“She fought so hard for you.” Bianca’s dreamy voice got softer, as if they had sedated her. “I’m glad you’re all right.” A faint laugh split her lips. “Or not, seeing as how you’re here too.”
“I do okay.” I debated asking her what curiosity demanded of me. It was rude, I knew that, but I might never get the chance to see this woman face-to-face again. I wanted the truth instead of putting stock in rumors. She knew my story and maybe—just maybe—I wanted a link to Cam I could reach out and touch. “Why are you here?”
“I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors.” The light in her expression winked out, and the warmth I’d glimpsed turned to frost.
“Yeah, but I would like to hear the truth.” On some level, I recognized her as kin. The bleakness in her matched the darkness in me, and I had a sick feeling the same grim circumstances had marked us both.
“Charybdis came for Cam one night. He found me and my mate instead.” Liquid pooled in her eyes. “He possessed Jensen. My sweet mate, he… He wasn’t himself. He lost his mind.” Tears splashed onto her cheeks. “He tried to kill me and the baby, and a pack mate…” One of the quiet sobs I had grown so used to hearing bounced her shoulders. “She killed him. To save us.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss.” It was what people said when faced with pain too great to encapsulate in words, no matter how flowery. The phrase was tired, but the sentiment remained fresh. “He was an evil man,” I told her, unable to speak his name myself, “but he’s dead. Cam killed him. For us.”
“He’s dead?” The fragile woman blinked up at me through a veil of anguish. “Dr. Davies told me, but… I thought she was lying to keep me calm for the baby’s sake.” Her voice softened. “How?”
“I don’t know the details.” When Bianca slumped, I hurried to add, “Cam told me herself, and she’s fae. She can’t lie.” Though a bent truth could do as much or more harm than a straight lie. “When they first brought me here, she told me he was dead and that I was free. That she would be waiting for me when I decided I was ready to leave.” I risked touching Bianca’s arm, knowing how much that contact meant to wargs, even if we weren’t pack. “The offer stands for you too.”
“I don’t belong there, not without Jensen.” She settled into my touch and rubbed her stomach. “I want the comfort of pack, but seeing them again… I can’t.” She spoke to her protruding belly instead of me. “Would it be selfish to return to my parents? To a place where I never lived with him? Where I could pretend things were…normal?”
“No.” I gave her arm a squeeze. “The pack would understand. They want what’s best for you and the baby.”
Deep down I believed what I told her. I didn’t know the Lorimar pack, but I knew Cam, and I knew her mate, Cord Graeson. Both had dealt with too much grief and loss in their own lives to ever deny a friend, a pack mate, what she required to heal.
Maybe this week when Cam phoned to check on me, I would get them to patch through her call. From the sounds of it, Bianca must not be interacting with the outside world either. It was time, I realized. I owed Cam the conversation she wanted, and I owed her thanks. Fae or not, she had earned them.
The lock mechanism snicked, and a deep voice called, “Ms. Bevans?”
“Right here.” On impulse, I bent down to kiss Bianca’s damp cheek. “Maybe we could visit some time, if you want.”
Group wasn’t the only outlet for patients. We had daily exercise periods, and the staff put on events that would have been fun under other circumstances—like ice cream socials. Visitation happened weekly, but I had refused to see Cam, and I didn’t know much of anyone else topside. My family didn’t expect me back for several months yet, and all communication had been severed between us up to that point. They had no idea what had happened, and I wasn’t sure I would ever tell them the whole truth.
Hearing I told you so wouldn’t bother me half as much as burdening my parents with the knowledge their baby girl had been broken and they hadn’t been there to help put the pieces back together.
“I’d like that.” A tremulous smile skated across her lips. “I asked that they move me closer to you. We spent so long searching for you, you feel almost like pack. It made things easier on the wolf.” A flush stole across her cheeks. “I hope I don’t wake you when—when it gets too hard.”
“I don’t mind at all,” I told her with complete honesty. “You help me too.”
