“Oh.” Aidan looked at Nik, then Shay, and Nik figured his face was probably as flushed as hers. “Oh. You understand that one of us needs to supervise it so—what?”
Krys dragged Aidan toward the door. “You do what you need to do,” she told Nik. “We’ll be in our room two doors down from you. Should anyone need help, let us know.”
Aidan stopped her before they cleared the doorway. “And I want a report before daysleep, even if everything’s fine. Got it?”
Nik got it.
Chapter 41 * Shay
“Are you sure?” Shay pulled a syringe filled with the anti-vaccine, vampire edition, from the small black refrigerator that sat in the corner of the lab.
Nik pulled his sweater over his head. “Only if you give the injection.”
She smiled and walked toward him. “You’re saying it like that’s going to be a sexy thing, but you’re scared of needles, aren’t you?” Big baby.
“Not at all. Only if I’m being asked to stick it in myself.”
She flipped off the cap and plunged in the needle in his arm before he had time to prepare.
“Ow.”
“It’s the price of dinner.” Shay disposed of the used syringe and took a deep breath. This felt like a momentous turn in their relationship. “Want to go downstairs for this?”
Nik looked around. “I did have something a little more romantic in mind. Not that this lab doesn’t have its charms.”
Labs were sexy to her, but then again, she embraced her geekdom. “C’mon soldier, let’s go downstairs.” Shay locked the lab and pocketed the key.
“Is that a new deadbolt?” Nik stopped and took another look. “Is that a new door?”
Shay nodded. “Once I had the anti-vaccines ready to test, I had a pretty good feeling one of them would work, although I wasn’t sure which one.” Actually, she had hoped both would work, so she thought she’d keep tweaking the other one. “Anyway, Mark has been keeping track of the progress and he showed up this afternoon with two guys, a steel door, and a new lock set.”
Until then, Shay hadn’t thought about it, but this lab had become valuable real estate because of its contents. Her notes were more than instructions on how to produce the anti-vaccine. This formula could be Aidan’s bargaining chip to end the infighting among the vampires. “You think we need to keep a guard on the lab?”
Nik nodded. “Definitely. Maybe Archer or Gadget during the day and one of the vampires at night. Me or Randa, or Cage if Will gets that first prosthetic ready for him next week.” Randa was also an Army veteran, and Shay had learned he’d always default to Army even in a choice of vampires. “I’ll talk to Mirren about it.”
After they climbed down into the hallway of subsuites, Shay took Nik’s hand. “You feeling okay? Does the injection make you feel any different?”
“Well, I feel like I want to be inside you in the worst way, but I always feel that.” He squeezed her hand. “I also feel a little hungry.”
“I guess we better do something about that.”
They went to his room since daysleep was so near. Once inside, Shay tugged off her own sweater so she could feel his warm skin next to hers. For the first time, not hidden under a duvet, her growing abdomen felt awkward and enormous.
“Hey.” Nik stroked a finger under her chin and raised her head to look at him. “Don’t ever do that. You’re beautiful.” He placed a warm hand on her belly. “And she’s beautiful.”
He kissed her then, and they finished undressing in a maelstrom of flying clothes until they were moving way past a kiss and, finally, he was inside her, hot and urgent.
Until he stopped and reached over to the nightstand, pulled out a drawer, and extracted a small knife. What the hell?
“Uh, Nik. Should I be concerned?”
“Probably.”
She gasped as he made a small puncture wound in his own neck with the tip of the knife, and began to move inside her again. “I want you to taste me. Before I taste you.”
Shay went still, so he followed suit. “I know what that means.”
He kissed her lips, then her forehead. “It means we are bondmates.”
“But we haven’t decided—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He talked between kisses as he worked his way down her neck and began a slow, steady rhythm inside her. “We can go somewhere else. We can have a long-distance relationship. We can do whatever you want. As long as you don’t walk away from me forever.”
His breath grew steadily more ragged, and she matched his pace. “Your neck’s already healed,” she whispered, not sure if she was relieved or disappointed.
