Firebinders: Marek (The Firebinders Book 1)

by Isobelle Cate

  “I need you to come with me.” Marek pulled Gwen away from the line. He was beginning to feel the effects of whatever the hell was injected into him. His blood would be able to metabolize the chemical, but depending on its concentration, he might not have enough strength to keep standing. He needed to get to his plane quickly and Gwen was making it difficult to do so when she pulled away from him.

  “Why?” She glared at him. “I have to catch a flight.”

  “To where?” He hadn’t meant it to come out harshly but the chemical was starting to make him dizzy.

  “Anywhere away from here.” She closed her eyes in frustration, suddenly tight lipped.

  “I’m leaving for New Orleans now. That far enough for you?”

  “You want me to stowaway?” Gwen mocked, amused.

  “No, my plane is waiting for me in the hangar,” he snapped. The need to get her out of harm’s way and the effects of the drug was exactly what he needed to be a dick. “I can’t wait, Gwen. The drug is beginning to take effect and I may not be able to walk back to the car.”

  He saw something flicker in Gwen’s eyes before she nodded. Relieved, Marek led the way back to the curb. He blinked several times to clear his double vision when he missed the door handle. Gwen took over entering the limousine quickly before Marek followed suit.

  Shit. He was holding on by a thin thread now. He just had to get inside the plane and he’d let go so his body could absorb the poison or whatever the hell was injected into him. Just the thought of the drug being injected into Gwen brought a growl rumbling in his chest.

  The plane was warmed up and ready, the sound of the engine shrill, the fumes of aviation fuel dispersed by the cold air. Marek got out and staggered back almost losing his balance just as Gwen shot out of the vehicle catching him.

  “Gwen,” he rasped.

  “Lean on me,” she said briskly, a mixture of worry and concentration on her face. She slung her purse over her lower back.

  “Your backpack…”

  “I have your luggage, sir, ma’am,” Paterno replied his face devoid of emotion as he preceded them to the plane to hand over their belongings to the pilot.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Bannach?” Captain Greg Trevor descended, his brow creased.

  “Just get me up.” Marek was starting to slur. What the hell was in the syringe? His blood was becoming sluggish as it became aware of something foreign mixing with it. Once poison and blood fused, the sanguine fire would burn whatever it was that invaded his body before Marek could expel it.

  Gwen let go of him so he could lean against the pilot.

  “Gwen…”

  “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  He couldn’t hold back any longer. Grunting, he took the steps and the moment he was inside, the plane’s floor rose to greet him.

  ****

  “Marek!”

  Everything and everyone moved in slow motion. Gwen wanted to catch Marek before he fell but even the swinging of her hand looked like it was cutting through very deep water. She entered further into the plane espying the couch towards the back.

  “Help me get him on the couch,” she ordered Greg and Paterno.

  “He needs to see a doctor,” Greg stated, his weathered face filled with concern. He reminded Gwen of James Stewart in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. Paterno, on the other hand, reminded Gwen of a barrel-chested Pancho Villa.

  “I am a doctor,” Gwen informed them both. “Do you have a first aid kit?”

  Greg opened one of the cabinets and handed her a white bag with a green cross. Gwen immediately opened it and riffled through the contents.

  “I’ll be fine,” Marek mumbled as he moved his head back and forth. His face contorted in pain, his eyes blinking as though trying to focus. “Greg, stick to the flight schedule. I need to get to New Orleans fast. Thanks for the ride, Paterno. Until next time.”

  “Anytime, Mr. Bannach.” Paterno straightened from helping Marek to the couch. He still didn’t leave. “You sure you’ll be okay?”

  “Yes, I will.” Marek made a sound between an exhale and a laugh. “Too much partying you know.”

  Paterno looked on skeptically. “If you say so, sir. Take care and I’ll see you next time you visit.”

  “Will do.”

