by Sylvia Day
She exhaled in a rush, wondering if it was reckless desperation that had driven him to the insane act of abducting her from her job, her hometown, her life. Maybe someone close to him was ill. It wouldn’t excuse him, and it certainly didn’t mean she’d stay to help him, but it made his actions far less scary.
“My shoes?” she asked.
Stepping back, Syre pointed to where her heels had been neatly arranged against the wall. Karin slid them on, and he ushered her out to the hallway.
With his hand at her elbow, he led her down a flight of stairs to the ground floor, then through a heavy metal door that had been concealed behind a bookcase that swung out and away from the wall. The dichotomy between the warm, comfortable home she’d woken in and the sterile area they entered was striking. Instead of warmly polished hardwood stairs, a utilitarian metal staircase took them down into what resembled a hospital wing.
With just the opening of a door, they’d gone from wainscoted rooms and claw-footed furniture to austere concrete floors and a palette of unrelieved gray and white. The sense of surreality that fogged her mind was exacerbated by the abrupt change in her surroundings.
“This medical facility was completed very recently,” he said, leading her down the halogen-lit hallway. “My chief researcher was using a converted warehouse previously, but I needed her closer, and she needed better facilities and equipment. As do you.”
Two technicians in lab coats passed them—a large, ruggedly handsome male with golden eyes and a tall blonde who couldn’t seem to look away from Syre as he passed. Both techs paid deference to him with slight bows of their heads, which he returned with a far more regal and arrogant dip of his chin.
He was clearly someone very important, a man used to giving commands and having them obeyed. Who was he? And how much trouble was he going to give her when she didn’t toe his line?
“Are the infected individuals here?”
“Some of them are.” He opened an unmarked door and she found herself in an observation room.
Karin moved to the viewing window and saw the rows of infirmary beds, in which freakishly gray patients lay comatose. Gray hair, gray skin. As if all of the color had been sucked out of them. They appeared almost like black-and-white figures in a colorized film.
“How are they presenting?” she asked.
“You’ll have to talk with Grace about that. I don’t know how to speak medical jargon, Doctor, but I can tell you my people are dying by the hundreds and the Wraith Virus is spreading quickly.”
Wraith Virus? She faced him and immediately regretted it when some of her synapses fried at the sight of him. “Why haven’t I heard about this?”
“Because it’s need-to-know, Doctor. Until now, you didn’t need to know.”
The possibility of a government cover-up seemed more likely by the minute. Still, as bizarre as her present circumstances were, she nevertheless was fascinated and tantalized by the unknown. She couldn’t fight the greedy curiosity to know more. To know everything.
“I’d like to look at their charts,” she said, turning her attention back to the viewing window, “but I can’t commit to becoming involved. I have other things on my plate at the moment, and the way you brought me into this has made me very uncomfortable. I’m a private citizen whose rights you’ve trampled. I have work that needs my attention and—”
“Doctor.” There was steel in Syre’s voice and it effectively cut her off. “This has become your one and only priority. You will work on the Wraith Virus until you find a cure.”
Her mouth fell open and she met his reflected gaze. “The hell I will! I—”
“I’m a desperate man, Karin.” He moved to the rear wall and leaned his shoulder into it, crossing his arms. The casual pose did nothing to mitigate the restless energy he gave off in waves. He was a coiled threat, waiting to spring. “And you’re nearly as desperate as I am.”
“I’m not—”
“I can give you the healthy body you’ve never had. I can give you all the time in the world to conduct your research and tests. I have limitless wealth at your disposal. I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted and more.”
Karin wondered if she was still unconscious and dreaming. She shoved her hands through her hair, feeling awash in confusion and frustration. In the glare of the fluorescent light above her, she saw her face in the glass and her wide, dilated blue eyes. First and foremost, she needed to understand one very important point. “Am I a prisoner?”
“You’d rather be playing with petri dishes in a lab than saving actual lives?”
“Don’t take that fucking tone with me!” she snapped, fury overriding every other emotion. “You’ve taken me from my home and work, and you’ve given me very little information to justify why. You evade my questions, and you’ve yet to give me a satisfactory explanation for who you are and what authority gives you the right to disrupt my life. You—-”
“What life?”
