He deserved better from her.
“You will find the answer, ma cherie. I have news on that front.” He changed the subject. “I called Luka and they’ll be here sometime tomorrow. There’s some kind of antigen in his mate’s blood. They haven’t been able to render a cure that works on the zombies. But Luka was infected and it saved him.”
The possibility excited her. “If I can reproduce the antigen and get it to bond with your form of the virus rather than attack it, we could have a winner!”
Still, a part of Daphne did not like the idea of any part of him bonding with any part of another woman. She chided herself for being completely ridiculous. A cure, then a vaccine that could save the world, and she was worried about where the cells had come from.
The expression on his face was quite self-satisfied.
“I don’t know what you’re smirking at.” She leaned back down over her data.
“You don’t like that idea at all, do you?” Gone was the man who doubted his Alpha status and in his place was a sexy male who knew his own appeal.
She’d always thought men were simple creatures. For both of her parents, it was always about logic. Point A. Point B. Conclusion. The few men in her inner circle, and those she knew professionally, were all focused on higher brain function. Emotions played no part, except for victory when another answer was found, or a better question was asked.
This creature was complicated. He had feelings and base, primal needs he acknowledged and didn’t apologize for. He was logical, but he was emotional, too. Passionate about everything in a way she’d never seen before. Daphne had been taught that real men were these higher beings who didn’t let instinct or emotion control them.
But they did.
He fit all of her other requirements of masculinity. He was strong, but he used his strength to protect. He put her needs first in all things, even when it brought him pain. He was noble, he was loyal and he allowed his heart to have a place in his life.
“No, I don’t like it at all,” she confessed. “If I could think of any other viable way, your cells and her cells wouldn’t even touch on a slide.”
“Ah, my Daphne.” He laughed and grabbed her around the waist, dragging her flush against him.
“You know I can’t think when you do that.” Just being close to him lit a fire in her that burned too hot to ignore.
“Think tomorrow.”
It occurred to her as he carried her outside to the private beach that regardless of all the ugliness that had brought them here, or what was still to come, she was happy.
Daphne knew she’d have to remember these moments when things seemed hopeless. For all that she wished she’d find a cure, they’d save the world and live happily ever after, the real world didn’t work that way.
Chapter Nine
Daphne found Marijka Stanislav to be just her kind of woman. She’d been a Guild cop and a scientist herself. She was easy to talk to and Daphne decided that even though she was gorgeous, she was completely enamored with her own mate, and maybe Daphne wouldn’t have to put flesh-eating bacteria in her coffee, after all.
The days at the beach house with them felt like a normal life. Normal for Daphne anyway. Mornings were spent huddled over microscopes and papers, picking at the strings to unravel the puzzle. Lazy afternoons were spent in the sand. And the nights—after dinner Luka and Marijka shed their skins to run the night.
She knew Konstantin wished they could do the same, but since that last afternoon that they were alone, he hadn’t spoken of it.
After severl weeks of this routine, Marijka sensed her conflict. “I wouldn’t normally stick my nose where it’s not invited, but I like you. So I’m inviting myself.”
Daphne looked up from her work. “What do you mean?”
“I used to hate werewolves. I wanted every last one of them to die a horrible death.”
That was the last thing she ever expected Marijka to say. She was so happy. Her life was practically perfect. “But—”
“I know.” She nodded. “Mated to the Alpha of Alphas. A werewolf myself. Yeah. The world works in strange ways, sometimes.” Marijka grabbed her hand, seemingly both for support and to keep her from running away. “I was terrified of them. My mother was killed by one, and I found her body. My partner was killed by these beast things. I had to process his body so he didn’t become one of them. I really do understand why you’re conflicted.”
“How do you know I’m conflicted?” Had Konstantin been talking to her about what had happened between them?
“You’re not going to like the answer, but as you know, not liking an answer doesn’t change what it is.” Marijka smiled. “There’s a wolf inside you, Daphne. Your curiosity, your cunning, your ferocity. Honey, you’re missing out on some of the best perks of being mated. It completes the link between you. The wolves don’t call what they feel love because one word can’t contain all that it is they—we—feel.”
“You had to let him bite you.” She wrinkled her nose.
“I did.” She nodded. “He was infected and the necromancers were going to send him to the Abyss. It’s a place that looks like how you’d picture hell, but it’s cold and frozen—dark. I wasn’t about to let him go alone. So, his bite wasn’t what changed me. What was inside me changed me. Does that make sense?”
“I’m human,” Daphne said stubbornly.
“No.” She shook her head. “You’re not. Even if you never let your wolf out of her cage, she’s still in there. You can’t take only what you like from her. You have to accept all of her.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Neither did I.” Marijka turned Daphne’s hand over and inspected her palm.
“Are you reading my palm?” she teased.
Marijka looked up at her, serious. “Yes. I am wolf, but I am Gypsy, always.” She studied her palm for a bit longer.
Daphne looked and saw folds in her skin that didn’t mean anything to her except how she’d wrinkle when she was old.
