by Kate Douglas
The internal whispering tapered off, and she managed to pry her eyes open, but her pupils recoiled at the sudden brightness. Jerking her head away from the harsh fluorescent overhead lights, she blinked away the spots whirling before her eyes.
A glance at the window told her it was nighttime. She frowned. That felt . . . wrong. She felt like she’d been asleep for a while. Long enough for it to be daylight. “How long have I been out?”
“Almost twenty-four hours.” Alex had his back to her, placing the empty plastic cup on a tray next to the wall. He took a deep breath, his ribs expanding. “Feeling better?”
Chloe wiggled her toes, flexing her muscles one at a time to test for pain. Everything seemed fine. She flicked her fingers, trying a small spell to check her magic. The glass Alex had just set down popped straight into the air and landed like a miniature party hat on his head.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” His tone was dry, but his pale eyes twinkled when he turned to face her again. He extended the claws on one hand, snagged the cup with the other, and set it to spinning like a top on one pointed talon. “So, yesterday was an interesting day.”
“Yeah, about that.”
“About that.” He set the glass down, folded his arms, and leaned back against the wall, the look on his face far too serious for someone his age. The light reflected off the design on his T-shirt, a logo for some teen rock band. In some ways he was a typical boy, and in others, he was already a man.
At sixteen, he was six feet tall and growing. His young shoulders were already broad and muscular, his features were blade-sharp, and his black-brown hair and bronzed skin only made his pale, celery green eyes stand out in contrast. The kid was good-looking and going to be a lady-killer someday. Chloe almost felt sorry for the girls in his class. Almost.
His expression didn’t waver under her scrutiny; it retained the same calm impassivity he’d perfected the day his mother had died. It was hard to remember the carefree boy he’d once been, but she did her best to remind him to have a little fun as often as she could.
This wasn’t going to be one of the times she could remind him.
She sighed and sat up straighter in her hospital bed. “How much do you know already?”
“Dad’s missing.” Or dead like Damien, but neither of them voiced that thought. “Someone killed your ex-boyfriend and his fiancée. Someone—maybe the same someone—tried to hack into Desmodus Industries’ servers looking for information on the lycanthropy project you’re all working on.” He angled a glance at her. “How am I doing so far?”
“Those are the highlights, as far as I know them.” She closed her eyes at the emotionless little recitation, and crossed her arms. Her wrists were still puffy and a little red, but thankfully the major damage was gone. Normal technology rocked for some things, but magic was awesome for things like this. The Magickal doctors at Harborview were top-notch. Like most other public services, from law enforcement to education, major hospitals had private rooms for Magickals and medical professionals on call who had the skill to handle cases like hers.
“None of those highlights explains why you needed to be brought to a hospital. You were fine when I talked to you on the phone. The vibrations in your voice showed no real distress.” He let his arms fall to his sides. “Merek and Luca seemed to be having a lot of private chats last night while the doctors were working on you. They left me to entertain Tess and made sure I couldn’t overhear them. So. Something else happened, right?” His pale eyes lasered through her, incisive and demanding answers she didn’t want to give. Still, she’d never lied to this boy, and she didn’t want to start now. He’d know anyway. He was far too intelligent and had senses far too sensitive to not know when she was prevaricating. So, she didn’t.
“One of the FBI agents worked for a terrorist named Leonard Smith. He wants the drug your dad, Damien, and I have been formulating.” She met his gaze, but kept her face carefully blank. “After Luca went out to get you, the other agent brought in a Fae to try to pry information from me about my part in the werewolf project. She used spells. Dark spells. Black magic.”
He swallowed audibly. “If Luca hadn’t—”
“Don’t even think that.” She held her hand out for him to take, and after a moment’s hesitation, he crossed the room to her. “None of this is your fault. Or my fault.”
“But it might be my dad’s fault.” His strong fingers curled around hers, but his gaze held the awful pain of betrayal. His father could be a traitor to his entire race, to his son.
And Chloe couldn’t take that pain away from him, because she knew it could be true, so she gave him the respect of honesty. “Maybe. That still doesn’t make it your fault.”
His chin jerked down in an abrupt nod, but he said nothing more.
She tried to smile, but knew it was probably a weak parody of the real thing. “You’re going to stay with me until we find out what happened to Ivan.”
His gaze snapped up to meet hers, blazing with relief he quickly hid. A small grin quirked his lips, and he gave an exaggerated sniff. “That’s going to put a crimp in your social life.”
That her godson smelled a man all over her would have made most women blush, but no one who’d made it through medical school could be a prude about the human body, and she wasn’t dumb enough to think Alex had much innocence left in that department anyway. She just shrugged delicately, plucking at the thin blanket covering her legs. “You’re my godson. You stay with me.”
The grin widened a little. “Well. Okay. If you insist.”
“Your enthusiasm bowls me over, kid.” But she squeezed his hand.
A bark of laughter answered her. “I promise not to be too big a pain in the ass for you.”