Though I doubted she wanted to hear I had been using her as a nightmare-avoidance technique.
“Ms. Bevans?”
I slid the curtain closed and hustled into the chair for my exam. “Hi, Dr. Pradesh.”
A fraction of the ice in his tone melted. “I see you’re up and about and already into trouble again.”
“I’m a danger to myself. Always have been. Klutziest mermaid in the Atlantic.” His shoulders stiffened, and my palms went damp. “I don’t mean I would hurt myself. Not on purpose. I’m just clumsy. That’s what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.” He circled around behind me. “I’m glad to see your sense of humor survived intact.”
“Yes, that’s me.” I tried not to fidget at the uncomfortable sensation of having him at my back. “Funny girl. Right here.”
“The scratch isn’t serious.” He wiped a cold cloth over my nape. “I’ve cleaned it, but it will scab on its own. Leave it uncovered to heal.” A snip sounded behind me. “In the future, if you would like the tags removed from your clothes, just let the orderlies know. It’s a common request. They’ll see that the laundry workers handle it for you, okay?”
“I’ll do that.” I bobbed my head. “I appreciate the tip.”
“Now.” He pointed a stern finger at me. “See if you can stay out of my ward for a full twenty-four hours, all right?”
“Yes, sir.” I nodded again. “I can do that.”
As he exited, Jeanette entered with a smile, smoothing her clothes in place and tucking a black square resembling a large keyboard button hung on a soft cord around her neck into the front of her top. She must have been drafted after Troya’s disappearance. “Ready to go?”
“Yes indeed.” I hopped to my feet. “What about dinner?”
“I called ahead to have a tray delivered to your room. I’ll send someone by in an hour to collect it.” She guided me down the hall. “Does that sound good?”
“That sounds fine.” I shot the blue exit door a quick glance that Jeanette noticed. Her crinkled brow was about to transform into a full-on frown, her lips pursing in what I expected to be another lecture about the basement’s off-limitness. “So…yoga classes.” Mentally, I groaned at what I was about to do. Talk about taking one for the team. “What other activities does Edelweiss offer their patients?”
Jeanette recited a formidable list of activities she felt might fit my personality. I half listened as my thoughts returned in an unerring circle back to that door and what must lie beyond.
One of the kitchen workers met us at the door with a covered tray she carried into my room. Once I was settled and the lock secured behind me, I started picking at my food as my mind wandered. A lot had changed in the last two days. I had taken steps toward a friendship with Bianca and decided it was time to rekindle my friendship with Cam. I had the option of an alliance with Betty, whatever that might entail, and had made enemies with Troya.
It was like high school all over again. Only deadlier.
Chapter 8
That night I counted specks on the ceiling until exhaustion fused my eyelashes, but no amount of pretending made the dots stars in my eyes. I’d held out hope that Bianca would be returned to her room by lights-out, but midnight came and went without a peep from next door. Sleep crept in on quiet feet, and then he was there. Waiting for me.
“This child is a perfect tool,” he mused as he stared through my eyes down at the young girl sucking on a lollipop. “We will use her, and then we will break her.”
Buried deep in my own head, I balked at his command. “No. She�
�s just a kid. I won’t hurt her.”
“You will snap her neck on my command and be done with her.” He paused as other vile imaginings rippled through our shared mind. “And you will smile while you do it, and remember that I control you. You are mine to do with as I please, to discard when I grow bored with your sniveling cowardice.”
A punch of awareness burst through the wall of nightmares, and I wished with everything I had in me that Carter was here, that I hadn’t sent him away.
“Kill me,” I begged, not for the first time. “I can’t. This is— I’m not a monster.”
“You will be when I’m through with you,” he promised, a vow he would have kept if not for Cam. “You are human—” a cruel grin, “—or you were.” He left me no time to ponder that remark. “Your kind breeds like roaches who scurry at the falling night. I do this world a favor by stamping you out, one by one.”
“Pinks.”
