to make her talk? She knew that silence was a tactic some shrinks used. “Silence doesn’t work on me,” Ella said. “I started to like it when I was in Keegan’s basement.” Actually, she’d grown used to silence centuries before Keegan had come into her life. Another time, another prison…
Olivia was seated in the chair near her. She wasn’t writing down notes or tapping away on a laptop. She just seemed to be listening.
How good for her.
“Do you want to talk about the time in his basement?”
Ella kept staring at the ceiling. Were they on the first floor? They’d gone up on the elevator, so she thought so. There were windows to the right—windows currently covered by some seriously thick blinds. “Talk about it? Not really. I don’t want to even think about the time in the basement. It was hell, but it’s over. I’m out.”
“And now Keegan is dead.”
Ella turned her head and met Olivia’s stare. “Yes.” She’d seen his body with her own eyes. He wouldn’t be torturing her ever again.
“According to accounts…” Olivia’s voice and face both held no expression. “A man with black wings killed him. He took Keegan up high—”
“And then dropped him,” Ella said. “So Keegan knew what was happening when he fell. He had time to fear. In those last few seconds as he plummeted, he knew he would die…so he had to wonder what the next life would be like for him. A fire that never ended. Torment or just…nothing at all. Darkness.” Darkness…like the dark basement he’d kept her in. Day and night. So many days. So many nights and—
“You wanted him to die.”
Ella laughed. “Really? Is it that obvious? I mean, I was only hunting the guy…”
“How do you feel knowing someone else took your prey?”
Her shoulders slid along the couch. Was that leather? Felt like it. The Para guys had sure gone all out with the shrink’s pad. “I’m just relieved that I don’t have to keep looking over my shoulder. Keegan won’t be a threat to me any longer.”
“You don’t feel bad that he’s dead?”
Feel—Ella turned her head and met the doctor’s stare. “No,” her words were flat. “I don’t feel bad. I don’t feel bad at all that the man who drugged me, who starved me, who bled me, is dead. I don’t feel bad at all that the man who made my life a nightmare for weeks is gone. I don’t feel bad about that even a little bit. I’m relieved,” she said again. “So if that makes me an evil person, if that makes me bad in your book, I don’t really give a damn.”
“Good and evil can be relative terms.”
Ella laughed. “Right. And sometimes, they can be pretty clear cut.” She was still staring into the shrink’s eyes. “Tell me, Olivia,” Ella murmured. “Do you ever wish that you could be someone else? Maybe something else?”
Olivia flinched. “I try not to wish at all.”
“Really? Cause I wish all the time. I wish that Keegan hadn’t taken me. I wish that I didn’t have so much rage inside of me. I wish that I hadn’t been made to be this way.” She tried to swallow down some of the rage that was rising in her. Ella realized she’d clenched her hands into tight fists. “Because, you see, I wasn’t born like this, no. I was born differently. But another man, long ago, he thought he could make me better. A little less evil. He caught me. He made me his prisoner too, and then he started with his tests…”
***
Eric’s chest seemed to burn as he heard Ella’s words. “Go get your tool kit,” he said to Holly. “Draw my blood. Run it through your machines. You’ll see that she hasn’t hurt me.”
“You’re too certain,” Holly said. But, like him, her attention now seemed to be primarily on the nearby monitor. “Why are you so certain?”
“Because you don’t know what I did before you joined the fold at the Para Unit. There were other doctors. Some almost as brilliant as you. I had to make sure I’d be strong enough to run this division. I had to be ready in case a werewolf attacked me or if another vampire came ready to bite.” But one night, a vamp hadn’t just gone after him. The vamp had tried to take out Holly.
Eric hadn’t been ready to let his sister die. She’d transformed that night—and been introduced to his world.
Eric cleared his throat. “Go get your tools,” he said again. “Test me, and you’ll finally see the truth about me.”
Her fingers fell away from his wrist. “Another mad scientist? We seem to be tripping over those guys these days.”
“I wanted the changes,” he said. “I went in with my eyes wide open.” His breath sighed out and his hand lifted, almost touching the screen. “But she didn’t.”