“You can be as big a pain in the ass as you want. I might hex you a little for it, but you’re still staying with me no matter what.” She held his gaze, making sure he could see, could sense, the depth of her sincerity. It was important that he knew he had someone, that he was wanted, especially after Ivan’s blatant neglect since his mother’s death. Jaya would roll in her grave if she knew, so Chloe hoped the afterlife kept that information from her friend.
“I love you, too, Chloe.” He tightened his grip on her fingers, but gently, as if he knew his own strength and tempered it for her. He was such a good kid. He deserved better than he’d gotten.
She pressed her free hand to her heart and made her eyes go wide. “Aw, now that’s what a girl likes to hear.”
His white teeth flashed in a wicked grin that had to make the teenage girls pant, but he sobered quickly. “So, you were in protective custody, but . . . the FBI is done with you now that you gave all the project information to the bad guys, right? The terrorists don’t want you anymore and you’re safe?”
She swallowed, looked down at the blanket, ran her palm over the nubby surface, and worried a few loose strands between her fingers. “They didn’t get any information from me. Not about the project, at least.”
“What do you mean?” Merek suddenly loomed in the door, his expression thunderous. He seemed to take up all the space and oxygen as he stepped into the room, snapping the door closed as though the act required great precision. His gray eyes locked on her face.
She tried not to shrink back at the intensity of his gaze. Not because she was afraid of him, but because it took everything she had not to throw herself into the security of his embrace. The only secure place in the world that she knew of right now. Some part of her mind registered that the reason she’d slept so well the whole day before was that Merek had been there, holding her hand, murmuring quiet, soothing encouragement whenever her eyes cracked open. Her fingers flexed as she remembered the slight calluses on his palm.
No. She wouldn’t let herself rely on anyone, need anyone. She’d been there and done that, and she wouldn’t go back. She could handle whatever came her way. No matter how much it scared her. Clinging to him for comfort stopped now. She lifted her chin. “I meant exactly what I said, D
etective. They didn’t get any information from me about the Desmodus Werewolf Project.”
“How is that possible?” He looked incredulous, but the expression softened to one of sympathy as if she were a small child in deep denial. “The spells they were using . . . Sweetheart, there’s no way you have the kind of training to withstand—”
She held up her hand, ignoring the fact that her hands and wrists still showed signs of what the terrorists had done to her. “I’m not talking about Magickal commando training to ward off black magic or torture spells or whatever. My training, my expertise, is in potions. I formulated a magic potion to erase certain portions of my memory that pertain to the specific details of this project.” She let her hand drop to her lap. “If I go more than a week or two without taking it, it will wear off, but since work is basically a daily event, I have to take a counter potion every morning when I arrive at Desmodus.”
His gaze sharpened. “Why would you do all that? Did you suspect—”
Again, she cut him off. “I didn’t suspect a thing. For me, it’s standard procedure, and it’s approved by my superiors. If the potion wasn’t so complex to create, they’d probably make it mandatory for all their employees. The projects I work on are subject to industrial espionage. We have people working round the clock on security—Magickal beings who are recruited from the special Magickal branches of the military and secret services.”
“I know this.” He folded his arms, towering over her from the end of the bed, his gaze still steely. “That doesn’t explain why you were drugging yourself, Doctor.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, mimicking his pose, then rolled her eyes when his gaze zeroed in on her breasts. “Would you want to be the one who gave up vital information on a project the Vampire Conclave has invested billions of dollars in developing?”
He shifted his stance, wincing. “No.”
The Vampire Conclave was not a nice bunch of people. They didn’t suffer fools, and Chloe didn’t ever want them to think she was a fool they’d been suffering. She shuddered just considering the kinds of things they could do to her. Ruining her career would be just the start. “So, when the officers told me they’d have to bring me into MTF Headquarters for questioning and it might take a while, I took the potion. After everything else that happened, I’m more convinced than ever that it’s safer for me and for Desmodus if I use my concoction. I can’t tell anyone what I don’t know, and when I’m not at work, I don’t know enough to be a danger to the project.”
Calculation flashed in his gray gaze. “Smith and his people don’t know that.”
“Obviously.” She shrugged, still relieved that moving didn’t hurt the way it had the night before. “And if they’d asked how to make the counter potion, they’d know how to make me remember. As it is, they got nothing they could use. Even if they did have the information on how to create my potion, they’d have to have someone with the same level of expertise as I have with potions.”
He unfolded his arms and slipped his hands into his pockets. “How many people in the world are there who could do that?”
“Not many.” She forked her fingers through her hair, wincing when she felt how stringy it was from dried sweat. Gods, she needed a shower. “The Conclave hires the best in their respective fields, so . . .”
“Yeah.” He frowned, brows contracting. “Well, this is both good news and bad news.”
“Yeah, they’re going to keep coming after me thinking they just need to torture harder.” Alex had drifted over to stand by the window, obviously hoping silence would keep him from being kicked out during the adult conversation, but now he made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. She closed her eyes, but forced herself to continue. “But if you circulate that I take a potion and can’t remember no matter what they do, it’ll just encourage them to find someone who can recreate my counter potion. If they just experimented on me until they got it right . . .”