  As soon as Paterno left, Greg closed the hatch and joined the co-pilot in the cockpit but not before glancing back at them once more. When the cockpit door closed, Gwen turned back to Marek.

  “Marek.” She repeated as she knelt by his side and putting her purse to one side of the couch. She took his wrist to check his pulse. It was incredibly fast. His eyes were closed, brow furrowed. Gwen inhaled sharply when Marek’s skin heated, reddening as though he was going to implode.

  She knew it! Marek had something that increased his body’s temperature more than that of a normal human being. Still she worried. Despite the plane’s air conditioning, Marek could still suffer from heatstroke at the rate his body was heating up. There was nothing in the first aid kit that could help. She reached out opening the buttons of his shirt.

  “Don’t.” His eyes snapped open. Gwen gasped falling on her butt when she saw his eyes glitter and filled with blue fire. “Please…Gwen. I have to do this on my own.” He clenched his jaw so hard Gwen thought he’d break it. “Give…me time. Not very…long…now.”

  She had a million and one questions at the phenomenon she was seeing. What exactly was happening to him?

  Greg spoke over the speakers instructing them to fasten their seat belts to prepare for take-off. She looked at Marek helplessly. How on earth would she be able to drag him onto a seat.

  “I’ll be fine, Gwen,” he murmured. “I don’t need a seat belt.”

  “How on earth…” she began looking at him in awe.

  “Please…just do as Greg says.”

  Gwen moved to the seat opposite the couch fastening her seat belt. How the hell did Marek know what she was thinking? Her gaze lingered on him and she chewed on her bottom lip not knowing what else to do. His fists rested on his forehead, the knuckles white. His breathing was laboured, his flat stomach inflating and deflating with every breath.

  What is he doing?

  If there was indeed poison in the syringe, Marek needed to be in the hospital but he refused. It was as though he knew he’d be able to heal himself.

  Impossible.

  The scientist in her knew that people could heal themselves of the common cold, cough, or fever. But poison? Anybody in their right mind would have needed specialized care.

  Leaning back in her seat, she looked out the porthole feeling the roar of the plane under the seat of her jeans. Her body sank deeper into the chair as they lifted off the ground. She inhaled and closed her eyes as a wave of nausea filled her. Jet fuel mixed with leather topped with cabin pressure was making her queasy.

  She never imagined her life to spiral so fast from normalcy to danger. Yesterday, she was inside a sterile lab. Today, she was zooming to thirty-five thousand feet in the air en route to New Orleans with a man she barely knew, to escape the power behind the pharmaceutical giant she formerly worked for.

  Once they levelled and the seat belt sign was switched off, she stood and checked on Marek. His breathing was no longer laboured, his fists not as stiff as they were earlier. She wanted to feel his pulse but she didn’t dare touch him in case it interfered with the way he was healing himself.

  Gwen idly walked around the cabin. Cream leather seats and couch, wood panelling, a galley with a coffee maker, fridge, ice maker, and mini bar. Even the bathroom was the epitome of luxury. A small thick glass vase of desert flowers sat by the sink and thick towels were piled high to one side.

  Returning to her seat, she opened her back pack. Gwen took out her new and thinner laptop that was wedged between her clothes and the charger which she bought before heading for the airport. Minutes later she was deep into her research, glad that the lithium ion battery had enough juice for her to work while she was charg
ing it. There was hardly anything left of her work that she hadn’t submitted in the report Digna hijacked. The only thing left for her to complete was to give her findings on the experiment she made. She had injected a lab rat with the serum she created with a few drops of the blood. The rat had cancer cells and the serum not only slowed the progress of the disease, but set off the test subject’s cells to create its own unique antidote to combat the disease. She was not one hundred percent sure because three days after, the subject showed signs of weakening. Gwen had made a stronger dose and had injected it a week before Sebastian Highmore had called her in. It was this part of the report she hadn’t submitted.

