“That’s exactly what I think.”
“You must know that the Clan Leader is well respected in L.A,” she said. “It will be very difficult to convince people that he would influence anyone’s thoughts.”
“I know. That is why I have asked for help. I can’t just go out accusing him of this atrocity. I must have proof. Right now, all I have is my word. I don’t even have the benefit of public respect to back me up. That is why I have agreed to research possibilities.”
“A mutual show of faith?” she asked.
Merrick nodded. “That’s what I am hoping for.”
“I see,” she said. But Merrick could tell that she didn’t. He was going to have to do something drastic to win this little woman over.
“Come,” he said, stretching to a standing position. “I want to show you something.” She followed him out of the hotel room and into the parking lot.
“What are we doing out here?” she asked.
“I couldn’t do this inside,” he said. Then, he pulled on his magic. His form shifted and reshaped into his dragon.
“Holy cow,” Elizabeth breathed. The massive red creature before her was magnificent. “Beautiful,” she breathed.
Climb on, he said in her mind.
She shook her head.
Trust me.
Elizabeth reluctantly climbed onto the dragon’s back. She didn’t know why, but she knew that he would let no harm come to her. She scampered up his back, using his powerful hind leg as a step, and settled herself onto his back.
Hold on to my neck, he said. She secured her arms around his thick neck and had to press her body close to make her hands reach around. As soon as she was secure, Merrick shot up into the sky. The few people who had gathered on the ground below heard her exhilarated scream of delight.
FIFTEEN
Rebel was swimming in a sea of black. There was nothing to see, nothing to hear. Every now and again, he would catch the impression of light, or the thought of sound. But nothing concrete, just vague images and whispers of sound that very well could have come from his own imagination.
And oh, the things he could imagine! He imagined he was slowly roasting in the midday sun, the burning sensation on his skin was so acute. He imagined that razor blades were slowly and deliberately being drawn across his back. He imagined that he had been poisoned and his intestines were tying themselves up in knots trying to rid himself of it.
Of all which wasn’t really happening.
He hoped.
The last thing he could remember was being with Leigh. He had made her his. And then, pain. Oh God, the pain. And that wasn’t just a memory. Every time he thought the pain was gone, it would rear its ugly head again, slicing through his body and making his mind scream. What he would give to have an outlet for it! But his body was lost to him. He could feel nothing but the pain. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. How long had he been like this? It could have been hours, weeks, or hell, it felt like forever. Time had no meaning. It was one, continuous, unending moment of horror. It was a black dream that he couldn’t wake up from.
He tried to find some kind of something, anything, that he could hold on to. Some kind of fixed stimuli that he could depend on. Any anchor that he could grab on to and hold himself to sanity.
But there was nothing. Nothing existed but the pain.
Not for an endless and unendurable amount of time.
But then, something changed.
Rebel realized that he could hear something. It was faint, but it was there. It was a faint whooshing noise. He concentrated on the steady sound. When he concentrated, he could sense the presence of someone near him. Breathing. The steady sound was someone breathing.
He counted the breaths of the one who was sitting with him. Finally, he knew that at least, he wasn’t alone. He found that he could count the time by the metronomic sound.
Soon, the breathing was accompanied by a distinct thud-thud. A heartbeat. His senses were clearing. Amazingly so. He could hear the drag of air into the lungs. He could distinctly tell the difference between the inhale and the exhale.
Someone knocked lightly. Rebel could hear the soft fall of booted feet on the carpet. The singular heartbeat kicked up a notch and was joined by second, slower one.
“Anything?” Leigh’s voice asked from right beside him. It was most definitely her. He would know her voice anywhere. But it was different, too. Rebel imagined he could see the different colors of the rainbow bending and twisting within the pitch of her voice, as if each vocal cord she used had its own color to go with its own distinct sound. In his mind’s eye, it created a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. It was a symphony, too beautiful to describe accurately.
