by Ophelia Bell
She gestured toward her thigh and Javin’s gaze dropped, his brows twitching. Then his eyes closed. His nostrils flared, no doubt his wolf scenting the wound. He had to know how serious it was even if she hadn’t come close to bleeding out.
“It kills me that it was you,” he finally said. “And I know it isn’t any comfort right now, but we’re working on getting to the bottom of it once and for all. Now will you let me take a look? Cooperating will go a long way toward understanding what changed.”
He set the tablet down on the tray table nearby and gestured toward her bandage. Astra huffed and pressed back against her pillows, stretching out her leg.
“Knock yourself out.”
Javin leaned forward, his warm fingertips brushing her skin as he plucked at the edge of the adhesive tape that held the bandage down. Astra watched, her gaze fixed on Javin’s profile as he concentrated on being as gentle as possible. He rested his other hand just above her knee on the inside of her leg, and the touch somehow made her more conscious of him than of her wound.
He was just her doctor. Looking at nasty wounds was his job. Yet each slight tug of the bandage and the pressure of his hand made her more acutely aware that this was Javin touching her in a far more intimate way than she’d ever imagined he might.
She took a ragged breath when he peeled the bandage back and revealed the wound itself. Four deep punctures graced the fleshy upper curve of her inner thigh.
“Does it still hurt?” he asked, gently palpating the outer edge of one of the wounds.
“Yes, but I have a high pain threshold.” What she had no threshold for was the sudden pulsing that had started higher up, right between her thighs.
“I’m going to take a swab of the wound,” he said. “We need to see how much of the toxin is still at the site.”
He stood and turned toward the medical cart by the door, giving Astra a moment to breathe. Her heart raced, her body’s instinct to flee or fight paralyzing her. The implications of that feeling were what terrified her the most, however. She was fearless. She’d trained for years alongside her brother, first as his sparring partner, then on her own when Simina had taken the place of her brother’s sidekick. She held no grudge against Talon’s girlfriend for taking her place though. Astra had always adored Simina because her brother had loved her, and besides, Astra was ready to take the next step on her own path as an arena league champion and that would require separating herself from her brother’s career.
But Talon was dead now, and Simina had moved on with an entire team of new mates. Triple Talons had endeared themselves to Astra just by virtue of their love for the woman her brother had adored and would have mated had he not been killed.
“If you found a mate, it would speed up the healing process,” Javin said, returning to her side with a small vial and a swab. He looked pointedly at her wound rather than meeting her eyes with his preposterous suggestion.
“I don’t want a fucking mate.” She winced when he pressed on the outer edge of her wound once more and dark, acrid ichor oozed from it.
With a quick swipe he gathered his sample and stowed it in the vial, capping it with a precise flick of his thumb. Then he produced a tube of ointment and began to smooth pale cream over the punctures. His touch was soothing and arousing at the same time, the numbing properties in the ointment easing the low throb in her thigh while magnifying the one between her legs.
Astra bit her lip, enduring the contradictory sensations while hoping like hell his sharp wolf senses couldn’t pick up her arousal over the scent of that awful toxin. She didn’t need a lab test to know it still contaminated her blood. Nor did she need one to tell her that her dragon was too far gone to help her heal.
“You know the rumors that mated champions lose their edge are bunk, right?” Javin asked, now working to apply a fresh bandage over her wound. She couldn’t wait for him to be done and go already.
“Yeah, that’s not it.”
“Then what is it?” he asked, patting her wound and sitting back with the crumpled remnants of her old bandage in his fist. He stared right into her eyes, challenging her to answer. Astra faltered under that piercing gaze, the golden eyes seeming to see right into her soul. But she knew he didn’t really see her. All he saw was Talon’s little sister. An oath to his dead best friend. Not a woman, nor a potential mate.
Because if Astra could feel her dragon right now, she knew the longing she felt deep in her gut would be doubled. As long as she could remember, she’d known Javin was it for her. Half the reason she’d started her training was to control that instinct, to become so in sync with her dragon that it obeyed her wishes and not the other way around.
It would hurt too much to confess those feelings only to have them be rejected, so she’d trained herself to reject any emotional entanglement that threatened to distract her.
“The arena is my life. I just don’t want anything to get in the way of that.”
He lifted an eyebrow but thankfully didn’t point out the obvious obstacle to her competing again. Even once her wound healed, there was a strong chance her link to her dragon would never be the same.
“Then I guess I have my work cut out for me if I’m going to find a new counteragent. In the meantime, Simina’s going to talk you through your recovery options. Bryer Vargas has agreed to help. Or, rather, his mate, Pomona, is sending over her recipes so you can start working on your diet.”
She wanted to retort that her diet was fine, but lacked the energy. Nodding, she turned away and stared out the window instead, deliberately avoiding eye contact. Looking at his handsome face, remembering his gentle touch was too much. If the loss of her dragon didn’t break her, having to look at Javin and see only pity would burn her to ash.