“It’s just as I suspected.” Marijka showed her own palm. “Our fate lines match. You’re going to have to face your darkest fear, and if you can’t defeat it, not only will you suffer, but Konstantin will, too.”
Rather than say she didn’t believe in “that kind of thing” she asked, “Is that what happened to you?”
“Yes.”
Daphne sighed and looked back into the microscope at the samples she’d just tested. She’d rather look at the crawling things than think about facing anything else that would change the lines that defined her world. She had enough to manage.
Only, there would be no reprieve. The sample had gone from blue to clear. The squirming threads of the virus weren’t simply dormant.
They were gone.
“Marijka!”
“I know it’s hard—”
“Look! The sample! We did it.” Disbelief wound tight, choking her. She wanted the cure, she did, but it meant that this time here was over. They’d be back in the fray fighting, hiding, looking over their shoulders.
She’d known it had to end, like all things. Daphne wasn’t ready for this. While they’d been focusing on finding the cure, all of the other problems had been shoved under the carpet, and Daphne wanted to leave them there.
“Kon, Luka! She did it!” Marijka yelled.
Daphne still hated it that she called him Kon. Maybe she’d get the flesh-eating bacteria in her coffee anyway.
“We still need to test it,” she mumbled.
Konstantin grabbed her for a tight hug. “I’m so proud of you, mon ange.”
His approval warmed her, like the sun on her skin.
“We still have to test it,” she said again. “In a lab, we’d run hundreds more tests, we’d—”
“We’d not have to worry about the immediate and systematic decimation of humanity. You did it. We’ll field-test it. If it doesn’t work, you’ll find something else that does.”
“I’ll call Senator Bardot and see if we can
find Ian’s new facility. I’m sure he had a plan B,” Luka said. “That should offer plenty of test subjects.”
Daphne was in shock. She’d expected years and years of trial and error before they even came close to a cure.
“Good news,” Luka said when he hung up the phone. “Bardot chartered a plane right after I did. He’s been in Charlotte waiting for my call. We’ll go to him.”
“That’s a little too convenient, don’t you think?” Marijka asked. “He was pretty close at hand outside Aynkava, too, from what you said. I don’t trust him.”
“We don’t have to trust him, but we do need him,” Luka replied. “He said he has a test subject.”
“I thought you destroyed them all?” Konstantin asked.
“There were infections here.”
“Thanks to my brother. But all of the infected at the Blue Ridge Facility expired or were killed by me.”
“What about Bethany?” Daphne asked, knots in her gut.
Konstantin closed his eyes, obviously reaching out as an Alpha to his Beta to get a sense of her. “No, she’s not pleased at the moment, but she’s fine.” Konstantin’s eyes narrowed. “The infected here were much different than the packs at Aynkava. Here they’re weaker. Either the virus mutated or some factor affected the virility.”
“That day at the facility, I found Ian in the lab shooting what I’m sure was a pure form of the virus into his veins. He wouldn’t have kept doing that if he wasn’t seeing results or hadn’t tampered with its formula.”
“We have to see what Bardot knows. We won’t tip our hand. Marijka and I will take a small sample of the cure and meet with him tonight. You two should be on your guard,” Luka instructed.
Marijka put her arms around Daphne for an impromptu hug. “Take care of you, and remember what I said, okay?”
Daphne nodded. “You, too.” This felt like goodbye. “Just so you know, I decided not to poison your coffee.”
Marijka laughed. “I get it. I wouldn’t want your cells doing anything with Luka’s either. We will see each other again. Maybe not tonight, or even tomorrow, but we will. I promise.”
When they were gone, Konstantin asked, “What was that about?”
She decided to tell him. “Marijka read my palm. She said that I’ll have to face my darkest fear and if I fail, we all die. No pressure, you know.” Daphne tried to laugh it off, but it fell short.
“You don’t have to face it alone.” He pulled her close, but she found no comfort.
“I think I do. Isn’t that the point?” It wouldn’t be facing it if she didn’t do it alone—that would be letting him face it for her.
“I don’t care what the point is.” He tossed this last out casually as if they were only talking about the weather.
And it might as well have been. Daphne looked at Konstantin, but this time she really saw him. He wasn’t being blasé, or trying to brush off her fears. It really didn’t matter to him what he’d agreed to face, because he’d do it for her.
She’d have never thought under his fearless Alpha veneer that anything hurt him, or anything frightened him. Daphne knew better now, but she also knew he’d do everything he promised.
Her worst fear was living in a world that made no sense, filled with dark things she couldn’t explain, couldn’t class away and file in their proper place. Only, her mate was one of those things. The man she loved.
And she did love him. He’d become her everything.
She thought about what Marijka had said about Luka and not allowing him to go into the Abyss alone. Her fears seemed pale and scrawny in comparison. Daphne couldn’t let Konstantin spend eternity alone. No matter what else happened to them, he had to know the true depth of how she felt.
Of what he was worth.
She knew what she had to do.
“I’m ready,” she whispered.
“Woman, you’re insatiable.” Konstantin hauled her up and wrapped her legs around his waist.