He growled, fumbled again for the knife, and made a quick flick beneath his ear. “You first.”
Relishing the feel of him, his touch, his scent, she placed her mouth against the small cut and flicked her tongue across it. It didn’t taste like human blood—not like when you accidentally cut your finger and stuck it in your mouth. It was rich and almost sweet.
With a feral groan, Nik increased his rhythm and Shay felt herself about to go over the edge. Why didn’t he bite? Why didn’t he—”
She didn’t recognize the sound coming from her own throat as he timed his bite with her orgasm. She didn’t float; she drowned in waves of pleasure as he drew from the side of her neck. On and on, until she thought she might die from happiness. Then he stiffened in his own finish, straining upward with the stain of her blood on his lips.
Afterward, he licked the small wound on her neck to heal it. “Are you okay?”
Shay threw up one hand—the only thing she could move—and smiled. “Mmm-hmmm.”
Wait. She should be asking him that question. She sat up, pushing him off her. “Did it taste right? Did it make you sick at all? How do you feel?”
Those dark brown eyes were deep, half-focused pools. “Like the happiest fucking vampire on the planet.”
Oh, thank God. “Uh, you want to go and tell Aidan that?”
“Not especially.”
“We promised.”
He sighed. “You won’t let it go, will you?”
“No, and it needs to be you so they’ll believe you’re okay.” Not that Aidan or Krys would ever think she’d lie about it, but Aidan would feel better seeing Nik in the flesh.
Literally. The man rolled out of bed and walked to the door.
“Uh, you’re naked.” She felt the need to point it out in case he’d forgotten.
“Yep.” Nik turned in the doorway. “That means Aidan will be so uncomfortable he won’t prolong the conversation.”
He was back in under thirty seconds. “Told you.” He slipped in bed next to her and drew her into his arms.
“What did he say?”
Nik laughed. “He opened the door. Kept his eyes on my face. Said, and I quote, ‘Congratulations.’ Then he closed the door.”
Shay laughed too, then got the giggles as she thought about it more. “Too bad it wasn’t Mirren,” she gasped between spasms of laughter.
“I’d have put on underwear for Mirren.”
They lay in contentment for a while, and Shay figured Nik’s body was starting its shutdown for daysleep. She’d been up a long time herself, so she snuggled against him and hoped the baby didn’t mind vampire hours.
“Shay, have you thought about what you want to do once it’s safe to leave?”
It was the last thing she thought about going to sleep, the first thing upon waking—before she’d gotten her thoughts compartmentalized. “I haven’t come up with any answers that feel right. I promised Krys we would talk to Aidan.” Actually, Shay had promised she would talk to Aidan, but Nik had to be part of any decision she made.
“Why? He’s been pretty clear from what I understand. When he bought the land here and established Penton as his scathe’s home, he didn’t allow children. Hannah’s an exception, of course, because she’s vampire.”
“I don’t know. Maybe Krys thought he had some ideas we haven’t considered yet. I love Hannah
, by the way.”
Nik squeezed her shoulder. “So do I. She’s been lost since the couple who were her human parents got killed earlier this year. Well, they were her familiars and she thought of them as her parents. I’ve tried to spend as much time with her as I can. I think she gravitated to me, and vice-versa, because of the psychic thing.”
Part of Shay could picture a family in her mind. Nik, her, Hannah, and the baby. That family would work for a few years. But what about when her daughter was old enough to understand about vampires and wonder why her father and older sister couldn’t go outside during the daytime? Who would she play with when there were no other human children in Penton? She could be home-schooled, but how could she be socialized to function in a normal world where things like vampires didn’t exist except in novels and movies?
Shay didn’t know those answers. They were the ones that kept tripping her up, and just when she’d decide she had to make the break, she’d ask herself one more question:
Can you walk away and never see Nik Dimitrou again?
