“I wasn’t right after that,” he continued. “I didn’t feed. I couldn’t. I starved myself. It made me crazy and violent, and one night I stabbed my father in the thigh for helping me kill that girl. I was so puny then I had been put on bedrest. That was as high as I could reach or I would have knifed him through the heart.” His voice cracked. “Her name was Marley. Marley Adams. I don’t think he knew that until I attempted to carve her name in his flesh.”
I linked my arms across my chest and sank my fingernails into my elbows to anchor me.
“My uncle punched me so hard after that I lost consciousness. It was the only way to pull me off Da. When I woke up, I was at Edelweiss. Da figured they could shrink my head, and I would come out ready to do murder and wreak havoc like my brothers. But the director wasn’t in the business of rehabilitating monsters. He taught me a trick he himself uses to stay sane, to stay…good.”
Gancanagh were similar to incubi. Carter was feeding, in some way, or he wouldn’t be capable of rational thought, let alone lucid conversation. He would be a slavering beast reduced to his most base instincts. Assuming he sat there at all and wasn’t a hella convincing figment of my imagination.
Gah. I hated questioning my sanity.
“How are you managing your hunger?” Even as I spoke, I wondered if someone looking through that window as Carter so often had would see him or find me talking to myself.
“Gancanagh are tantric in nature. We don’t feed on sex like incubi. We feed on the desire of our victims, harvest the emotional high they receive from us. With help from Director Duncan, I’ve become more empathic. I feed off emotion—any strong emotion.”
A place like Edelweiss, steeped in so much pain, anger and regret, made for an ideal hunting ground, but this admission was not what I had expected. “How does it work?”
“The best comparison I can make is giving up triple chocolate cake for rice cakes. It’s putting myself on a diet and dedicating myself to maintaining that goal. Once I was shown the way, the rest is as instinctive to me as swimming is to your kind. I made a choice,” he continued. “I can be the son my father wants and leave a string of victims in my wake, or I can be the man I want to be and stay here, make a difference.”
“How—?” The wheels of my mind turned, and it all clicked. “Feeding on the emotion removes it from the—” I almost said victim but caught myself in time, “—donor.” Suddenly the director’s gamble didn’t seem so reckless. “You’re filtering the volatile emotions from the population.” Depending on his appetite, he would require access to the entire facility. “That’s why you have the uniform.”
“The director gifted it to me. It’s camouflage. Layers of spells are woven into the fabric to shield me from appearing on the security feeds. True invisibility costs more than the director can afford to invest in one of his side projects, so I handle the face-to-face interactions myself.” A slight smile soon faded. “Security has access to all wings and all floors. I can roam where the pull is strongest, where I’m most needed, without interference. Most people, even if they can see me, won’t stop a guard from making his rounds.”
“Is that what attracted you to me?” The darkness in me would have called to him.
“No.” He chuckled softly, tipping his head back as if mocking himself. “I avoid temptation. That means I avoid the W dorms as much as possible. I only patrol those when the patients are sleeping, and only then when the need is great.”
Wondering at his reaction, I nudged him before I lost my nerve. “Then why?”
“I was in the lobby the day they brought you in unconscious on a stretcher. Your hair caught my eye first. Edelweiss is so much the same, so muted, and you were this bright splash I couldn’t help but investigate. A cotton-candy-pink beauty sleeping so peacefully I couldn’t get a read on what made you tick.”
“They drugged me,” I confided. “I was…” I swallowed at the memory. “It was bad.”
“I figured.” A frown cut his mouth. “I contented myself with checking up on you while you were under, but then you started recovering, and they stopped dosing you so heavily. Your eyes brightened, and I could tell you were waking up. But the more aware you became, the worse the dreams got until I…”
The stark reality of what he implied shifted my perception of him yet again. “Fed on me.”
“Most nights I could siphon enough that if I pestered you awake, you fell back into a dreamless sleep.”
“You woke me up on purpose?” Warmth spread through my chest, and I was helpless to stop myself from softening. His excuse made more sense than any I had devised. No male guard who went around chatting up patients after dark in my section of the ward would have gotten off the hook so easily. They would have been fired, likely faced charges. “I just figured you were—”
“Yeah. You said. A creeper.”
I blew out a long breath. “So what changed?”
“I found you standing in that hallway covered in blood and sobbing for help.” His fists clenched. “I tried to walk away, I told myself they would find you soon enough, but we had never been on the same side of a closed door before.”
“You held me,” I recalled, and it had been the first of many small touches.
“I can control the toxin.” His knuckles popped white against his fists. “As long as I’m well fed, you’re in no danger from me.”
“Who else knows about you?” The answer mattered for reasons I didn’t want to examine too closely.
“A few of the other fae know me for what I am on sight, but they keep it quiet. They know what I can do, and they want to serve their time and be released. Trying to convince the doctors that I exist wouldn’t look good on their charts.”
At that moment, his heart on his sleeve and his shoulders bowed under the weight of his admissions, he could have passed for fifteen or a hundred, and it mattered to me. I wanted to know. “How old are you?”
“I…” He smoothed the sheet under his palm while he thought about it. “Twenty.”