As good as it felt and as easy it would be to forget what she’d said, what she’d almost committed to doing, Daphne had to be strong. “Not for this, although after would be good.” She bit her lip and stared into his electric-blue eyes for a long moment to drive her words home. “I’m ready for you to claim me in all ways.”
She turned her head to the side, and closed her eyes.
His bite never came.
“What are you doing?” His body tensed.
Daphne blinked. “What do you think I’m doing? I love you and I want forever. We deserve the happiness that Marijka and Luka have, and we can’t have it until I stop being afraid.”
A new voice shattered their tender moment. “No, love. You should be very, very afraid.”
Chapter Ten
His brother stood in the doorway, eyes like electric lights, but instead of blue they were green. Yet another strain of the virus.
Ian had finally succeeded.
“What do you want?” Konstantin demanded.
“To know what her flesh tastes like—” Ian snarled as his teeth elongated “—while she screams.”
White-hot fury scalded him from the inside out, but Konstantin restrained his beast. Barely. “No, what you want is to push me to uncontrollable rage. To what end? If you’ve managed the change, you don’t need my bite.” Konstantin restrained his beast, knowing that the man would have dominion in this arena.
“Maybe I just want to...what is it, Daphne? Play with my food?” He tossed back bits and pieces of Konstantin’s interactions with Daphne, obviously to elicit more of a response.
“Games? I enjoy croquet.” Konstantin wanted Ian’s attention only on him.
“I know exactly what you enjoy. I sensed Daphne was your mate the moment I met her. So I kept her close. Even had a tracking device implanted under her skin during her ‘routine vaccinations’ for the job.”
Konstantin sharpened a barb of his own and fired. “Of course you did. That’s always been the only way for a dog with one skin like you to get a female.”
Ian roared, his beastly aspect obviously dominating the sharp intellect that used to serve him so well. “When I’ve torn you limb from limb—”
“You’d be dreaming and better wake up and apologize,” Daphne growled and stabbed him with a needle full of the cure.
Only, Daphne wasn’t fast enough. In the seconds it took her to stab him and leap to safety, Ian shed his skin, and while the cure was still shooting through the needle, his jaws snapped around her neck.
All coherent thought fled.
The world stopped turning.
Nothing existed for Konstantin in that moment except the crimson splash of her blood on his brother’s muzzle and a wholly animal rage that shook the earth with its might.
The cure didn’t “cure” Ian at all—it made him stronger. It gave him what the virus had been missing—the permanent bond.
He doubled in size, his roar of fury as loud and powerful as Konstantin’s.
None of that mattered. All that mattered was the woman on the floor whose lifeblood spilled around her like a brightly painted blossom.
Ian must have expected her death to break Konstantin, to make him weak. But Konstantin knew he had all the long years without her that yawned before him to break—to mourn.
His brother slashed at him with sharp claws, driving them into his belly, but he didn’t break the skin. He bit at him with long, sharp teeth, but his bites didn’t pierce him.
Konstantin was the Alpha—his virus dominant. His genes dominant. The new infection squirming inside Ian quailed under his might.
Once, he’d let his guilt hold him back. His shame over his father and Ian had kept him from being the Alpha he was meant to be.
No more.
Konstantin roared again, drawing on his strength and power. The ground shook again, the windows shattered and the walls of the little hovel crumbled.
Konstantin drove his claws into his brother’s body, ripping him from stem to sternum, but rather than the virus s
titching him back together or Ian returning the blow, a younger version of Ian crawled from the carcass as the wolf’s body fell from his shoulders like a cloak.
Witchcraft.
“Give me the bite, brother?” He looked up at him with pleading eyes.
The same face that had asked him for his bite all those years ago.
The same pain that had been in his eyes then bloomed there now, but green fibers pulsed under his skin.
Daphne’s body in the background was enough to close his heart to any words his brother uttered. Konstantin sliced him again.
And still, moving around in the corpse was an even younger version of Ian. Konstantin realized he had to take back the lives he’d given his brother.
“Will you save me, brother?” Ian asked him again, holding his arms out for Konstantin to embrace him.
Konstantin embraced his brother, gathered him close and drove his claws into his gut, tearing up through him to rip out his heart.
“Brother,” Ian gasped, clinging tightly to him. He had an expression of peace on his face that he had never had in life while he disintegrated to ash.
Konstantin’s rage vanished with the ash. All that was left was a hole so dark and deep, it was blacker than the Abyss.
His human form washed over him and he gathered Daphne’s body close. His hands were covered in her blood, the bright crimson stain the only color he could see.
“Don’t go,” he begged, even though he knew it was too late. A wretched wail of a howl was torn from him as his grief welled up. “Don’t leave me in the dark without you.”
He made deals with gods and devils, swore oaths by ancient curses and pacts—he’d do anything to keep her for one more day. He’d trade his immortality, trade his wolf... He’d be human if that’s what it took. Anything for one more chance with her. One more second to tell her in words that he loved her.
Her fingers tightened briefly around his and joy burst like sun flares inside him. Until he looked and saw the flesh of her wound knitting back together. The green fibers of infection stitching her up.
She didn’t want this.
But Goddess help him, he couldn’t let go now.
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