I curled tighter, bringing my knees to my chest, shielding myself from the vicious memories.
“Harlow?”
Trembling, I cracked open my eyes. “Carter?”
He swept the sticky hairs away from my face. “Hey.”
“What are you doing here?” I sprung upright and attempted to straighten the French braid I hadn’t undone before bed. He was here, back in uniform, and as hard to read as ever behind those reflective shades.
“You called.” He tapped the side of my head. “You didn’t wake when I used the intercom, so I let myself in.” He stood to give me the space I hadn’t realized I needed. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“No.” I covered my mouth with my palm, the tang of fear bitter on my tongue. “I’m glad you woke me.”
“Want a sour gummy? They’re my favorites.” He offered me a small bag with the top shorn off. “One of the dispatch operators smuggles them in for me.”
“She’s your friend.” His fondness spelled that out to me.
“She’s immune to me. That’s how she got volunteered to handle my radio traffic.” He popped a piece of candy into his mouth. “It gets dull around here, so sometimes we talk while she’s on shift. I mentioned the gummies once, and she’s been feeding my addiction once a week for the past year.”
The flare of jealousy snuffed out as fast as it rose. Living here, coping with his past, was hard. I wasn’t about to take issue with his choice in friends, even if they were—at least in my mind—curvy and coiffed to my thin and bedraggled, when they cared enough about him to sneak in contraband that made him smile.
“I appreciate it.” I popped the sugar-crusted treat into my mouth. Sour cherries burst on my tongue, causing my eyes to water. “I haven’t had one of these in forever.” Not since a pod mate with relatives topside invited me and a group of friends to sample a smorgasbord of human candy.
“I should get back.” His gaze lingered on my lips, and I wet them to swipe away the sour crystals left behind. Jaw tight, he took a few steps toward the door. “You didn’t mean to call me, and I don’t want to intrude.”
“How are you going to—?” I peered around him. “Ah. You propped the door open.”
“Flashlights are multipurpose tools.”
Fingers tangled in my sheets, I clutched them instead of reaching for him. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” He gripped the door, retrieved his light and slid it into the loop on his belt. “You already know the worst. There’s not much left.”
“Do you know Troya?” The words tasted like a mistake as soon as I spoke them, but they were out there now. No calling them back.
A subtle intensity tightened his expression. “Is she giving you trouble?”
“That’s a yes,” I decided. “She told me to keep my hands off you.”
“She doesn’t have a claim on me.” His fingers toyed with the latch, keeping an eye on the hall. “But she is dangerous, particularly if she thinks you do.” He shook his head. “I never did figure out why the director promoted her to orderly.”
The urge to ask if he felt I had such a claim on him was a twitch in my lips. “Maybe he’s helping her too.”
“I’ve wondered about that.”
Figuring forewarned was forearmed, I dug for details. “What makes her dangerous?”
“She’s a glaistig for one thing, and territorial as hell for another.”
“Aren’t they half goat?” Suddenly the clip-clop sound I associated with her made a lot more sense. She was concealing hooves. “Glamour is allowed in here?”
“Lucid patients are given the choice upon admittance to appear as they are or to wear their glamour.” He shifted his weight and leaned into the doorframe, wedging the door open with his boot. “She chose glamour, but she’s not proficient. That’s why she can appear human, but she can’t mute her footsteps.”
“What’s her deal?” The topic made Carter shift on his feet, but I kept pushing. “She’s one of those who can see you? Talk to you?”
“Yes, she can.” A shudder rippled through him. “Her deal is, she bit me once. She figures that makes me hers.”
“What?” I slapped a hand across my nape and hoped it had been her fingernail and not her teeth that had grazed me.
“Glaistigs can enchant mortal men and lesser fae with song or dance. Song, in her case.” He had the grace to look embarrassed. “She trapped me with a tune once, years ago, when she was first admitted and still pissed off at the world. She bit me. They’re like vampires in that sense.” He rubbed the base of his neck. “She hides her nature better these days. She’s a model patient as far as I can tell.”