“You’ve been here seven years?”
“It’s not so bad.” He didn’t sound all that convinced. “I live downstairs in one of the rooms meant for visiting guests.” He shrugged. “The director’s office is a floor above this one, so he understood I would need the distance from stimuli in order to sleep. It’s not a bad gig.”
“The director provides room and board for acting as an emotional barometer?” That sounded generous, even though I had to admit I saw the value in his services.
“No.” He was quiet for a moment. “There are other jobs for talents like mine, and I do them.” One of his knuckles popped under the strain. “But I don’t like talking about them.”
His head jerked up, startling me to attention, and he bolted for the bathroom, pointing at the door. I pushed to my feet and found myself face-to-face with Jeanette.
The intercom crackled. “What were you doing down there?”
“Yoga,” I lied through my teeth. “It keeps me calm. After what I saw…” I didn’t have to fake the blood rushing from my cheeks or the hitch in my breath, “…I could use some calm is all.”
“I understand.” Her gentle smile warmed me. “I can ask Dr. Davies about getting you into one of the group yoga classes if you’re interested?”
Not really. “That would be great. Thank you.”
Warmth encased my spine, Carter close enough to heat me through proximity. The faint scent of candy-sweet cherries spiced the air, and my limbs went heavy. Leaning over my shoulder, Carter lowered his glasses, his gaze a whirling vortex that sank hooks into Jeanette.
“Open the door,” he ordered. As though swimming through molasses, she found her keycard and swiped it through the lock. Carter pushed it wide and joined her in the hall. “Return to your station. Everything is fine here.”
“Everything is fine,” she repeated softly.
Carter popped his shades back in place then glanced over his shoulder at me. “You need time.”
“
I do.” I curled my fingers into my palms, leaving crescent-shaped evidence of my confusion behind. “I have to figure out what’s what.”
“I understand. Take all you need.” His gesture encompassed the building. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Be safe.” The knob, when I gripped it, felt solid in my hand in a way this entire conversation didn’t. “Remember guys are being targeted.”
“They aren’t the only ones.” He lingered a moment longer. “I checked the security logs. You’re the only patient getting sprung who’s lived to talk about it.”
“I figured.” Hearing it out loud didn’t make it sound any better. “I seem to have a knack for attracting the crazies.” I bit my lip. “Present company excepted.”
A soft chuckle. “See you around.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and started walking. I barely heard the “I hope” he tacked on at the last minute.
I took one precious step into the hall. “How do I get in touch with you?”
“Think about me hard enough, and I’ll hear it.” His smile went crooked. “I’ll keep an ear out, so to speak.”
Closing the door, I strode to my bed and flopped down face-first onto my pillow. The heady scent of Carter’s lure rose into the air, tickling my nose, and I breathed deep, letting the fragrance settle my jittery nerves. I had to hand it to the guy, he smelled good for being maybe nonexistent.
Chapter 7
Dinner found me in a contemplative mood. I exited my room after the lock was sprung and mingled with the other women heading toward the chow hall. Betty grinned at me, her teeth predator-sharp, and I slowed until I was the last in line. That gleam in her eyes made me wonder at the cost of her friendship.
“Don’t turn around,” a gravel-coarse voice slid over my shoulder. “Just keep walking.”
The distinctive clip-clop sound she made as she walked gave her away. Troya. Oh goodie.
The threat of violence in her tone turned a key in my mind that bore Carter’s fingerprints. His friendship had acted as a catalyst, and—real or not—had fortified me. I was done being a victim. I had no idea what she wanted, but I was prepared to defend myself if it wasn’t something I was willing to give.
“You asked about Officer Lam earlier.” The old-pennies scent of her breath carried to me, a sour punch to my gut. “What do you want with him?”
“You know him?” The question came out whisper soft and hopeful.
“You could say that,” she all but purred. “He and I go way back.”
I’m not crazy. I didn’t imagine him. Carter Lam is real.
Then her implication registered, and a twinge arrowed through my chest that I blamed on relief. It was either that or turn and punch the smugness out of her tone, and I was in enough trouble already. “So he is real.”
“He’s as real as it gets, fish stick.” Her nearness sent tingles chasing down my spine. “Why the interest?” She gave a hiss as she sucked in a breath. “Is he coming to see you now?”
The statement implied he had been seeing her first. Not that we were an item. Or that friendship carried an exclusivity clause. He was free to visit who he liked, to do what he liked. I had let him leave, after all.
But he had shared his story, his pain, with me. That had to mean something, right?
“No.” At least not anymore. “I saw him in the med ward. That’s all.”
“He’s a beautiful man.” Her sigh held a thread of dark longing. “Dangerous, all love talkers are, but that’s half the appeal.”
A stinging line of hurt spread hot across my nape. I reached up to see if the tag in my top had flipped up, but my hand came away bloody. A warning.
“Lam is mine.” Troya spoke at my ear too low for the others to hear. “Look all you want, but don’t touch.”
