But no matter how happy and carefree those days were, each night after the lights had gone out and Amelia was asleep, Gabriel remembered why he was here. With nothing to do but think or dream, Gabriel plotted his revenge.
And each night, guilt and remorse ate him alive. Because these happy, carefree days were anything but. All of it, every moment he spent with Amelia was tainted with what he’d dragged her into. With the knowledge that this was an all too brief escape. Because, no matter what happened to him once he left, he was never coming back here.
The serum was as ready as the machines could make it. Now it was up to Amelia to tweak the smallest details of the composition to make it viable. It was a tedious task that involved her sitting at her desk and staring into a microscope for hours on end. It hardly looked like she moved at all, but on the screen she’d set up to record the process on a sub molecular level, he could see how much she was actually doing.
Today, she’d told him, was the final step to stabilizing the virus. It was almost time.
As he fiddled with the wiring in the manacle chair, Gabriel felt each second pass him by; time he was losing. Time he would never have again.
Gabriel looked over his shoulder at Amelia. She was so focused on her task she probably didn’t know he was still in the lab. The speakers crooned some depressing classical song. There were a lot of those playing lately. He’d dubbed the genre Death of Santa Claus.
The lab was as hot as a desert. Gabriel didn’t bother wearing a shirt in here anymore. He had no idea how Amelia could stand it in her white lab coat. Her hair was up today in a haphazard ponytail and her flushed cheeks were the only indication she noticed the heat. Was she even breathing?
Just then, she carefully let go of her instruments and sat back with a tired sigh, rubbing her eyes.
Enough was enough.
“Change music,” he said and the song stopped mid-melody. “Randomize all.”
A second later, easy drums rumbled through the lab. Amelia made a face, but said nothing. The drums eased off, replaced by soft, sweet violins and she returned to her microscope. She settled into her zone again and he wondered whether he should warn her.
Too late.
The violins trailed off and a beat later heavy bass and drums exploded through the speakers.
Amelia jerked and straightened away from the microscope, hand to her heart.
“Probably should have warned you, right?”
Amelia stared at him. “You do realize the smallest mistake here could kill you?”
Gabriel grinned. He wasn’t worried. “I’m dead one way or another.”
She glared.
He shrugged. “Everyone dies some time.”
“Yes, well, I’d rather not have any more black marks on my record.”
“You’re working too hard.”
“Just doing what you asked.”
“Well, as your boss, I say it’s time for a break.” He closed the side panel on the manacle chair and pushed to his feet. “Change song,” he said and the song got replaced by a slow one. Perfect. “Come here,” he said.
She shook her head. “I need to finish this.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. He came to her instead and pulled her to her feet. “Later.”
“But I—”
“It’s just a dance,” he said and pulled her into his arms. They fit together. And holding her made his restlessness mellow out. “See? This isn’t so bad.”
Amelia’s foot came down on his in a misstep. “This isn’t working,” she said, pulling away.
Gabriel spun them around, deliberately fast to put her off balance. She wouldn’t fall; he held her tight. “Hmm, you’re right,” he said. “Maybe you should let me lead.”
“I thought I was.”
That made him smile. “Just relax. I might actually know what I’m doing here.”
She opened her mouth to say something.
He kissed her to shut her up. Amelia melted into him, as he knew she would, her body tuning into his every motion on instinct. The most accomplished temptress in Rome couldn’t affect him as much as this woman, clinging to him so trustingly. Practiced sensuality was nothing compared to Amelia’s artless grace. She was brilliant, beautiful, funny, caring, and so damn strong it humbled him.
He was falling for her.
Gabriel ended the kiss on a lingering caress, drawing back a little to look into her sleepy-sexy blue eyes. “There, see? Easy.”
The song ended with, The pieces I’ve become are yours to make whole again, make me whole again. Amelia blinked up at him. “I have to get back to work,” she said.
Gabriel nodded. No emotional attachment, he reminded himself and made his arms release her.
Amelia caught his arm before he withdrew completely. “Kiss me again?”
He kissed her hard, pulled her in so tight her feet came up off the floor, and left her as dazed and breathless as she made him. It was payback, punishment for making up idiotic rules and invading his thoughts, even when he didn’t want her to. For all the times she made him want to say, Fuck it, and forget his plans. For being so damn cool and collected when all he wanted to do was crawl into her skin and stay there forever.
“Back to work, then, Dr. Chase.”
*
Gabriel turned his back on her and went back to whatever he was doing to the exam chair. It was a good thing. At least he didn’t see her gaping at him like a fish out of water. God, but that man could kiss! He was her own personal stash of some pretty potent aphrodisiac, and two days of indulging hadn’t nearly been enough. Now she wanted more.
He thought she worked too hard. The only reason it was taking so long was that she couldn’t concentrate on her work. He only had to walk into the room and her focus went up in smoke. He looked at her, and she melted. He smiled, and she forgot why she was in the lab to begin with.
The man was dangerous. She’d never been this frazzled before.