3
Val
Focus was a natural state for Val Carver and began the moment he opened his eyes. His panther’s instincts to hunt were well honed after years of synchronicity training, which he’d learned from ancient Nova Aurora texts. The old tomes from the shifter home world were hard to find on Earth, so he treasured his copies. They’d been the source of his discipline for years, not to mention the inspiration behind his lab research.
When he wasn’t training or playing racquetball with his only close friend, Val channeled those finely honed instincts into his work. The focus was less on his environment than on the problems he needed to solve in his lab, and so from the second he woke, his mind was busy with constant calculations, working through the myriad tests to run that day on the drug that would revolutionize how Earth’s humans interacted with shifters.
He worked out on autopilot, dictating his thoughts to the ever-present smartphone in his pocket that was attached to the earbud in his ear. Afterward, he continued during his shower, setting the phone in the waterproof dock, where he could continue with any thoughts that came to him while beneath the steaming spray. The best ideas seemed to come to him in the shower, and he’d missed enough to make the installation a requirement of his job.
He let his panther be the one to enjoy the breakfast his housekeeper set in front of him while his human mind focused on his project for the day. He didn’t want to take the chance of forgetting something crucial if he got distracted later, but it was rare for him to get distracted. His panther was perfectly suited to this level of intense focus, even if Val’s prey was not some hapless animal, but the success of this drug that had been his life’s work.
But that was a gross understatement. It wasn’t just his life’s work. It was his life. While his friends and colleagues sought out partners and built families, Val remained fixated on his goal. He loved the lab, and he particularly loved the Evo-Genesis-Alpha project. It had been years in the making and still had some kinks to work out, but when it was complete, lives across the world would change. It was as revolutionary as a cure for cancer, or for most of humankind’s ills for that matter.
It wasn’t until he made it to the security panel to the elevators that would lead down to his lab
that he finally paused the near constant stream-of-consciousness dictation.
“Dr. Carver,” the receptionist called as he swiped his key card across the panel and tapped in his code. The light flashed red and he frowned.
“Dr. Carver!” Footsteps tapped down the hallway from the front desk as he swiped again, irritated by the distraction. Every day for the past six years he’d performed this routine. This divergence was inconvenient to say the least and had completely derailed his train of thought.
He swiped again, growing more agitated as the receptionist closed the distance.
“Dr. Carver, your card won’t work. I’m sorry,” she said, touching his elbow.
“Why won’t it work, Esther?” He turned to her, gritting his teeth. She looked abashed, but he held back any expletives he had the urge to let fly. It was likely not this woman’s fault. The employees of Carver Pharmaceuticals had enough bullshit to deal with when his overbearing dad came around to poke his nose in everything. They didn’t need him to lay into them too. But his dad was the CEO and felt entitled to have his nose in everything, despite Val’s insistence that it was counterproductive.
“Mr. Carver . . . er, that is, the senior Mr. Carver . . .”
“You mean my dad, yes? You can simply call him ‘Mr.’ I’m the only doctor in the family.”
“Yes.” Her hands flitted around in front of her like agitated butterflies. “He requested I inform you that the lab is closed until further notice, and that if you wish to resume your work, you must meet with him this morning.”
“Fucking hell!” Val spat, slamming his fist into the painted white cinderblock wall. Esther flinched when he turned back to her and he regretted his outburst. The woman always seemed frightened of him and he didn’t quite understand why. Outbursts like this were his dad’s domain, not his, but there was only so much he could take. “Did he say why?”
Esther shook her head. “I’m sorry, no. Just that if you want your lab back, to come see him.”
“Thank you, Esther. I’m sorry if this put you on the spot. If my dad calls, tell him I’m on my way.”
He took a deep breath, summoning as much calm as he could muster under the circumstances. His self-discipline went a long way toward keeping him focused on his work, but it was also useful in situations where he’d be much more inclined to lash out. He was ready to draw blood, if he was being honest, but would give his dad the benefit of the doubt. If the elder Carver had an issue, Val would have preferred a simple phone call, not this passive-aggressive bullshit.
He exited the lab and returned to his car, heading back toward the city to the looming tower in the center that housed his family’s pharmaceutical empire.
His dad was all he had left, and Val loved him but would have preferred the freedom to simply do his work and not be micromanaged at every turn. He had no idea what might have prompted the lockout this time. It had become a regular habit of his father’s, whenever the elder Carver needed something from Val. The last occurrence had only been a few months prior, over a disagreement about the schedule for another one of Carver Pharmaceutical’s products. The first time it had happened his father had had a good reason, but subsequent lockouts had become less and less logical. Now, Val wasn’t so sure. He’d recently had another breakthrough on the drug they called EG-Alpha, making it even more effective and safer for human consumption. It made no sense for his dad to interrupt his work like this.
At the moment, EG-Alpha ticked all the boxes for FDA approval, yet Val wasn’t satisfied. There were still signs of lethal by-products if the drug happened to be metabolized by native shifter physiology. He couldn’t take the chance of shifters taking the drug too.