The presence at my spine moved away, and I turned in time to catch the slender woman walking in the opposite direction from where we were being herded. The temptation to jog after her was strong, but she was an orderly. She had roaming privileges. I didn’t. Where she was heading didn’t matter half as much as her confirming Carter’s existence.
“Your neck is bleeding.” A guard put a hand on me as I reached the chow hall entrance. She examined my hands and then the back of my collar, her gaze searching the hall behind me as if for clues. “What happened?”
“The tag was itching me.” I pasted on my best innocent expression. “I must have cut myself when I tried pulling it out.”
“Come on, Ms. Bevans.” She gripped my elbow and spoke into the radio clipped on her shoulder, one identical to what Carter wore. “Troya is MIA, so I’ve got to play orderly for a minute. Call Tompkins in to cover for me while I walk this one down to medical.”
“That’s really not necessary.” I didn’t struggle, because that would put her on alert. “I’m fine. I can shower the blood off after dinner.”
“We want to make sure you’re as comfortable as possible during your stay.” She gentled her grip. “That means taking serious care of what might seem like a silly injury.”
“Of course.” At least this solved the quandary of to sit with Betty or not to sit with Betty.
The guard kept up a steady stream of chatter while we made our way back to the medical wing, the direction, I thought distantly, the same as Troya had gone. I kept an eye out for signs of her, but she had vanished. The only possible exit, unless she ducked into another patient’s room, was a blue door with a push bar across the middle.
“Where does that go?” I wondered out loud.
“That’s the emergency exit. It leads up from the basement.” She noted my interest and steered me across the hall from temptation. “You can’t open it from this level without a keycard.”
The basement. Well, that explained things. As jealous as the orderly had been, I didn’t believe for a second she hadn’t made her threat and then gone to set the record straight with Carter too. That she knew where he lived, how to find him, irked me.
“Think about me hard enough, and I’ll hear it.”
Hopefully, he wasn’t listening in on me and my tumbling thoughts now.
The downside, and it was a large one, of having such a compelling gift must be that people misread your nature as your intention. I wanted to believe Carter had told the truth about feeding off emotional energy in the wards instead of, well, what his primal instincts craved, but who knew how long it had taken him to get it right? Maybe he had stumbled along the way. Was it so wrong to hope he hadn’t stumbled with her?
The spiky pressure in my chest redoubled. Carter wasn’t mine. I hadn’t known for sure he was a flesh-and-blood man until five minutes ago, and the guy clearly had an underground fan club. I should have felt relieved. Instead, I felt…
“Here we are.” The guard stashed me in a room identical to the one where I had spent my previous stay. Maybe not identical. This one was a bit larger, and its back half was curtained off from ceiling to floor. “The doctor will be right with you.”
“Shouldn’t I be in an exam room instead?” I did not want to give them reason to hold me again.
“Both exam rooms are full.” She patted my shoulder. “First of the month. Routine checkups are scheduled all day. The overflow is being stashed where we can.”
“Oh.” As long as I wasn’t being singled out. “Okay.”
After the guard pulled the door closed behind her, I dropped into the lone chair in the room, wishing for out-of-date magazines to scan for bad dating advice and makeup tips from three seasons ago.
“Hello?” a groggy voice croaked from behind the curtain. “Is someone there?”
“Hi. Sorry to barge in on you.” I eased from my chair and started toward the speaker. “I have a minor cut. They put me here until the doctor can look at it.”
Placing two patients together without restraining both wasn’t a mistake Troya would have made. It might not be a mistake this guard would make again. The risk was too high that one or both would be harmed. That led me to believe the guard must have
thought the room empty when she decided to make it my personal waiting room.
“Oh” was all the other woman managed.
“Do you mind?” I gripped the fabric. “It would be easier to talk without this between us.”
“No.”
Slowly, so as not to startle her, I drew the curtain along its track and revealed the other half of the room. The patient rested on a bed identical to the one behind me, her face delicate and lovely and as pale as the sheets beneath her. Her stomach was almost bigger than the rest of her. There was only one pregnant patient in our dorm, and she happened to be my next-door neighbor. “You’re Bianca Parsons, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” Her hands curved over her stomach, claws punching through her fingertips in a protective reflex. “Who are you?”
“I’m Harlow Bevans.” I offered her my hand, but she kept her weapons between me and her unborn child. “I hear we have a friend in common—Camille Ellis.”
“Cam is my alpha,” the woman confirmed, “and my friend.”
“She’s good people,” I agreed. How could I not when I owed her my life?
“She’s got a good heart—” she offered a slight smile, “—for a fae.”
I chuckled under my breath. There was no love lost between the fae and the supernaturals native to this world, that was for sure. It made Cam’s situation—being mated to an alpha warg—even more peculiar.
“Harlow.” A brightness sparked in her eyes. “It’s really you.”
“Have we met?” I didn’t think so, but I hadn’t exactly been in control of my faculties the last several times I had crossed paths with Cam, so anything was possible.
“No, but I know you. You’re the girl Cam was searching for, the one Charybdis took.”
Hearing his name spoken out loud made every atom of my being rebel. Grateful I had missed dinner, I still had to swallow a few times before I could speak again. “Yes, that’s me.”
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