The Savior

by J. R. Ward

  Sometime in the midst of things, the woman took her wrist from Nate and seemed to seal the raw wounds with her own mouth. Then she bowed deeply to the commando and removed herself from the room. She appeared exhausted, her skin pale to the point of snow, her gait a shuffle rather than a walk. As she stumbled out the door, there were people waiting in the hall to catch her, and soon thereafter, the medical staff came in and checked on Nate. They listened to his heart, took his blood pressure, ran an IV—for fluids? Sarah wondered.

  No one said anything. Everybody was tense.

  Instinct told her it was a dangerous time, given how nervous the doctors were. And then hello, there was all the obvious stress on his body.

  After the woman left, Nate continued to change on the bed, his legs sawing as they kept growing, his torso twisting and flopping back, curling in and releasing.

  At one point, he gasped and threw his head to the side—and this time, as she caught sight of his eyes, he had pupils again now. Pupils that stared out of a man’s face.

  And they locked on her.

  “Help . . .” he said in a rasping voice that was a full octave lower than it had been at the lab. At the farmhouse. In the van on the way here. “It hurts . . .”

  A tear escaped, rolling out and trailing down the cheek that was no longer that of a child.

  The boy was still in there, though. And he was begging for her to go to him, even though there was nothing she could do for him.

  As he implored her for help, time slowed down—and in the swirl of her own confusion and panic, a thought crystalized with the clarity of church bells ringing through a foggy night: If she went to him, if she sat with him, if she tried to ease his suffering, she was going to lose a part of herself forever.

  Because she did not belong in this world. In his world.

  She was not supposed to be here. She was not supposed to know any of this. And somehow, she wasn’t sure exactly how, they were going to make sure she went back to where she belonged with all her previous ignorance front and center.

  There was no way she was going to be allowed to keep this information, this experience. All she had to do was remember their escape from the lab and the way the commando had seemed to put that guard in a trance, and control Kraiten, and make things happen with people’s minds.

  He was going to end up doing the same to her.

  Except . . . she was willing to bet emotional ties were not going to be as easy to get rid of. And there was nothing more powerful for the heart than the mother/child bond—which was the way Nate implored her now.

  He was a child. He was in pain. And he needed somebody to nurture him.

  What are you going do, Sarah, she thought.

  “You don’t have to,” the commando said gruffly.

  Sarah gripped the arms of the hard chair and slowly stood up. As her legs let out creaks of protest, her muscles stiff from however long she had been sitting, she thought of what Nate had been through—was still going through.

  She looked down at the commando. “I know what you’re going to do to me.” When he opened his mouth, she shook her head. “Just stop. Don’t lie to me. You think I’m not aware of how you work? The only thing I ask is just warn me when you’re going to take my mind over and let me say goodbye to him before you make me leave.”

  The commando’s eyes dropped. “Sarah . . .”

  “Swear it.”

  He took a deep breath, his chest expanding. Then his beautiful peach stare lifted to her. “I swear. On my honor.”

  Oh, God, she was right. She had guessed correctly.

  Sarah cleared her throat and looked over at the bed. “Just let me say goodbye to him.”

  Straightening her spine, she walked over and gingerly eased her hip on the mattress. As another tear escaped Nate’s eye, she reached out and snapped a Kleenex free from a box. Even though she dabbed ever so carefully, he winced as if she had struck him with barbed wire.

  “Your skin is sensitive?” she whispered. When he nodded, she nodded back. “I would imagine it is—”

  “You think I’m a monster.”

  As his deep voice came out of his mouth, her heart stopped, and she had to catch herself before she recoiled. It was all just so hard to comprehend. But what she was clear on? None of this was his fault or something he had volunteered for.

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t think you’re a monster.”

  “Yes, you do. I can see it in your eyes.”

  She refused to lie to him. “I just didn’t know . . .”

  “About us.”

  She wanted to ask what exactly “us” was, but she had a feeling she knew. And the reality frightened her.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said, as if he read her mind. “I promise.”

  “Now, that I completely believe.”

  “I might still die,” he mumbled. “It’s not over yet. I just . . . I’m scared.”

  “What happens now?” God, she was suddenly terrified for him, and she took his hand in her own as if she could keep him alive by the contact alone. “Do you need the doctors?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The commando got up from his seat. “I’ll go get somebody.” Something in her expression must have gotten through to him because he just shrugged helplessly. “Sometimes things just stop working. All we can do is wait and see what happens.”

  As he left, the door eased shut.

  Left alone with Nate, Sarah leaned up and brushed his hair back. It was darker, thicker . . . wavier. A man’s hair, not a boy’s. And his eyelashes were the same, longer and thicker. And he had the shadow of a beard.

  “It happens to all of us,” Nate said. “This is how . . . it happens.”

  She nodded because she wanted to calm him down, but under her skull, her brain was racing. “You’re different from me.”

  “I am.”

  “But that does not make you a monster to me.” Strength entered her voice. “Do you understand—you are not a monster.”

