Gripping her waist, he lifted her off of him and set her down on the swing. He stood, but his legs were unsteady and he fell back again, sending the swing into motion.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, and he could hear the hurt in her voice.
He didn’t want to see it in her face.
He stood again and reached for his jeans. He put them on without looking at her. He felt like a jerk for acting this way, but he couldn’t calm the panic inside him. Was it the disease acting up again? Or was he just such a coward he couldn’t deal with the overwhelming emotions he was feeling right now?
“Look at me.”
He stopped trying to piece his shirt together and looked at her. Her skin was flushed and sweaty. Her hair was like a fiery curtain framing an amazing face. God, she was breathtaking. It staggered him completely. And that was why he was panicking. She was doing to him what no woman had ever come close to achieving. His armor was down and he was falling headfirst into an emotional world he knew nothing about.
“Don’t make me regret this, Kellen Falcon. Don’t you dare.”
“I’m sorry.” He lifted a shaky hand, surprised at the fine tremble he felt, to try to touch her—then lowered it, unsure of himself. “It was great. You’re great.”
She stood and he could see the beginning spark of fury in her eyes. But it was the tears welling in the corners that had his knees wobbling. He’d be okay if she just didn’t cry.
“I’m great? Well, that’s just lovely. Thank you so very much.”
Bunching her hands into fists, she pushed past him, and forgetting her clothes, she opened her front door, went in and slammed it shut.
He didn’t know how long he stood on her porch and stared at the closed door. He knew he should go to her, reassure her. He took a step forward, but stopped, one hand on the knob. Slowly turning around, his shoulders hunched down, uncertain, he walked away instead, feeling as though his feet were made of lead.
By the time he flagged down a taxi and made it back to his hotel room he was cold and numb. But he didn’t think it had anything to do with the refreshing night air.
Chapter 11
Insomnia forced Kellen from his hotel room. He’d been doing nothing but pacing the room, with the television, its sound off, flickering in the background. He had too much on his mind, with no avenue to express it.
Walking the streets didn’t help, either. It proved to be more detrimental than helpful, especially in his state of mind. The clubs and bars near the hotel were hopping, crowds of people swarming on the sidewalks to get in. The last thing he needed was a few drinks and too many enticements.
He’d been propositioned three times in a span of two blocks, and it was getting harder to resist. Maybe if he gave in, he’d forget the feel of Sophie wrapped around his body. Sure, and maybe the virus running through his veins would just disappear.
A dark-haired beauty strolled down the sidewalk toward him, her gaze and smile sending an invitation that was impossible to miss. The old Kellen would have accepted without a second thought.
Instead, he had whistled for a taxi and had taken it down to the wharf, to the last bomb site. Maybe picking through burnt debris and rubble would ease his mind, by focusing it on something other than Sophie. The crime scene team had most likely collected what seemed important and taken it to the lab to be analyzed, but he had to do something. He’d go mad otherwise.
Yellow police tape still roping off the area fluttered in the breeze. The wharf seemed deserted except for the rats and other scavengers, which is what Kellen sort of felt like. Ducking under the tape, he walked around the warehouse, glancing up at the shattered fourth-story windows that he and Sophie jumped out of.
They’d been lucky that he could sense the bomb before it went off. Sophie would have definitely been killed, and he would have suffered some injuries, but probably not enough to kill him. Vampires were a lot harder to kill than lycans. Either their hearts or their heads had to be severed.
If Sophie had died, it would have seemed like that had happened anyway.
Stopping under the windows, he searched the ground for debris from the doctor’s apartment. Because of his superior night vision, he didn’t need a flashlight. He toed over pieces of blackened wood and metal, looking for anything that looked interesting or deserved a second inspection. Nothing jumped out at him.
He moved toward the main entrance, hoping the stairs were still intact and stable. He started up, eyeing each step as he went—not only for evidence but to make sure they were solid and able to support his weight. The last thing he needed right about now was to fall through the stairs and break something.
After reaching the fourth floor, Kellen cautiously moved toward the doctor’s ruined apartment. The one wall with the door was intact and Kellen slowly pushed it open. The bare living room he’d stood in earlier that day was now littered with burnt wood chunks, plastic pieces and other debris. The sofa was still recognizable, as was the table; but the bookcase had been blasted apart into several chunks, the books upon it shredded into kitty litter.
A lot of the debris, he imagined, had already been picked up and carted over to the lab. But Gabriel and Olena hadn’t been there to see what had piqued Kellen’s interest to begin with. The book on super soldiers. That was his main objective. To find it, or at least pieces of it that he could put together later at the lab.
As he moved through the room he scanned the floor searching for something, anything resembling that book or anything possibly related to it. The floor creaked as he walked. He imagined some of the boards had been weakened by the explosion. Cautious, he set his foot down, listening for any sign that it would give under his weight. When it didn’t groan, he took another step and then another, until he was standing where the bookcase would have been. A long board, partially intact, lay along the damaged wall, separating the living room from the kitchen, where the explosion had originated.