“Actually, no.” It was Gage. His voice presented in Rebel’s mind in colors as well, only darker and vibrating instead of rolling and twisting.
Man, whatever he was on, it was one hell of a trip.
He listened to the orchestra of sounds that surrounded him, letting it dull the pain and lull him into a peaceful rest. With his mind at ease, Rebel realized that he had gone through something similar once before in his life. When he had been turned. That one, dark night when his mortal life had been stolen from him, and his new life as a vampire had begun.
He had thought for certain he would die that night from the pain. Thought his life was over. But even that night had nothing on the pain he experienced now.
Leigh stayed by Rebel’s side faithfully. She counted the time by the visitors to his room. Each of his brothers took turns checking on them. They brought her food when it was time to eat, not that Leigh had any appetite. It was only on Angel’s insistence that she even tried.
She watched Rebel for any sign of improvement. But he displayed none. He lay there, still as a corpse, barely breathing. The steady drip, drip, drip of the bagged blood and other fluids that dripped into his IV was the only sound in the room. The monitors that Jacque had connected to him ran on silent mode, so that Leigh would be able to detect the slightest sound from Rebel. But there had been none. There was no outward sign that Rebel was still inside that body. What if her blood had scrambled his brain? He had a seizure, after all. That was definitely a sign of brain damage. Leigh battled the hopelessness she felt welling inside her. She had to be strong. She had to be ready if he woke up. When he woke up. He had to wake up.
“Do not be so hard on yourself,” Jacque said to her.
“Jacque,” she said, “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I am not surprised. You looked very deep in thought. I know you blame yourself, but please, Cherie, you must know that no one blames you.”
“I know. Any luck on those tests?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Jacque replied. “His blood has taken on a strange activity. There are cells that act like cancer attacking his red cells. They are engulfing and changing them. And the rate is increasing. No matter how much blood I pump into him, the anomaly cells are working twice as fast. I don’t know what to do for him.”
“Is it my cells?” Leigh had given Jacque samples of her blood to compare with, along with anything else he had wanted. She had allowed the vampires to poke and prod her for anything that might help.
“I don’t know,” Jacque replied. “I am working on it and I promise you that I will not give up until I have an answer.”
“I wish I knew what to do for him,” Leigh said, fighting a wave of tears. “If there was something, I would do it, no matter the cost.”
“I know,” Jacque told her. “We all would. But for now, all we can do is wait.”
“Ugh.”
Both Leigh’s and Jacque’s heads whipped around to look at Rebel. His brow was wrinkled, his face pinched in a grimace.
“Rebel?” Leigh asked, leaning over him.
“Mmm,” was his answer.
“Rebel,” Jacque said, louder than Leigh had. “Are you back, Brother?”
Rebel grimaced harder. He looked like he was trying to wake up from a ba
d dream. He twitched under his blanket. Leigh jerked the cover back and grasped his hand, squeezing it in her own. He squeezed her back. Weakly, but the motion was there.
“Talk to me,” she whispered.
Rebel’s mouth began to work, but no sound came out. Leigh leaned down closer to him. “What? I couldn’t hear you.”
His mouth moved again. The sound was barely more than a hoarse whisper. “Thirsty.”
“Hot damn!” Jacque exclaimed, leaping out of his chair. He shouted mental updates to his brothers while racing for the kitchen. He ran into Gage on the stairs, barely muttering that Rebel was awake and thirsty before darting into the kitchen at inhuman speed.
He opened the fridge, retrieved a bottle of blood, popped it into the microwave and waited. The one minute it took to warm the blood to ninety eight degrees was horrendously long. But the microwave finally beeped and Jacque removed the bottle and raced back to Rebel’s room.
He forced his way into the room, having to shove his brothers who had gathered already aside. Leigh had wiggled herself behind Rebel so that he was kind of sitting up with his head on her chest. “Here man, I brought you something.” Jacque thrust the bottle forward, and Leigh took it from him.
