Dark Embers

by Tessa Adams

  “That’s not strictly true, Dylan.” Quinn regarded him with furious emerald eyes, his mouth tight and fists clenched. “We know what kind of disease it is now, have a good grasp of how it attacks—”

  “And yet my sister’s still dead. Mike is still dead. Liese and Justine, Todd and Angel are still dead, Quinn—and just in the past few weeks. It used to be that we would lose that many in a year. Now we’ve lost that many this month.

  “How many more need to fall before we acknowledge that we’re failing?”

  “But to go to another clan for help, Dylan?” This time it was Tyler who spoke, in a low hiss that made it obvious just how close his dragon was to the surface. “That’s dangerous.”

  “It’s suicidal. We can’t let them know our weaknesses,” Caitlin added. “The Wyvernmoons will find a way to exploit them.”

  “They’re not the only ones.” Shawn jumped into the discussion with a growl. “They might be our most obvious enemy, but there are other clans just waiting for a weakness. The Shadowclaws have been waiting patiently for more than two hundred years, praying that we make a mistake that will leave us vulnerable. To hand them this kind of knowledge—it’s unthinkable.”

  Arguments erupted around him from all sides of the echoing cavern, reason after reason that they couldn’t share their problem with other clans.

  “I know all that,” he finally interrupted, wading into the conversation with a sigh. “Believe me, I’ve spent months wondering if they’re suffering from the same disease we are. And if they are, whether they’ve been any more successful in treating it.”

  “I’ve been watching.” Quinn again, his agitation obvious in the red dragon light of his eyes and in his distorted voice. He was in the middle of the shift, his anger bringing on the dragon like nothing else could. “None of the five clans are experiencing the same kind of deaths that we are. The last time Shadowclaw lost a dragon was nearly thirty years ago.”

  “That’s a documented loss, right?” Caitlyn interrupted. “They could be hiding—”

  “They’re not.” Dylan’s voice cut across the room like a whip. “I’ve checked, as well.”

  “So either they’re disgustingly healthy or they’ve found a cure for the disease.” Riley spoke for the first time, as always the cool voice of reason amid his more volatile clan mates. “It might be worth it to—”

  Objections erupted all over again, but Dylan had had enough. Normally their meetings were more organized, but everyone’s emotions were running high tonight, and he’d tried to bend. But enough was enough.

  “I actually agree with you on this.” The room fell silent. “If I really thought they could help us, I wouldn’t hesitate to approach them. But letting anyone know our weaknesses—even those clans we’ve been friendly with for generations—is asking for trouble, unless it’s the only way.”

  Shawn regarded him warily. “You think there’s another way?”

  “I do.” He paused, pulled the sense of rightness that came with his decision around him tightly. Then said, “I want to take our problems to the humans. They have scientists, labs, generations of research that deal with disease and mutated cells. I think they’re our best chance.”

  Then he stepped back and waited for all hell to break loose. He didn’t have long to wait.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I understand,” Phoebe murmured, when what she really wanted to do was scream. Not at the unfortunate person on the other end of the line, but at the circumstances that led her here. She had very nearly begged the Atlantis Corporation for a piece of their grant money—never a position of strength, but desperate times called for desperate measures—and their head of charitable donations had just neatly slammed the door in her face.

  It was the same door that she’d run up against again and again in the past two weeks as she struggled to find a way to keep her lab open and her research alive. So far, she was batting zero, and for the first time in her life, she was very aware of the passage of time.

  Each slam of the door was another few days wasted; each polite—or impolite—no ate up time she didn’t have. Already one of her lab assistants had quit, citing the difficulty of his classes this semester. She’d seen him yesterday working in Brandon’s lab. It seemed everyone recognized a sinking ship when they saw it. Everyone but her.

  “Lupus is a very important disease,” the woman on the other end of the phone continued. “One that we here at Atlantis would be very interested in supporting. But the money for next year has already been allocated. In four months, the process opens up again, and you can file for a grant for two years from now. I’m sure we’d be very interested in looking at it then, Dr. Quillum.

  “Your credentials are above reproach, and, as I said, lupus is a disease that needs more attention in the research community. If I had anything to give you now, I would.”

  “I know. Thanks, Jeannie. I appreciate the fact that you tried. I’ll definitely fill out the papers for that funding.”

  Even as she said the words, Phoebe knew she would be doing nothing of the sort. Two years from now? I could get funding two years from now? Despair swamped her, and she closed her eyes as she leaned her head onto the cool, Formica top of her ancient desk. In two years, her lab would be nothing but a distant memory, her research outdated and hopelessly behind the times.

  But what choice did she have? The grant committee had completely screwed her, and they knew it. It had taken her nearly a week to get someone over there to answer a phone call, and though she’d filed an appeal, she wasn’t holding out much hope. Harvard wasn’t going to help her. The big corporations couldn’t help her—at least not for the next eighteen months. Their grants had already been chosen. So unless she won the lottery, she was pretty much screwed—and so was everything she’d been working toward since she got out of med school.