  He stared at her for the longest time. Then he took a deep breath of relief. “You didn’t know about us, did you.”

  “No.”

  “So how did you come and get me?”

  She thought of Gerry, and felt a fresh bolt of anger at what he had done, what he had been involved in. “I, ah, I found some of your lab results. They weren’t meant for me to see, but . . . once I did, I couldn’t not investigate. I couldn’t not . . . try and find you. I wasn’t even sure where . . . to go with any of it.”

  “I’m glad you came. And I’m glad they let you stay with us.”

  Sarah nodded. “Try and rest.”

  “You’re not going to leave, right?” Before she could reply, his eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Of course, I want you here. Even if you’re not one of us, you came to get me out when no one else did. I trust you.”

  “Do you trust them?”

  “You mean, do I trust the male with you. That’s what you really want to know.”

  “Do you read minds?”

  “Not really. I’m just putting myself in your position. And to answer your question, yes, I do, and you can, too. He’s bonded with you. He will not let anything bad happen to you and he will die trying to protect you.”

  This time Sarah could not hide her reaction. She felt the shock hit her face—and was aware that something else was with it. Something closer to . . .

  The door reopened and the commando came back in with the female doctor.

  Sarah stepped back from the bed to give the physician a little room. And as she looked at the commando, she was not surprised that he was staring at her, the remote expression on his face suggesting he knew exactly where her head was at.

  “—ask you both to step out for a minute?” the doctor said. “I’d like to do a full exam on him and I think we’re going to need some privacy for that?”

  As Nate looked up at Sarah, she took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’ll just be outside in the hall. And then as soon as it’
s over, I’m coming right back in. Okay?”

  When he squeezed back and nodded, she gave in to an impulse she didn’t think was necessarily appropriate: She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.

  As if he were her child.

  Even though he was most certainly not.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Murhder held the door open for Sarah, and then they were out in the corridor together. Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned back against the concrete wall and looked to the right. There were a number of doors that were closed. And then a bank of them all at once that suggested there was a gym or something down there. Distantly, he caught a whiff of chlorine, as if there were a pool somewhere in the facility.

  No one else was around. No . . . that wasn’t right. He could pick up scents of males, females, but they were far off. Behind all those shut doors.

  Good thing. He had a feeling what was coming.

  Sarah’s eyes burned as she stared at him, but he couldn’t look her in the face. He just couldn’t. He didn’t want to see something he wasn’t ever going to forget: Disgust. Horror. Revulsion.

  He had enough bad luggage to haul around with him already.

  “Explain to me what happened in there,” she said.

  Annnnd here we go. “That is how we become adults.”

  “So I was right,” she murmured. “That is the maturation process. So tell me, what exactly are you?”

  “You know what we are.”

  “Do I?” When he nodded, she shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t. I know that you’ve got six-chambered hearts. Strange white and red blood cell counts. Different responses to things like cancer and bacterial and viral disease. But I—”

  “Vampire.” Now, he looked at her. “We are . . . vampire.”

  Ah . . . there it was. Yup, exactly what he’d wanted to avoid.

  Her eyes stretched wide and she covered her mouth with a palm, as if holding in a scream. But he was done lying to her, and she might as well get the full reveal.

  Retracting his upper lip, he willed his fangs to elongate, feeling them tingle as they extended below his front teeth.

  The fact that she got pale was right out of Bram Stoker land. But he wasn’t a soulless defiler of virgins, and she wasn’t a Victorian damsel in distress. As unreal as this was to her, as much of a shock as it clearly was, the reality didn’t bear much resemblance at all to what humans had made up, and he prayed she’d be open-minded enough to give him a chance to explain.

  “I’m sorry,” he said roughly.

  He figured he’d best lead with that Old Reliable. There was, after all, so much to apologize for: The fact that she was here at all, for one. And then that she had seen Nate’s transition.

  Oh, and there was still the erase job he was going to have to do to her.

  Let’s not forget that door prize, he thought.

  Under the rubric of in-for-a-penny, in-for-a-pound, he said, “We evolved parallel to humans. We don’t prey on your kind for blood. We can’t bite you and turn you. We aren’t half bat and the swooping cape thing doesn’t happen, either. We just want to live our lives in peace, and the only way to do that is through secrecy. It’s not that mysterious.”

  As bitterness crept into his tone, he stopped there. Him getting all defensive was not going to help things.

  “Look, I’ll take you back at nightfall,” he told her. “And you’re right, you won’t remember any part of this. From time to time, you might have a strange dream, but it will never be enough to matter much.”

  She blinked. Then rubbed her face like she was trying to get things straight. As she seemed to formulate her thoughts, he had no choice but to wait for the avalanche of shit to fall on his head—

  “First of all,” she announced, “I’m not going anywhere until I know Nate is safely through whatever happened to him and I have a chance to assess that wound from an immunology standpoint. If that takes a day or a week, I don’t care. And secondly, how is it possible that you’ve kept all of this a secret—” She stopped. “Mind control. You’ve used that mind control a lot.”