“That explains why you’re hesitant to enter the W ward.” He was bound to bump into her since he made his rounds at night. Suddenly, I wondered if that wasn’t the reason why she worked the late shift. “I’ve heard once a vampire gets a taste of you, they crave more. That in their mind, if they bit you even once, they marked you.” Poor Carter. “She thinks you’re her snack and doesn’t want to share.”
“It was my own fault. I shouldn’t have fallen for her tricks in the first place.” He scuffed the toe of his boot. “Back then I was still adjusting, and I let it get bad without realizing it. She did, though, and took advantage while I was weak from fighting my nature.”
“So you don’t…like her?” With a groan, I dropped my face into my hands. “I don’t know why I asked that. It’s your business who you—”
“You’re the only girl who tempts me, Pinks,” he drawled with slow, simmering heat. “And that’s not a good thing.”
The heat racing over my skin burned brighter, proof of the impact of his words, but I managed to lift my head and offer him a truth in return. “It’s nice to tempt someone.” I plucked at my shirt, still damp with sweat, and ruffled my hair, also soggy and stringy. “It makes me feel like my old self a tiny bit.”
“You were a handful before, weren’t you?” He sounded as if he imagined it clearly.
“You have no idea. Clothing is optional at home, though bikini-style tops created from precious metals salvaged from sunken ships and shells were popular for formal occasions. I brought that fashion sense with me, and it doesn’t exactly translate here. What’s normal at home is considered provocative or inappropriate here unless you’re at the beach. I guess I should have opted for jeans and sweatshirts or something before going inland.”
“Do you miss water?” He watched for my reaction. “You haven’t gotten more than a shower here, right? Edelweiss isn’t set up to house aquatic fae. You’re the only one, and that’s because of your unique circumstances.”
“You mean being human with a splash of magic in my genes thanks to my parents’ attempts to sprout me a tail?”
“Yes.” He chuckled, a low sound that warmed me to my bones. “That.”
“I do miss it.” I massaged my throat where pink-rimmed gills once fluttered delicately. “I thought I could handle a year on land, and maybe I could have if things had gone differently, but I was planning to go home even before this happened.”
Home wouldn’t absolve my sins, but it would make them easier to bear.
Mischief danced across the curve of his lips. “Are you feeling adventurous?”
“Not really?” Though my heart pounded in answer.
“Close enough.”
He waved me over then switched positions so I acted as the doorstopper. Darting around the room, he gathered clothes and towels he mounded into a Harlow-shaped log on the bed then covered it with a sheet. Having pulled the same stunt years ago, back when I first discovered merboys and Dad had threatened to fillet my first crush, I knew the head was the selling point. Even though I was in the habit of sleeping with the covers up to my chin, which would conceal my body, anyone looking in would expect to see my hair spread out on the pillow.
“No one is going to believe that’s me.” I heard the disappointment in my voice.
Leaning down, he exhaled a sweetly scented breath smelling of ripe cherries from the head of my bed to the foot of it, and an illusion snapped into place. I straightened where I stood and marveled at the complexity of the girl, the sheet rising and falling with her even breaths.
“Does it pass the test?” His half-cocked grin told me he knew it did. “Let’s go.”
Carter clasped my hand and hauled me running down the hall. The sensation of a dozen invisible eyes following us urged me on faster and faster. I had to clamp a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing as he dragged me toward the forbidden blue door, swiped his card and shoved the metal bar.
“How did you do that?” I whispered as we tackled the stairs. “That construct was so lifelike.”
“Trick of the trade.” The brittle edges of his smile crumbled. “We’re taught that skill in order to free our lovers up to spend their nights with us. Can’t have jealous husbands or boyfriends interfering, can we?”
I threaded my fingers through his in a show of solidarity. “Where are we going?”
“No need for quiet now,” he boomed into the silence. “There’s no one down here but us. The guest quarters are empty.”
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