  The idea was unbearable, especially when she thought of some of the research subjects she’d dealt with through the years. Jennifer, who had contracted lupus when she was nineteen and whose immune system was so compromised after six years of the disease that half her organs had ceased functioning. Nina, whose body had started attacking itself before she was thirty. She had died last year, at thirty-four, the victim of a disease that was absolutely brutal in its more virulent forms.

  And before Phoebe could slam the door in her mind, she thought of Larissa, her beautiful sister who had lived—and died—in more pain than any person should ever have to endure. The idea that Larissa had died in vain—that she would never be able to save another woman from suffering her sister’s fate—nearly killed her. Particularly after she’d promised both Larissa and herself that she would never let that happen.

  The fact that she would have to break a promise to her sister hurt more than anything else. Phoebe didn’t break promises; no matter how big or how small, she always kept her word. Which was just one more reason she was so careful about which promises she made.

  Having been raised by a mother who had believed every promise she’d ever received—and a father and stepfather who broke promises like they were porcelain tea cups—she’d never known who or what she could trust. She refused to do that to anyone else, particularly someone she cared about the way her father had professed to care about her mother.

  But what choice did she have? No matter what she did, she wouldn’t have enough money to keep the lab going. Even if she gave up her salary, gave up eating and stripped her lab down to the bare bones, it wouldn’t be enough. She and her research were doomed.

  Pushing away from the desk, she went over to the bookshelf where she kept binder after binder of research. Pulled down the latest one and started going over the numbers. It was difficult, though, as they kept blurring on the page. Stupid printer had obviously screwed up, because there was no other explanation for why she couldn’t read the data.

  I’m not crying, Phoebe assured herself. She didn’t know how to cry anymore. She hadn’t shed a tear since the day her father had walked away for good, rig
ht after her mother had gotten sick. And today was not the day to start. Just because her entire life was falling down around her was no reason for her to turn weepy and whiny.

  Blinking her eyes quickly—once, twice—she brought the numbers into focus.

  Maybe the printer was working after all, but she’d have to have the lab cleaned. Something in the air must have been aggravating her allergies.

  Dylan was feeling antsy as he walked through the bustling campus little more than a week after he’d laid down the law to his council. There were so many people—on the sidewalks, on the streets, even sitting on the steps leading up to the various buildings. They were talking, laughing, studying, walking—doing all the things people did on a college campus, even one as illustrious as this.

  Their proximity was driving his dragon insane. Always close to the surface, now it seemed to be sitting right under his skin. With each breath he took, it roared and scratched, determined to get out. He was, of course, just as determined to keep it hidden.

  Ignoring the beast and his own discomfort, Dylan covered the grounds in steady strides. It had been a long time since he’d been to Massachusetts—even longer since he’d walked Harvard’s hallowed halls—but he hadn’t missed it. Not the crisp chill of the October morning, not the red and gold leaves that crunched beneath his feet as he walked, and especially not the stares and whispers of the students as he passed.

  Though the Harvard he’d attended more than three hundred and fifty years ago was very different from the Harvard of today, it was interesting to note that some things hadn’t changed. Even here, in the midst of some of the best research facilities and hospitals in the world, there was a feeling that was uniquely Harvard. Uniquely elite. It was just one of the many things he’d hated about the school when he’d attended.

  Of course, he could have left, could have run back to the New Mexico caves he’d been born in, no matter what his parents had said at the time, but there had been parts of Harvard that had enthralled him. Namely, the books and education that had been so hard to come by three centuries before.

  He had to admit that there had been changes to the Harvard he remembered. Big changes. For one thing, in his day, it had all been one campus. No medical and public health schools built miles away. No supercomputers. And no top-notch research library, either, Dylan thought as he passed the Countway Library.

  He walked by the medical school quadrangle without really looking at what was there. Yet the closer he came to the building he was looking for—Kresge—the more anxious his dragon became. He tried to calm it down, to soothe it, but the bustling city was twisting its tail into quite a knot.

  Maybe it knew something he didn’t.

  The thought made him pause on the building steps, his hand on the door.

  Was he really going to do this?

  Was he really ready to open himself and, more important, his people up to the kind of scrutiny this would demand?

  He—and the rulers before him—had spent more than two millennia trying to keep the clan’s existence hidden. And now here he was, about to blow all that secrecy to hell and back.

  About to turn them all into circus freaks.

  Is it worth it? he asked himself a little wildly, doubt pushing in on him from every direction. Is it worth risking everything? Gabe didn’t think so, and neither did Shawn and Liam and Quinn. In fact, all twelve of his sentries were against this, and had told him so to his face.

  But a sentry wasn’t king, and at the end of the day, they weren’t responsible for the survival of an entire people. He was.

  Lucky, lucky him.

  A picture of Marta the way he’d last seen her rose in front of him. Pale and paralyzed, covered with more blood than he’d imagined a human body could contain. She’d struggled for breath as her body slowly and completely shut down, despite the fact that the clan’s healers were all around her. They’d looked as baffled and helpless as he’d felt.