Shay awoke an hour before sunset, slipped out of Nik’s bed, and went next door to her own room to shower and change. Her first stretchy jeans had gotten too tight, so she reluctantly pulled out some real maternity leggings and one of the maternity tops Glory had ordered for her online and had delivered to the Penton post office box. Mark Calvert had set up the box in the nearby town of LaFayette, about eight or nine miles south. It was an off-white knit sweater tunic that made her feel like a cow.
She yawned as she climbed the ladder into the clinic and made her way down the hall to the lab. After the emotion of testing the anti-vaccines and then bonding with Nik—she had bonded with Nik!—Shay had wanted to stay beside him through most of his daysleep.
Now, she felt rested and ready to work. Nik would go on patrol duty as soon as he rose and got dressed anyway, and she’d made sure he was well fed later tonight, a thought that plastered a silly grin on her face.
She pulled out her key at the lab door, surprised to not find Archer sprawled on the floor in his usual spot, reading a book. The “kitty cat,” as Nik and Robin called him, had a secret penchant for shapeshifter novels, particularly romances involving big cats. He’d sworn Shay to secrecy.
It was so near time for the vampires to rise that she figured he’d gone in search of junk food, a habit Glory had found little success in breaking.
Shay slid her key in the lock and the dead bolt clicked open smoothly. The door, however, didn’t want to open. She finally had to press her shoulder against it and push with her body to make it budge. She stuck her head inside to identify the problem.
“Oh, God. Archer!” He lay on the ground blocking the door, so she pushed all her weight against the door to open it enough to squeeze through. There was blood everywhere—on the lab table, on the stools, on the floor, and especially on Archer.
Shay knelt over him, then froze. If Archer were blocking the door, whoever attacked him had to still be here, somewhere in the—
“Stand up.” Shay hadn’t heard the man come up behind her, but she couldn’t miss the blade he pressed against her throat.
She stood slowly, looking for signs of life in Archer and letting out a relieved breath at the slight rise and fall of his chest. His breathing was shallow, but he wasn’t dead.
“What do you want?” Shay tried to keep her voice calm, to take even breaths to put as little stress on the baby as possible.
“Several things. First, this.” He released her but before she could react, he slapped a wide strip of duct tape over her mouth. “What I don’t need from you is chatter.”
He shoved her away from him, and she turned to see who and what she was dealing with. Human, probably. The vampires were still down and she hadn’t seen signs of shifters during Simon Landry’s reign of terror. But the guy was stronger that her, regardless. A tall guy—maybe as tall as Archer—with white-blond hair buzzed close to his scalp. His red-flushed face clashed with his tight t-shirt. His bulked-up muscles fit in it like sausages stuffed into a vermillion-orange casing. It was probably an effect he liked.
“Mmmmm?” It was the closest she could get to asking again what he wanted, but, then again, she knew what he wanted. He wanted the formula for the anti-vaccine. And the only way he could possibly know about it is if someone who’d been in that tunnel last night told or if he was bonded to Frank or Marianne and already close enough to Penton for them to mentally communicate.
That was her bet.
“Give me the notes for your anti-vaccine. The one you gave to Mr. Greisser, not the one that made Ms. Turner sick.”
Shay turned toward the lab table and picked up the notebook where she’d tracked her progress with the anti-vaccine—not the one that worked, however. She’d turned that notebook over to Aidan last night, and was glad she didn’t know where he’d hidden it.
Muscles here wouldn’t know the difference. She hadn’t yet made the notation that this formula had failed.
She glanced up at the clock on the wall before turning back to Muscles. Still thirty minutes until the vampires rose. With her mouth taped shut, all she could do was send mental S.O.S. messages to Nik and pray that as soon as he woke, he’d know she was in trouble. They’d bonded just in time—if it worked.
“Mmmm!” She threw the notebook at him. She took meticulous notes, so even if they hired or kidnapped a chemist or epidemiologist, it would take them a while to go through them all and figure out it was the wrong anti-vaccine.
“You little bitch.” Muscles backhanded her across her cheek and nose, and she fell against one of the worktables. “You think any of us care now if you or that little brat you’re carrying gets hurt? That would be no.” He held up the notebook. “I need this, and I need you to take me to where Mr. Greisser is. After that, who fucking cares about you?”