Crouching, Kellen lifted up the board. Underneath, he found a piece of what he was looking for. The thick book had been bound in black leather. What he found was half of the cover and about fifty pages, cut in half, still clinging to the spine.
After picking it up, he stood and flipped through the remaining pages. Some were charred, the text illegible, but others he could decipher with no problem.
He wasn’t a scientist, but from what he could discern just from the cursory examination, the content of the book revolved around genetics and blood disorders. Some of the ripped pages had handwritten notes penciled in the margins—the doctor’s thoughts and questions about the information in the text. Some of the notes made Kellen’s skin crawl.
“Test subjects for immunity.”
“Superior strength? Blood-related?”
“Find right kind of chemical to mix with vampire blood.”
It appeared the good doctor was doing more than his civic duty during the war.
Angry, Kellen turned the book over, intent on taking it with him, to go through it back at his hotel room, when the last notation caused his blood to run cold.
“Administer with the hep A vaccine.”
Squeezing his eyes tight against the onslaught of thoughts raging through his mind, Kellen remembered a time in Vietnam when he had fallen ill…the one and only time he’d ever been sick in his life.
He was back in the Da Nang army base for the weekend. After two weeks of humping it through thick jungle along the Ho Chi Minh trail, their captain insisted that the company needed some R & R. Kellen was looking forward to a long nap, a few bottles of cold beer and a chance to win back some of the money he’d lost playing poker the last time he was there. But first he had to report to the medic, to have his routine physical.
He could have told them to stop wasting their time with their lame tests. They would never find anything wrong with him. Being a vampire meant he’d never suffer illness, at least not the human kind. But to confess that would be to “out” himself, and he didn’t think the world was quite ready to hea
r that the creatures of myths, nightmares and B horror movies actually lived among the rest of civilization. And quite comfortably at that.
There were a few other soldiers milling about when he entered the medical building. He nodded to a couple, saluted a sergeant and then wandered into the room where he was supposed to meet the doctor. A pretty nurse he’d never seen before waited for him instead.
She turned when he entered, and smiled. “Good morning, Private Falcon.”
“Morning. Where’s the doc?” He jumped up onto the examining table.
“I’ll be doing your exam. You don’t mind, do you?” She smiled at him again, pulling the cloth curtain closed.
“Don’t mind at all.” Sliding off the table, Kellen shed his clothes.
After the examination—Kellen had thoroughly enjoyed the nurse’s warm, petite hands on his body, instead of the cool, hairy hands of the regular doctor—while he was getting dressed, the nurse came back with a needle. She tapped the end to rid it of air bubbles, then proceeded to rub alcohol on Kellen’s arm with a cotton swab.
“Whoa! What’s that?”
“Vaccination.”
“I don’t need it.” He tried to move his arm, but she held it tight. Tighter than he would have expected from a woman so small and compact.
“Everyone needs it.”
There was something in her eyes that gave Kellen pause. Staring at her, he released some of his power, getting a sense of her. Maybe she was an Otherworlder and he had just missed it the first time because he was so used to being the only one out there in the war.
After a sweep of her form, he confirmed that she was indeed human. But still, something lingered on her that gave him pause. Something different.
“What type of vaccination?”
“Hepatitis A and B. It runs rampant out here, especially with all the gallivanting you boys seem to be doing in and out of the field.”
Not wanting to alert her to his Otherness, he nodded and let her give him the shot. It wouldn’t do any harm anyway. To his system, it would be as if she injected him with water.
“There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” She slid the needle out and stroked his arm. “Now you can play all you want.” After another wide smile, she slipped past the curtain. He watched her shadow walk away, then finished getting dressed.
That night in his bunk, after losing a bunch of money in poker again, Kellen got sick. Really sick. Something that had never happened to him before.
Pain ripped through his body. It was like being whipped by a rope of fire over and over again. A great burning started at his feet and made its way up his body to his head, searing every nerve ending along the way.
Twisting and writhing in his bunk, his clothes and blankets soaked with his sweat, Kellen thought he was going to die. He begged whatever benevolent god that would listen to let him. White spots blinded his vision and he threw up until his stomach was empty. Still he retched, until his throat tore open and he was spitting up blood.
A few of his bunk mates gathered around him, eyes glassed over, unsure of what to do. Until finally, after one long shudder of his body and a final stab of pain in his gut, Kellen’s body gave out and he fell unconscious.
The next morning he woke in the infirmary, feeling rested and invigorated. The nurse looking after him had told him that he had been running a one-hundred-and-eight temperature for most of the night, but now he was back to normal. She’d never seen anything like it.
After checking his vitals again, she pronounced him healthy, then handed him a box wrapped in brown crepe paper. “This was left for you.”
He ripped off the wrapping to reveal a beautiful wood box, covered with red silk, with black grasshoppers embroidered on the cloth. He opened it. It was empty inside but it had been inlaid with bone. It was a gift of exquisite workmanship. There was no note with it to say who it was from. But he thought he knew.