He wasn’t dumb enough to assume only humans would use it, after all. While the drug was intended to unlock the latent shifter nature within humans who wished to awaken their animals, it could also act as a performance enhancer for full shifters, increasing in potency with the purity of the shifter’s blood. But with that enhancement came a greater risk of the toxic by-products, and the stronger the shifter who used the drug, the more lethal the by-products that were metabolized.
Luckily all his tests were confined to the safety of his lab and the state-of-the-art simulation software he used to run every possible permutation of the drug’s progression. No one was in any real danger from the drug now, and would never be. By the time he finished his research and perfected the formula, the drug would be free from risk and would allow humans suffering from any manner of ailment to awaken their dormant animal to help heal them.
This lockout was supremely inconvenient, but somehow not surprising. His dad was unpredictable and had tended toward sensitive behavior ever since Val’s mother’s death six years ago. He chalked it up to a cry for attention more than anything. He had to admit he rarely stuck his head out of his work for anything social, much less any family dinners, though now those were limited to him and his father at his dad’s enormous mansion on the outskirts of the city.
The first lockout had occurred shortly after his mother’s diagnosis with breast cancer, and Val and thrown himself into his work, the project pivoting from a performance-enhancing drug to one that he was sure could cure her cancer if he worked hard enough and completed it in time. His father had seen it as an insult, accused him of ignoring the truth, and locked him out so he would come home and spend time with his sick mother.
Despite the heavy-handed approach, Val was grateful for his father’s intervention. It had allowed him precious time with his mother before her death.
* * *
Valentino Carver Sr. was standing at the window when Val stepped into his office. Val’s dad was imposing as ever, the quintessential CEO surveying his domain. He didn’t look pensive or worried or even lonely.
“Dad,” Val said by way of greeting. “Can you just tell me what you need so I can get my lab back? I’m pretty sure nobody’s dying, and I have too much work to do to fuck around with whatever issue you decided you have with me today.”
His dad’s jaw clenched, and his fists flexed around something in his hand. It looked like a newspaper.
Val frowned and sat, bracing himself for whatever rant his dad was about to throw his way. Probably something a competitor had done—a new drug perhaps—and he’d want to grill Val on why he insisted on clinging so hard to this particular project when it hadn’t borne fruit.
His father had lost interest in the project after his mother’s death. Val was grateful he hadn’t entirely shut it down, though he feared that possibility wasn’t off the table.
His dad turned from the window, rigid and stone-faced. He smacked the paper down on the desk in front of Val and then sat, leaning back and glaring.
Val, groaning inwardly, leaned forward to read the headline.
And froze. He blinked once, convinced his eyes must be failing him, but the picture beneath spoke volumes.
“This is unacceptable.”
“It isn’t what it looks like,” Val said, bristling at both the headline’s insinuation and his dad’s rejection of it.
The City’s Most Eligible Bachelor Gay? was the headline’s query. Beneath it was a candid shot of him and his racquetball partner embracing. The photo wouldn’t have been incriminating by itself, except they were both clad in nothing but towels.
“I don’t care what it looks like, you will fix this.”
“There’s nothing to fucking fix, Dad! Jason’s an old friend. We play racquetball once a week and hit the sauna afterward. I hugged him because he’d just told me he was engaged. We are not screwing.”
The fact was, Val’s sex life was virtually nonexistent, save for his nightly visit to a porn site to jerk off prior to hitting the sack. To him it was purely part of his self-care regimen, of which he was very strict. He had no fucking time for a relationship. And if he did, it was none of his father’s business whether he fucked a man or a woman.
“Appearances are everything in this city and you know it. Our stocks are down today tha
nks to this story. You have two choices: let me announce the release of EG-Alpha, or you find a mate and prove these allegations are bunk.
“I don’t want a fucking mate. I don’t have time. You want this drug out so bad? Just let me do my fucking job.”
“What I want is for our family’s business to remain viable. Everything is hanging on that drug. You’ve sold the entire board on it and so we’ve invested all we have into it, but without something to show for it, the board is losing confidence. This is just another blow. So either fix this, or find a fucking mate. A female mate.” His finger stabbed the photo, landing right on Val’s smiling face and smudging the ink.
His shoulders hunched and he ground his teeth together. “It isn’t like I can walk out the door and instantly find a woman who’d have me. Any mate I take now would be signing up for a world of neglect. It’s not the right time.”
“You learn to balance, son. Your mother and I did fine. She’d have wanted grandkids, which isn’t something you can have with a man.”
He begged to differ on all those points, but dredging up his mother’s wishes or her unhappiness toward the end of her life was not a productive way to argue with his dad. Instead, he went with the old standard. “Mom would want me to be happy. It’s a shame you don’t feel the same way.”
His dad pursed his lips and stuck his hand in his pocket. “Nonsense. I do want that, but you need to figure it out sooner rather than later, which is why I made an appointment with a matchmaker for you.” He tossed a business card on his desk atop the smeared newspaper. “She has a flawless record of matching shifters with their mates. If anyone can find you an appropriate female to spend the rest of your life with, she can.”
Val picked up the card and studied it. Gerri Wilder, Paranormal Dating Agency. Had it really come to this?
4