So this was her choice. Die here and let this psycho loose to try and find Frank on his own, not knowing who else he would hurt, or lead him to Frank, hoping it would buy her enough time for help to arrive. She didn’t have keys to those cells, so it would take even Muscles a while to get the prisoners out.
Shay nodded, and jerked her head toward the door. Her chin itched, so she scrubbed it across her shoulder and left a smear of blood. The bastard had given her a nosebleed. The way it still throbbed, it might even be broken.
Oh well, the baby was safe so far, and a broken nose was no big thing. If she escaped the night with only those injuries, she’d count herself blessed.
Muscles held up his knife. “Don’t forget I can do to you what I did to your guard back there.” He mimicked drawing the knife across his throat.
Shay nodded again, edged around Archer and walked to the door. She had a slight stitch in her side but she exaggerated it, holding onto her stomach and faking a limp. Couldn’t walk too fast with a limp, and while she felt Muscles right on her heels, he didn’t try to rush her more.
Shay stopped at the first hatch and pointed down the ladder to the tunnels.
“Go first, and don’t do anything stupid.” Muscles gestured with his knife.
Shay climbed down slowly, then took off at a run, ripping the tape off her mouth. She’d climb the hatch into the training center and find someone. Anyone. The training center was never empty. “Help! Anybody! I’m in the tunnels!”
“Goddamn you.” Behind her, Muscles seemed to slip on the ladder, but his footfalls were growing louder behind her. Shay reached the ladder into the training center hatch, but felt big hands grasp her ankles before she was close enough to push the hatch open. She screamed as loud as she could.
The man pulled her off the ladder and threw her to the concrete floor. Shay landed hard on her left shoulder and hip and lay still for a moment, trying to control her breathing. She had to be more careful. Hang on, baby girl.
“Get up.” Muscles pulled her up by her right arm, and Shay stood against the concrete wall for a minute to make sure she could stay upright. “You wouldn’t be goin’ up th
ose rungs if Mr. Greisser was up there, so keep going to where he is.”
Shay continued to limp along the tunnel, only her limp wasn’t a fake this time. Pain shot from her hip to…everywhere. Nik, help me. Greisser’s cell. Help me. She kept up the mental litany. Could he hear her? Had they been bonded long enough for that vampire trick to work?
She didn’t dare scream again until she thought there was someone close enough to hear.
A few feet from where the tunnel branched to the left and ended at the cells, Shay stopped and pointed. “There. The cells are at the end.”
Muscles shoved her ahead of him and Shay fought to stay on her feet. “I said you first.”
She felt along the walls and found the lights that illuminated the tunnels. Frank and Marianne lay on their respective cots, still out.
“Good girl.” Muscles turned to face her, and Shay waited for the knife to sink into her belly, to kill her and the baby in one bold stroke. So when his fist slammed into her jaw, it took her by surprise. Her molars sank into her tongue and she landed face down—baby down—on the concrete. Instinctively she curled in a fetal position, so when the man’s heavy boot kicked her, it slammed into her lower back instead of her belly or side.
“Leave the bitch alone and get us out of here. Knock her out, but don’t kill her—we’ll need her alive.” Frank Greisser’s heavily accented voice penetrated the fog of Shay’s brain and roused her from following the promise of pain-free unconsciousness.
Her head pounded, so she couldn’t be sure. But in the distance, she thought she heard the training center hatch open.
Chapter 42 * Glory
Glory was running late, still stashing the leftovers from early dinner at the training center fridge. Usually, she tried to get the dishes cleared, and leftovers packed up for the hovering bachelors and non-cooks to take home with them, with an hour to spare before Mirren awoke from daysleep.
But everybody had wanted to eat tonight. News about the anti-vaccine’s success hadn’t spread, but people knew Frank Greisser was locked up and the number of attacks had dwindled. Moods had lifted, winter was fading, and the desire to get out and socialize with each other had grown.
Illumination (The Penton Vampire Legacy Book 5) Page 28