Now it was Merek’s turn to choke. “That’s not a possibility we’re going to consider.”
She met his gaze, dared him to look away. “You may not, but you can bet your ass Luca would use it as a way to draw them out of hiding. That agent is ruthless under all the charm.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw, but he said nothing to contradict her. Luca might be his colleague, but he obviously understood the cold-blooded core in the vampire. Chloe would rather not be his sacrificial lamb.
Alex interjected for the first time. His gaze was fixed on something out the window. “There are other ways they could get the information, even without you, Chloe.”
“Well, yeah, they’d have to perform those kinds of spells on me when I’m at work or find a way to hack . . .” A horrible, ugly suspicion ripped through her mind. She focused on Alex, on the closed, composed features of his young face. “Alexei Mohinder Nemov, I think you have a lot of explaining to do.”
His gaze didn’t flicker; his voice was steady. “What should I explain, Chloe?”
“Tell me why they wanted to kidnap you.” She sat up straight in bed, folding her arms, and arching an eyebrow. “Suddenly, I don’t buy that they want to use you as bait for your father. You know something.”
His lips twitched for just an instant. “How could I know anything?”
“How could you—” She cut herself off, unwilling to dance around the main question. “Damn it, Alex, did you hack into my files?”
He didn’t blink, didn’t show even a glimmer of remorse. “Yes.”
“Fuck.”
“This Smith guy would have to be really good to figure out it was me that accessed those files.” His head cocked, eyebrows drawn together in consideration. “If he knows, it’s a good bet Desmodus knows now, too. There goes my internship.”
Like that was the most relevant conclusion he could have come to. Chloe let her head drop back. “Fuck.”
Merek watched the conversation flying back and forth like a tennis match. “There had to be a lot of files. He probably doesn’t remem—”
“He’s a computer genius, Merek. He also has a photographic memory.” She raised her head and rubbed a hand over her brow. “He remembers everything he saw in my files, so even if he has no idea what it means, he can sure as hell recreate the data for someone who does.”
Or be forced to recreate it, though she didn’t say that out loud and neither did he. Everything had just gotten a hell of a lot more complicated.
“Fuck.”
She let her hand flop down. “You said it.”
He opened his mouth to speak again, but the door swung wide, and Luca and Tess walked in the room, followed by an agent who’d been at Chloe’s house the night before. Warlock, she’d guess. He didn’t have the points to his ears that elves did, the odd energy that Fae did, or the animalistic edge that vamps and wolves had. The man nodded politely. “Ma’am. I’m Special Agent Jack Laramie.”
“Chloe Standish. Don’t call me ma’am.” She stared at him harder, and he grinned back. He didn’t have a hum of magic at all. Either he was the best she’d ever come across at hiding it or Luca had a Normal on his team.
“I come bearing gifts.” Tess carried four paper cups tucked into a cardboard holder.
“Coffee.” A moan that could only be described as orgasmic rolled from Chloe’s throat. The scent of dark roast didn’t quite mask the smell of Tess’s lavender perfume as she stepped forward to set the tray on the bedside table with a flourish.
Tess grinned at Chloe’s eagerly wiggling fingers, a demand for her cup. Being a smart woman and a good friend, Tess handed over the goods. “I know exactly what you mean. I need an IV drip to make up for the caffeine intake I haven’t had today.”
Nothing came between that woman and her coffee. She was worse than Chloe about it. The piping hot cup of java burned all the way down, and Chloe didn’t care. She moaned again without a single shred of shame.
Merek and Alex accepted cups from Tess, and when Chloe met the detective’s gray gaze, it glinted wi
th carnal amusement. She flushed, remembering she’d moaned for him with the same amount of abandon. Then she also remembered how he’d shut her down the night before, and she blushed harder. Gods, she’d been a mess and probably looked like death warmed over and she’d thrown herself at him. She appreciated that he hadn’t taken advantage of an injured woman, which said good things about his character, but in hindsight, she felt like an idiot. Poor man. What must he think of her? She sipped more of her coffee and refused to consider it.
That she was even worried about his opinion of her was telling, and she hated having to acknowledge that. It meant he mattered, and that scared her to death. She had enough problems right now, starting with terrorists and ending with a teenage hacker. Adding a man who mattered to her list was just foolish, especially when she was probably going to get towed off into protective custody for the gods knew how long.
She sighed, closed her eyes, and shook her head at her own stupidity. All those years of schooling should have knocked the dumb out of her, but apparently not.
When she opened her eyes again, all the males were gathered in one corner drinking coffee and talking. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what they might have to discuss with Alex, but she knew she’d find out soon enough. Tess was standing there staring at them with the strangest faraway expression on her face. She was also blushing, not something the straightforward pathologist had ever done in Chloe’s presence.
“Tess?”
Tess blinked and turned to meet her gaze. The blush deepened, and an embarrassed grin creased her lips, as if she’d been caught doing something naughty.