She angled the bottle to Rebel’s lips and tipped it. The warmed blood trickled into his mouth slowly at first, but as his throat began to work, he pulled it down faster. Only when the bottle was drained did Leigh remove it from his lips.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“Welcome back, Cowboy,” Leigh replied with false irritation. Her smile belied her sarcastic tone and Rebel sagged back against her.
“Want more?” Jacque asked.
“I’ll get it,” Gage offered.
Rebel shook his head.
“Is there anything you want?” Antonio asked.
“We were worried for you, Mon Ami,” Angel said.
Rebel didn’t have the strength to reply. He knew that he needed blood to recover, but at that moment, his stomach didn’t agree. The thought was actually kind of repulsive to him. He had burned up all his strength forcing that crap Jacque had brought down his throat.
That was something important, his mind warned him. Rebel tried to sit up again to say as much, but his stomach lurched. He managed to turn away from Leigh and get his head over the side of the bed before vomiting violently.
“Shit!”
“Merde!”
“Hell!”
A chorus of expletives rang out around him as he emptied the blood from his stomach. He wished everyone except Leigh would just go away. But he couldn’t tell them that. Every time he opened his mouth, he gagged. He retched until there was nothing left, and still his body heaved. He almost wished he would just die and get the shit over with once and for all. The last thing he thought before the darkness took him over was that this was really, really bad.
SIXTEEN
“What the fuck are we supposed to do now?” Gage insisted after Rebel passed out again.
“I don’t know,” Jacque said, shaking his spiked head. “Blood is what he needs, but his body can hold no more. I can’t keep feeding it to him when he’s already full.”
“Did you stop to think that perhaps it made him sick because it was not his mate’s?” Angel offered.
All heads turned in his direction. “What do you mean?” Sebastian asked, slowly.
“I mean, he wears Leigh’s mark, or had no one noticed?” Angel answered, gesturing to Rebel’s neck.
Leigh gently turned his head to expose Rebel’s neck. There was a deep, black and gold tattoo on his neck that hadn’t been there before. The lines curved and licked at his skin like a flame. It looked like a flame. Fire. Dragon.
Fuck.
“He had given himself to you, and you to him,” Angel told her. “You wear his mark as well.”
Leigh’s fingers automatically went to her neck where Rebel had bitten her. Angel nodded.
“But, I don’t understand,” Leigh reluctantly admitted.
“Many mated vampires can only drink from their mates,” Gage explained. “To some it is a choice, but to others, it is a physical impossibility to drink from someone else. Rebel is obviously one that must drink from his mated woman.”
“But my blood did this to him!” she wailed.
“We will find a way,” Jacque told her. “In the mean time, I believe congratulations are in order.”
“Thank you,” Leigh muttered. “But I don’t see how any of this can come out good.”
“Stay with him. When he wakes again, let him feed from you if that is what he needs.” Angel motioned for his men to leave the room. “Jacque will continue working on finding a cure for this, whatever it is. We are all at your disposal, Leigh.” He bowed to her deep at the waist and placed his hand over his heart.
Leigh watched the five vampires leave the room. She wished there was something she could do to fix this mess she had made. But she didn’t have a clue how. She would have given anything to take it back. Anything at all. Even if it meant that she had never met him. He was irritating, sure, but Leigh found herself quite fond of him. She wished she was the one who was sick instead. The thought surprised her as much as she knew she meant it. But then, that’s what people did for people they loved.
Loved. Hell. Holy mother of every damned curse word she ever thought and then some.
She loved him. That stupid, stalker, inconsiderate, pushy, no-brained, cowboy/vampire had wormed his way into her heart and she loved him. And it terrified her. What if he died? What if he lived? What if he recovered and Merrick found out and killed him?
No, she would not let any more harm come to her mate. She would find a way to feed him. She would do whatever it took to nurse him back to health, and then, she would protect him with her life. She made this vow to herself and to her mate as she spooned her body around the back of his and pulled the cover up over them both. She draped her arm around his chest and held him tight to her own. Mine, she thought as she drifted off into a much needed sleep.