Feeling strangely elated, Kellen remembered searching the medical facility for the young nurse that had given him the shot. He wanted to know what she really had given him. But he couldn’t find her, and never saw her again after that day.
A low groaning noise shot Kellen back to reality. Reacting much too slowly, he tried to move off the area he’d been standing on. But it proved to be too late.
The floor beneath him caved in.
Tucking the book beneath his armpit, Kellen leaped to the side, managing to one-hand-grasp the floorboards to keep from dropping four stories into a pit of broken wood. Although the fall wouldn’t injure him, impaling himself on something sharp wouldn’t be a good thing. Negligence and stupidity were two ways he really didn’t want to depart from his mortal coil.
He pulled himself up, and rolled onto his back to a safe part of the floor. At least, he hoped it was safe. For now, it wasn’t breaking apart. Getting to his feet, he realized that a gaping, jagged hole prevented him from reaching the door.
He moved toward the blasted-out windows and looked down at the ground, searching for anything that could injure him if he landed on it. Nothing seemed to be sticking out. Taking a deep breath, he jumped and landed safely on the ground.
Brushing at the soot and dirt on his jeans, Kellen glanced around at the area. Everything was dark and deserted. He was going to have to walk for a while before finding a taxi. He didn’t mind. He got what he came for. Evidence that Dr. Bueller was not who he seemed—and that there was a connection between him and the doctor.
Chapter 12
As Sophie shuffled through the photos from the medical center surveillance, another wave of anger surged over her. She slammed the pictures down on the table and rubbed at her stinging eyes.
Her eyes hurt from crying. Like an idiot, she had sobbed after Kellen had left. Both angry and hurt, she hadn’t been able to stem the flow of tears. If she could have she would have taken out her frustration on a punching bag. Preferably one that looked exactly like Kellen Falcon.
She felt more embarrassed than anything that she had succumbed to her desire and had sex with another vampire—something she swore she would never do again, even if the vampire in question was the most alluring man she’d ever laid eyes on. And here came a cocky, smooth-talking, borderline insane one, and she submitted after only two days of knowing him. She felt like a fool. She hoped Gabriel never found out. He’d be extremely disappointed by her behavior.
And if her father ever found out, he’d certainly disown her, maybe even shame her out of the pack.
Gabriel took that very moment to stalk into the room with his arms full of evidence from the second bombing. He set down the heavy canister, filled with what she knew to be debris from Dr. Bueller’s second residence, onto the far table. “Any matches to our briefcase?”
She gestured to a small stack of photos on the table. “About twenty matches so far.”
“With our patient photo list we’re compiling, it should be easy going after that.”
She nodded, but refused to meet his gaze.
He leaned on the table next to her and frowned. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
“No.”
“Where’s Kellen? He should be here to go through this stuff.”
“How the hell should I know?” she growled.
“Didn’t you take him home last night?”
Her head came up at that, and she could feel her face redden. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Straightening, he stared at her, his brow furrowed. “Sophie?”
It was just one word, but she knew what he was asking her. He knew. It was probably written all over her face and body language. The inspector was a trained investigator and a lycan to boot. There was no hiding something like this from him. But still she refused to say anything.
She lowered her gaze and put her attention back onto the photos. “I’ll be done with these soon.”
Sighing, he rubbed a hand over his face, but didn’t press her any further. “Okay, I’m going to track down Kellen and get him to work on this s
econd bomb.” Then he sighed again. “Do I need to take him off his case? I’ll do it if you’re having…issues.”
She shook her head while thumbing through the pictures absently. Anything to keep her hands busy and stop them from shaking with anger. “I’m fine.”
“All right.” He headed for the door then stopped. “Well, speak of the devil.”
Sophie tensed. She knew the second Kellen stepped into the room. Something shifted over her skin, something alien but not unpleasant. She shivered and had to dig her nails into the palm of her hand to stop from swinging around in her chair to greet him.
“You look like hell, boy,” Gabriel muttered. “Didn’t sleep well?”
“Something like that.”
Sophie could hear the weariness in his voice, but she stifled the urge to turn.
“What’s with all the vultures out front? It was hard to even get into the building.”
“Yeah, the media are camped out looking for anything to feed to the masses. The terrorist story is starting to cause a mass panic in the city.”
She didn’t look up, but she knew he moved into the room and was standing by Gabriel. Her nostrils flared in response to his scent floating in the air.
Damn it! Why hadn’t she been more careful? Now that they had slept together, she’d always respond to him, to his smell, to his voice. There were consequences to taking that step. She was suffering through them right now. The big difference was, she’d never experienced them this strongly with anyone before. She’d expect it with another lycan, but not ever with a vampire.
“I retrieved what I could from the doctor’s second residence. Can you go through it and see if you can piece together the bomb and anything else you might find?”
“I’m on it.”
“Good,” Gabriel said, then left the room.
Sophie busied herself with the pictures as Kellen walked over to the far table. She forced her head down, but it didn’t last. She looked at him as he put on gloves and lifted the top off the heavy plastic tub the inspector had brought in.
Vivi Anna - [Valorian Chronicles 04] Page 7