“Excuse me?”
“You work and you sleep. You have no kin. Your colleagues are your only friends.” His gaze was a nearly tangible weight on her back as he watched her with hawklike focus and spoke so coolly about her personal affairs. “I’m offering you a life of good health and purpose—-”
“It’s not up to you to decide that my life, such as it is, isn’t worth living!”
Syre straightened. “I’m giving you the opportunity to find a cure for something—anything—in your lifetime. It’s highly doubtful you will without me. Your lab suffers from underfunding, and you yourself are suffering from a debilitating disease that’s severely shortened your lifespan. I can erase both of those problems.”
“You’re doing me a favor by conscripting me?” she shot back, telling herself to focus on the patients and not his stunning face. As ridiculous as it was to argue with him with her back turned, it was far safer than looking at him directly. “Is that the way you see it?”
“Yes, actually,” he drawled. “A little gratitude would be nice.”
Karin snorted. “You need far more help than I could ever give you, since I’m not a shrink and you could seriously use one. I made peace with my life and my disease—which is incurable, by the way—long ago.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “I see what the problem is now.”
“Took that long, did it?”
“You don’t believe me.”
He thought that was the problem? “Let’s say I did believe you. You pretty much blew whatever chance there was for us to work together by taking me against my will. And by crossing state lines, my abduction is a federal offense.”
“You say that as if the laws of your government apply to me.”
The rhythm of her heartbeat faltered. Your government? Jesus. If he was a foreign dignitary, it was possible he had political immunity and—
Where was her tablet? She’d had it with her when they’d met. Sensitive information was on it, including memos regarding Plasma X. If that were to fall into foreign hands…
“Karin.”
Her name struck her like the crack of a whip. She jolted.
“Look at me,” he coaxed.
She’d been trying to avoid doing that, so she could keep her wits about her. There was something deeply compelling about Syre, from the underlying cadence of his speech to the way he watched her in a very nonobjective way.
“Look at me, Karin,” he repeated.
Turning her gaze away from the rows of patients, she did as he ordered. And gasped.
His eyes were aglow, shining as if illuminated from within. Then he smiled and revealed…
Fangs?
She stumbled backward, tripping over her own feet, but he was there to catch her. He’d moved so quickly, he had been no more than a blur, crossing the distance between them in the blink of an eye.
“What are you?” she gasped, her mind scrambling.
“I am capable of making all of your problems go away.” He slid one arm around her waist, while the fingers of his other
hand pushed through her dark hair and brushed it back from her flushed face. His touch shimmered through her, making her thoughts scatter.
“There are several reasons why I chose you, Karin. The research you’re so desperate to get back to is one of them. You’ve spent years analyzing that blood sample the Feds sent you, haven’t you? It’s degraded, but still amazing. You know it’s radically different from anything you’ve ever come across, but you haven’t been able to isolate how because you don’t have enough to work with and your grants are insufficient to provide you with the resources you need.”
She swallowed hard. “Is it…yours?”
“Doubtful. I’m rarely hurt. In fact, it’s been a century at least since the last time. But I do have a limitless supply of more like it.”
His gaze swept over her face and it almost felt as real as the brush of his fingers. His voice was low and smooth. Intoxicating. She felt herself relaxing, the tightness in her muscles loosening. The low buzz of pain in her joints faded from her perception.
The smell of his skin was delicious. Karin found herself breathing just to inhale more of it. The feel of his body against hers was surprisingly—but not unpleasantly—cool, and it was stirring a heat in her blood. The fear she’d been nursing since learning her location was a distant concern.
“I have what you need, Karin,” he murmured, his gaze on her mouth. “I have what you want.”
Dear god…Syre was a greater threat than she’d given him credit for. He was as seductive as the devil himself, a creature not quite human and yet imminently desirable. And he knew it. He knew the spells he could weave with the promises he made, both spoken and unspoken. He understood the power he wielded with his looks and sinfully sexy body. He didn’t need bars on the windows or guards at the doors.
He intended to make her his captive. And he was going to do his best to make her want to stay that way.