Amelia went back to her microscope. She was almost finished. The first and second rounds were clean and ready. That left the third to do and the antivirus, in case something went wrong. Amelia could have started the treatment already, if she was certain she could finish the last round in time, but that was not about to happen with her mind all over the place like this.
The injections had to be administered within a certain time frame. A few minutes early or late wouldn’t make a difference, but any more than that, and she couldn’t guarantee a positive outcome. Then again, all this was most likely to end in disaster, anyway. The best she could do was lower the risk as much as possible.
So Amelia cleared her mind of Gabriel and the effects he had on her and focused on her work. He left the lab at some point, and switched the music back to classical. The last round of the serum was the most complicated and took the longest to clean up and stabilize.
By the time she finished, her head ached, she was sore all over and her stomach screamed for sustenance. She turned off the heaters with a sigh of relief and dragged herself upstairs to get food.
“All done for the day?”
“All done, period,” she said.
Gabriel straightened in his chair as if someone had goosed him. “So when do we start?”
Amelia glared at him. “Food first.”
“Right,” he said. “Yeah, of course.”
In the time it took her to get to the table and sit, Gabriel had pulled out plates of leftovers and heated them up for her. He made himself sit while she ate, but she could hear his foot tapping under the table faster than a mouse’s heart beat. And he was watching her like a hawk.
Just because she could, and because he deserved it, Amelia dragged it out, ate slowly and sipped her juice after every bite. Gabriel said nothing, looking like he’d explode any second. She half expected him to jump up and pace, or force her to eat faster. It amused her.
When she leaned back, Gabriel stilled, eyes huge.
After a few seconds’ rest, Amelia sighed and set back to eating.
Nope. Won’t be doing any of that any time soon.
Finally, she finished. Gabriel shot to his feet again to put the plate and glass in the dishwasher. “All done,” he said and grabbed her hand, pulling her along. “Lunch break over.”
Augh! Amelia wanted to kick him. She stumbled on the stairs. Gabriel caught her and righted her, but didn’t spare a moment on pleasantries, just kept dragging her along. She glared daggers at the back of his head the whole way to the lab.
It was already much cooler than before. The computers were on standby, the serum injections were neatly aligned on a tray, ready to administer. Gabriel let go of Amelia’s hand to look them over, then he put the tray on a hover table and sent it to the exam chair as carelessly as if he was tossing junk into the trash.
He turned right back to the lab table and rooted through the drawers until he found a pack of patches. Casting her a look, he reconsidered and handed them to her instead, then stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside before going over to her cabinets and making a mess of everything inside, looking for something else. He returned with a loaded tranq gun and extra rounds.
“What are you doing?” she said, taking the items from him.
Gabriel sat in the exam chair and pointed to the shackles. There was a symbol laser-etched into them. As close to a name as scientists have gotten for the alloy they were made of. “These things are unbreakable,” he said. When he put his wrists in the manacles, they snapped closed. He jerked his arms, apparently to test them. “They should be able to hold me if I get out of control. They won’t open unless you say the command.”
He’d voice-locked them? What. The. Hell.
“But I have no idea about the rest of the chair. Amelia,” he said, looking at her like he was about to jump into a shark tank to save the world, “if I break free, you need to take me out.”
Amelia looked at the stuff in her hands, then at the injections, and nodded solemnly. She put a monitoring patch on the inside of his elbow and set everything else aside.
Gabriel tested the manacles again, moved around in the seat, for all the worlds like he was getting ready to endure who-knew-what. When he was done, he sat tensely, fingers curling and uncurling.
“Comfy?” she asked.
He sucked in a deep breath. “Let’s do it!”
Amelia picked up the first injection gun and stuck it in his arm, releasing the serum into his blood stream. Gabriel was holding his breath, his eyes squeezed shut. Amelia checked her watch, counted to five seconds, then patted him on the arm. “Congratulations. Phase one was completed successfully.”
Gabriel released a breath on a “What?” His eyes snapped open wide. “That’s it?”
Amelia’s mouth quirked. “What did you expect, black fur and a fractured skull?” Of course that would be what he’d expect, after everything she’d scared him with by now.
Gabriel looked down at himself. “Well how do you know it was successful?”
“Because if it wasn’t, your heart would be arresting right now.”
“Oh,” he said lamely. “So, uh … you going to let me out of here?”
Amelia rolled her eyes and set to cleaning up. She marked the time and put the rest of the injections back in their place. The tranq gun she put on her desk, just in case.
“Amelia?”
She took off her lab coat and hung it from her chair, checked all systems and shut everything down. The lights were the last to turn off as she came to the door.
“Amelia!”
Giggling inwardly, she walked out, shouting over her shoulder, “Unlock.”
Chapter 15
Though Gabriel didn’t seem to realize it, the serum had taken effect rapidly. To anyone else he would have appeared restless, impatient. Probably no more than he had before but Amelia picked up on the subtle changes.