When Rebel woke up again sometime later, and he had no idea how long that was, he was covered in a sheen of sweat. There was something very warm wrapped around his body. Not something, he realized, but someone. Leigh was curled around his back, her leg thrown over his, her arm around his middle. In fact, she had a death grip on him. Her breathing was smooth and even, telling him without a doubt that she had fallen asleep. He smiled.
He really needed to get something to drink. His throat was dry as the Sahara, his eyes were gritty and felt like he had poured two cups of sand in each one. Aside from that, he felt pretty decent. Tired, hungry, thirsty, and like he had been run over by a Mac truck, but overall, he thought he might live.
His stomach growled. It hadn’t done that in ages. Not so long as he could remember. Not since before he turned. He was hungry. For food. And, he had to use the bathroom. Of course, he had that problem before. A vampire didn’t need the facilities unless they ate food or drank something other than blood. Blood was absorbed into the body, but food and drink was digested just like humans did. But as far as he could remember, he hadn’t had any food or drink.
He let his eyes wander the room. An IV had been set up and some kind of yellowish liquid was dripping into his veins. No wonder he had to pee. He had been pumped full of fluids. Rebel knew that it was nutrients that his body needed. Jacque had set him up. He would have to thank his brother.
He listened to the sounds of the house. Since it was very quiet, Rebel decided that it must be daytime. His brothers would all be sleeping now. Leigh must have stayed up with him all night. He loved the way her body felt snuggled up against his. He liked the way she curled around him possessively. Memories flitted into his mind. Glimpses of the press release, of the argument that followed. He remembered with startling clarity all the things he had let Leigh do to him. She was a firecracker, that one. But she was his.
And then, he remembered the pain. He remembered being surrounded by darkness. He remembered ev
erything.
What the hell happened? He had been sick, but now he felt much better. And he remembered throwing up. Yuck. He never was fond of retching. But then again, who was? He couldn’t think of anyone who wanted vomit spewing from their mouths; and of course it always came out his nose. In fact, he could still smell it. Disgusting. Regardless, he was going to have to put something in his stomach.
As if to further the point, he stomach growled again.
Rebel untangled himself from Leigh’s limbs as gently as he could. He didn’t want to wake her. He knew that she must have been very stressed and worried for him, and she needed the rest. It wasn’t easy, but he finally managed to free himself from the cage of her body. He pulled the IV from his arm and tied the tube in a knot to keep it from dripping all over the floor.
Once he was standing, Rebel had to hold the post of the bed frame for support. A wave of vertigo washed over him and for just a second, he thought he might hit the floor again. But he regained his balance and set out for the bathroom. A quick peek out the bathroom window told him that it was in fact, daytime. Rebel shrugged. He had no idea how long he’d been down sick, so in fact, his sense of time was just off.
After taking care of business and washing his hands, Rebel went for the kitchen. The kitchen was dark and quiet, but Rebel had no trouble finding the refrigerator. He winced as he opened it and the light shone brightly against the otherwise dark room.
He started to grab one of the many bottles of blood stored there, but the thought of throwing up again detoured that idea. Instead, he felt a demanding craving for orange juice. Maybe he was low on vitamin C. After rooting around a bit, he found a small juice box. It no doubt belonged to Jade, Angel’s daughter, but she would share.
Rebel popped the straw through the tiny opening and lifted the box to his lips. The first pull surprised him. He hadn’t had orange juice in years, but he thought he remembered what it tasted like. He had been wrong. The tangy flavor exploded on his tongue, both acidic and sweet. He rolled the liquid around in his mouth before swallowing it down. It felt cold and delicious going down his throat. When it hit his stomach, Rebel tensed. He waited for the urge to vomit, but it didn’t come. Instead, he wanted more.
INTO THE FIRE (Forbidden Love) Page 10