  “It makes things easier.”

  “Obviously.”

  After a moment, her expression changed. Then her eyes traveled from the top of his head, down over his chest . . . his lower torso . . . his legs.

  And that was when it happened.

  That was when . . . her scent changed.

  Instantly, his body flared to life in response, the sexual impulse thickening his blood, swelling his muscles.

  Swelling other places, too.

  “Yes,” he said in a low growl. “We do that in the same way humans do. And yes . . . I want you.”

  Her eyes flared again, but it was not out of fear. Far from it.

  Shit, he thought. She wanted him, too.

  Or . . . maybe he shouldn’t go that far. Maybe she was just curious. Either way, he was desperate enough for her that he didn’t care.

  “Talk to me, Sarah.”

  He kept his voice way down. He was already in deep shit with the powers that be for so many reasons, past and present. The last thing he should be adding to this situation with her was anything erotic, but if she wanted a demonstration on how a vampire made love?

  He would be her guinea pig. And then some.

  Murhder turned his body to her, and did nothing to hide the erection that was straining at his hips. “Tell me what you want from me. Whatever it is, I’ll give it to you.”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’t know . . . what I’m doing right now.”

  “Yes, you do. I can scent it. You know exactly what you’re doing.”

  She shook her head. “Maybe this is all a dream.”

  “It’s not.” Then he added tightly, “It will be someday, but it is not tonight.”

  Abruptly, she looked at him.

  No, that wasn’t quite right. She was looking at his mouth.

  Knowing damn well he was playing with fire, he extended his tongue and ran it over his lower lip.

  “I’ll make it good for you,” he said softly. “I’ll make it so good for you that you won’t regret it.”

  Her hand lifted to her own mouth. And as she brushed her finger over what he wanted to kiss first, she jumped as if the contact surprised her.

  Then she frowned and the scent of her arousal was cut off. “Are you putting this thought in my mind right now? Are you doing to this to me—making me want you.”

  Murhder shook his head. “No, I would never do that. That is a total violation.”

  “But how do I know that for sure.” She nodded at his hips. “I mean, you’re . . . aroused, and it would get you what you want.”

  “I am turned on. In my mind, my hands are on your skin, my mouth is on yours, I am on the verge of entering you.” Murhder smiled a little and then got serious again. “But no, I’m not making you feel this way. Your reaction is all your own body’s, it is every bit your free will and nothing else—and trust me, the fact that you want me of your own volition? It’s the hottest thing about you right now.”

  Sarah didn’t have time to respond to any of it. Not what her commando had revealed about himself and his . . . kind. Not the currents of sex that ran between them. Not her questioning him about the mind control.

  Before she could go any further, the doctor came out of Nate’s room, and instead of letting the door close slowly on its own, she pulled it shut.

  “I think he’s doing well. You can’t beat that Chosen blood. But we’ll be monitoring him.”

  As the woman smiled, Sarah focused on her teeth. No fangs.

  She shook herself back to attention. “How does that process work? At the cellular level, for example—I just don’t understand any of it.”

  The doctor looked at the commando. Looked back. “Their pituitary glands take about twenty-five years to properly mature, and during that time, their bodies and organs are fairly nascent. When the pituitary reaches its proper size and functioning, their v
ersion of growth hormone is secreted all at once, triggering a firestorm of cellular activity and change that can be lethal to them. As adults, they require regular feeding from the opposite sex, and he will have to do that from now on to remain healthy and strong.”

  “ ‘Their’? So you’re not a . . .”

  The doctor smiled again. “No, I’m not. Listen, I’m going to go check on John again. Do you want to join me? Take a look at him? You might as well while you’re here.”

  As Sarah’s inner scientist woke up in a big way, she glanced at the door to Nate’s room. “Someone will come and find me if he needs anything?”

  “You got it,” the commando said.

  Before she headed off with the doctor, she glanced at the commando. He was watching her with those hooded eyes, his big body throwing off waves of heat that surely the doctor felt, too?

  The fact that his hands were loosely linked in front of his hips, over his erection, made her flush.

  “It’s okay,” he murmured.

  She wasn’t sure what exactly he was reassuring her about. But for some reason . . . the fact that he cared enough to try warmed the center of her chest.

  Forcing her mind away from . . . well, everything, she focused on the doctor and then walked away with the woman.

  “How long have you been . . . here?” Sarah asked.

  “Awhile now.” The doctor pushed open an unmarked door. “It’s a long story.”

  As they entered another clinical room, the tall commando—um, vampire—with the shoulder injury looked up from the exam table. He had his shirt off, and he was poking at the nasty black stain on his skin.

  It was much larger, Sarah thought.

  “It’s bigger,” the doctor muttered.

  The solider looked over and nodded grimly.

  Sarah approached the man—vampire—oh, God—and leaned in for a closer inspection. “It’s like cellulitis.” She glanced over at the doctor. “And you’ve tested it for fungus?”