The ache in his chest got worse.
***
“Who was this man?” Olivia asked.
“I loved him.” She hadn’t meant to say those words, had she? Maybe. Didn’t matter. “I thought I did, anyway. I thought he loved me, too. But he didn’t love me as I was. He-he wanted to change me. Because my kind was too dangerous. So he started his experiments. Not just on me, but on others like me. He took their wings.” Her shoulders pressed back against the couch. Her wings were long gone now. They’d only come out if she had a rage-fueled shift. “And he used them to make other things.”
The silence came again. But this time, Ella thought that silence might be from shock.
So she just waited.
The silence truly didn’t bother her. The ghosts that used to scream at her were long gone.
Finally, Olivia whispered, “What things?”
“Werewolves.” So sad and twisted—her ex-lover had created the very beings that had tried to destroy her. “You know, some humans have DNA that lets them change when they’re bitten. They can transform, but it’s such a small percentage of the population. So few.” A fleeting smile curved her lips. “Have you ever wondered how the first human transformed into a werewolf? It was from the wings, you see. Our wings have so much power. Cut them off, grind them up, and they are very, very potent…my mad scientist injected a serum straight into a—a volunteer’s bones. The change came then. So fast. And when you make one werewolf…well, it’s only a matter of time until you have more.”
She could hear the frantic pounding of Olivia’s heartbeat. The faster rush of her breath. “You’re saying…you created werewolves?”
Ella shook her head. Hadn’t the woman been listening? Bad, for a shrink. “I’m saying others like me were killed. Our wings were taken and used to give birth to a whole new being—a werewolf.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t know werewolves would be born. I think he just wanted to see what would happen if he gave a human the serum. He had to experiment on someone else, first, of course, before he took the serum himself.” Ella laughed. “It was just his bad luck that his volunteer turned out to be part of the human population with the altered DNA. But you just can’t predict for some things like that.”
Silence. Ella began to count in her mind. She’d just gotten to nineteen when—
“You don’t say his name.”
Ella pressed her lips together.
“You said he was your ex-lover and a mad scientist, but you won’t say his name.”
She wished there was something on the ceiling to focus upon. A crack. Spider webs. Something. Not just that perfect white space.
“Is it because if you say his name, you will remember him as a man and not as the monster you learned he was?”
Ella uncle
nched her fists and stared at her tiny claws. “I’m the monster.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
Ella cut a quick glance her way. “That’s because you haven’t seen me when I’m at my worst. I hope you never do.”
“Tell me his name, Ella.”
She’d said it before, to Connor, and just uttering his name had left a bad taste in her mouth.
“Why are you afraid? It’s just a name. It’s just—”
“Cedric. Cedric Wallington.” Now her heart was the one pounding too fast. “The human who tricked me. The human I let destroy my world. I had always been told to mate only with my own kind. That my one true partner was out there. To just wait…” Her breath heaved out. “But I didn’t wait. I let him get to me, and everyone else paid the price.”
Now her gaze slid to the camera. She stared up at that lens. “I’m sorry that I didn’t wait. I’m so sorry all of the others died.”
“Why are you apologizing? To him?”
At least Olivia wasn’t pretending that Eric wasn’t watching them. “Because Eric is like me. I thought we were all gone, but he’s here. If I’d just found him sooner, if I’d just not given up hope of finding him—”
“Stop!”
Now she looked back at Olivia once more. Olivia’s eyes were burning with fury. “Is that what Eric told you?” The shrink demanded. “That he’s like you are?”
“No, he didn’t say that but…” It was so hard to explain. “But I can sense it. I can feel it. When he bites me…it’s just the way I was told it would be. The connection is there. Strong and powerful and—”
“Eric isn’t like you.”
Ella sat up and swung her legs to the side of the couch. “How do you know that?”
“I—” Olivia snapped her mouth closed and glared at the camera. After a moment, she nearly snarled, “Get in here. Have you been lying to her? All this time? I won’t do that to her, Eric! I won’t lie!”
Ella’s stomach was in knots. Eric hadn’t lied to her. This woman was wrong. “I think I know my mate.”