  Was it worth it? Damn right, it was. Yanking the door open viciously, he strode inside with determined steps. Marta wasn’t the first of his clan to die of this strange disease, and if he didn’t do something quickly, she wouldn’t be the last.

  He couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t stand by for one second more and watch while one of his clan members died a torturous, inexplicable death.

  He would do whatever it took to get answers—do even more to get the solution. The cure. He’d spent almost two weeks researching, calling in favors from all over the world as he sought the answers to his questions. And everything he’d read, everyone he’d spoken to, had pointed him here. Had told him in no uncertain terms that his best shot of getting answers about a disease that attacked the immune system lay right here in this building.

  So here he had come, prepared to do whatever it took to secure help. Knowing even as he’d made the trip that whatever happened—whatever came from his visit here today—it was on him. Good or bad, he would have to find a way to live with it.

  Dylan took the steps three at a time, bounding up four flights of stairs before he found the group of labs he was looking for. It was quiet here, no students roaming the halls as they had on the first floor. No noise at all save for the steady hum of the fluorescent lights and the air-purifying system.

  He started down the hall, his eyes on the door at the end of the passageway. Room 513. Inside that room lay the last hope he had for his people’s salvation. Even after losing his mate to the damn disease, Gabe was convinced that Dylan was simply hastening their damnation, but Dylan didn’t believe that. He couldn’t believe it, not if he wanted to stay sane.

  But with each step he took down the hallway, his dragon grew more agitated. More violent. As it raged, its claws raked his skin from the inside and its fire threatened to burn him alive.

  He tried to ignore it, but doing so was nearly impossible. He could feel his temperature rising, feel his control over the beast weakening with each second that passed. It didn’t like being confined, hated being in man-made structures for any longer than necessary. Even so, it had never reacted like this before, desperate and determined and oh, so dangerous.

  Once again he asked himself if he was doing the right thing, even as he reminded himself that what he was doing was the only thing.

  Stopping right before he got to the door, he struggled to get his animal side under control. If he went into the lab like this, Dr. Quillum would be more likely to call the police than she would be to help him, and he couldn’t afford that.

  Couldn’t afford to alienate her.

  Couldn’t afford any delay in getting her back to New Mexico.

  And yet the dragon didn’t want to be controlled. It was past reason, past understanding—all it knew was out.

  The need to shift was nearly overwhelming, but Dylan ignored it as he pulled himself inward. He focused on soothing the great beast that lived inside of him, but for the first time since he’d gained control of the animal and his ability to shift in his early twenties, it refused to obey him. Refused to calm down. Instead it snapped and snarled, slamming against his insides in its desperation to escape.

  For one brief, horrifying moment, he felt the change try to take him—felt his fingers curve and sharpen into talons, felt his back burn where his wings started to push through the layers of muscle and skin.

  Goddamn it, no. Not here, not now.

  Sweat broke out on his forehead as he shoved the change back down. His entire body shook with the effort to stay in control, especially when a part of him wanted nothing more than to give himself over to the pleasure and the pain—and the power—of the change.

  Head lowered, he braced his hands against the wall and fought for the upper hand. Murmured incantations, invoked magic to help him maintain control. The words that fell from his lips were ancient and familiar, though it had been four hundred years since he’d had to use them. Four hundred years since he’d had to struggle like this with his beast. Usually, the two parts of him—human and dragon—coexisted p
eacefully.

  He didn’t understand why that had suddenly changed.

  Another image flashed in front of his eyes, this one of his friend Duncan before he’d succumbed to the same mysterious disease that had taken Marta. He’d died, trapped halfway between dragon and man, his body and his powers completely paralyzed.

  That couldn’t be happening to him, Dylan assured himself, even as panic started to churn in his gut. He wasn’t dying of that fucking disease. Not now; not yet. He couldn’t be.

  There was no one else to take his place—despite all the years he’d spent trying to change that. His people needed him.

  The thought of his responsibilities calmed the dragon like nothing else could, and his human side was finally able to dominate. The dragon didn’t retreat completely—he could still feel it there, wary, watching, waiting for him to slip up—but at least it was manageable.

  He took a deep breath, whispered an incantation for good luck. Then thrust the door open and stepped inside. Too late, he realized his mistake as the dragon came roaring back to life.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The loud bang stopped Phoebe’s heart for the second time in as many weeks. One second passed, then two, before it picked up a disjointed rhythm again. In the meantime, she pulled her mind away from the DNA mutation Harvard’s very own supercomputer had spit out two days before—and that she was still struggling to connect to her research—and reminded herself again that she needed to do something about the damn door before she died of a heart attack.

  But her first glance at the door—and the tall, dark intruder standing there—had her inching toward the phone and wondering just how long it would take the campus police to respond. Usually, she wasn’t one to judge a book by its cover, but this guy had trouble written all over him.