Like the way he paced now, head canted down like a predator. Or the way he tilted his head sometimes as if he heard something she didn’t. He licked his teeth a lot as if checking for fangs, probably not realizing the action itself was more animal than human. He didn’t talk much but he did look at her every so often. And whenever he did, his gaze was so piercing and intense Amelia expected him to pounce on her. It was getting to the point where she didn’t know if he wanted to kiss her neck or bite into it.
As a scientist, she knew his expectations and impatience were amplifying everything, making it seem more than it was in reality. It was probably speeding up the transformation, too. But as a woman locked in a building with a man who would soon be turning into a feral beast, she was getting a little nervous.
This place wasn’t equipped the way her lab on Torrey was. She didn’t have a cage here to lock him, or herself into. She could close herself in her room but if he wanted to get in bad enough, he would.
Amelia monitored the changes in him on her e-pad, checking vitals and the progression of the virus. By seven o’clock the virus had spread through his entire body and the real changes began. He’d only received a small dose so the changes were subtle. With the next injection they would become more pronounced and the last would seal the deal.
She’d put on another movie to dispel the tension but it wasn’t working. Gabriel couldn’t sit still for five minutes before he got up to pace and explore. He touched things like he’d never seen them before. He searched through every nook and cranny, looking for something that clearly wasn’t there if the frustrated half-snarl was anything to go by.
At one point he went into her bedroom and closed the door. Amelia didn’t know what he did there when it got so quiet but she figured she probably didn’t want to. Taking her e-pad with her, she left the apartment and ducked into her green room.
The fertilizer she’d gotten from Millie was working like a charm. Everything was bursting with life, growing so fast the place was well on its way to becoming the jungle Amelia wanted it to be. She still didn’t have her chaise. Instead she’d dragged a small mattress to the palm trees for the time being.
She took a short walk around to check on every plant, then went to the windows and turned her face up to the sun. There was no music playing today. She wanted to be able to hear Gabriel in case something went wrong. The e-pad screen showed everything in order with his biology, so she relaxed a little. If anything had been wrong with the first injection she’d have known by now.
A small rustle of movement had her spinning around to look for the intruder.
Behind the giant fern, crouching in shadow, Gabriel was watching her. He stood when she spotted him and stalked toward her, holding her gaze. His eyes were different. The rich chocolate brown was fading. The way he moved was different, too. His feet made no sound on the floor and though he brushed against the plants, his gait was so fluid they didn’t rustle.
Amelia stood still as he approached her, coming toe to toe with her. Gabriel searched her gaze, then slowly lowered his head to her neck and breathed in deep. She shivered. “I can smell you,” he said, his breath hot on her skin. “You’re everywhere here. Sweet.” His nose nudged into her hair. “Enticing.” His tongue touched her ear, just barely. “You’re like a lure I want to follow even though I know it’s a trap.”
The rumble of his deep voice made heat coil low in her belly and her hands curl at her sides. She licked her lips to bring some moisture to them and his light brown eyes snared on the action, waiting for her to do it again.
She did.
Gabriel pounced so fast she jerked back but the window pane was right there to stop her. He crowded her against it, held her still as he delved into her mouth, chasing her tongue’s retreat. The way he kissed her—Sweet God—it wasn’t a kiss at all. He licked into her mouth, tasting her, feasting, gorging himself like she was his favorite dessert and h
e couldn’t get enough of her. His fingers dug into her arms painfully and Amelia gave a cry.
Gabriel shoved himself away with a snarl, shaking his head sharply as if to dislodge a bad memory. His hands curled in his hair so hard the skin was pulled taut over his forehead, his eyebrows high. Amelia rubbed her sore arms, off balance and grateful for the window at her back. “It’s the changes starting,” she explained, watching his chest expand with massive breaths.
“I feel it,” he said, eyes squeezed shut, jaw clenched. His entire body quaked with the strain of standing still. He was still hard and even without animal senses, Amelia could tell how much effort it took to keep his distance from her; how much he wanted not to. “It’s like I’m losing control. Can’t think. Burning up.” His hands dropped to his sides, leaving his hair a mess. But he brought them up again in front of him, watching as he curled his fingers into tight fists and straightened them out again repeatedly. “My hands aren’t my own,” he said.
“It’ll probably get worse before it gets any better.”
“Tell me.”
Gabriel’s pale eyes were almost desperate when he turned them briefly on her. He looked away again with a sharp inhale as if the mere sight of her was pushing his limits. He needed a distraction. “Think of it as the panther being born inside you. It’s still young, unsure, testing its limits. It’ll be part of you. You can’t fight it. The more you try, the more it’ll fight back. I think what you need to do is … teach it.” That sounded so awkwardly lame. “Maybe not teach it in the usual sense, but accept it and give it room of its own.” Not much better.
Bah! She felt all of eighteen years old again, standing in front of a class, trying to explain something she herself didn’t understand. Frustrated with her inability to do a better job of it, she let out a tense breath. “Okay, let me think this through a little before I say something stupid.”
Blood Debts (The Blood Book 3) Page 13