  Gwen also wanted to know one thing. Where did Highmore get the blood? And if he had no intention of sharing the technology with the world, why did he create a team to study it in the first place? That was a lot of money to waste on an experiment that was going nowhere. Unless he meant to use it for something else.

  She sighed, lifting her long hair away from her neck. She didn’t know what was going on but she was sure of one thing. She was lucky to get out of Austin alive.

  Gwen was so engrossed typing that she didn’t notice Marek had woken up until he sat upright and startled her. She asked her erratic beating heart to slow down when even tousled from sleep, Marek was eye candy. His thick brows slashed over his eyes while his hand ran over his thick dark hair.

  “How long have I been out?” he asked blinking the sleep away.

  “Twenty minutes or so,” she muttered. She saved her work once more before closing the laptop.

  Marek stood and staggered toward the galley. He opened the cupboard to get a bottle of bourbon. “Want one?”

  “No thanks.” She looked out of the cabin window. Ice clinked in the glass before the faint smell of alcohol tickled Gwen’s nose.

  He sat across from her sipping his drink while his eyes assessed her.

  “Good as new,” he said. “I just needed to let my blood kill it.”

  Her eyebrows rose.

  “Let your blood kill it? So something did happen in the hotel.”

  He shrugged before bringing his drink to his mouth.

  It was difficult not to squirm when Marek looked at her like he wanted to devour every inch of her. Lascivious thoughts were running through her mind as fast as a train about to derail. Her teeth caught her bottom lip once more and her cheeks warmed. Oh shit…her nipples decided at that moment to pucker inside her no nonsense cotton bra! She crossed her arms so that her jacket covered her chest.

  “How long does it take to reach New Orleans?” she asked, her voice croaking.

  “An hour and twenty-five,” he replied.

  “How are you feeling?” She needed to stop herself from her erotic thinking. “You look none the worse for wear.”

  Marek’s mouth twitched. “Drug must have been weak.”

  “Speaking of which.” She leaned forward, her eyes lit up with interest. “How did you do that?”

  “Did what?” He took another sip.

  “Marek?”

  “Yes?”

  Gwen smiled sweetly before giving him a cool glare. “Don’t fuck with me.”

  His brow rose as his eyes darkened with sensual amusement. “Don’t use a word I might misconstrue, Gwen. Unless that’s what you want then I’m game.”

  She blushed furiously, more angry at the way her body was responding. “You know what I mean.” Her stomach tensed at the possibility. “You burned up, Marek. I thought my fingers would blister when I checked your pulse earlier. Smoke came out of your fingers when you held those men’s necks in the hotel. And now you’re drinking as if nothing’s happened.”

  She didn’t realize that her voice had pitched in her agitation. With a huff, she stood and walked away from him. Who was this man who piqued her curiosity and wrought havoc on her senses? Why was he always there when she needed rescuing like some avenging angel protecting her even with his life?

  “You weren’t supposed to see that,” he murmured so softly, Gwen thought she hadn’t heard right.

  “I knew it!” She whirled around unable to hide her excitement. “I was not seeing things at all! What did you do?”

  “Who’s trying to kill you?”

  “Please don’t change the subject,” she groused, her eyebrows meeting between her eyes. She stomped back to him. She suddenly had this irrational belief that the plane would plunge under her feet.

  “I’m not changing the subject, Gwen,” he said quietly. “Why were those men after you? What kind of trouble are you in?”

  She gave an unladylike snort. “More like I walked away from trouble but trouble insisted on finding me.” She plopped down back on her chair. Leaning back with a huge exhale, she stared at the world below as the plane banked to the right. “All I wanted was just to get more insight and study the rare find.”

  “What was this rare find? An artifact?” The way Marek looked at her made Gwen wish that she had put at least some makeup on but she had been in a rush and she didn’t expect to bump into him again. Still, she felt plain in the midst of the plane’s plush furnishings.

  Stop right there. What the hell are you thinking?

  Marek sighed. “Stop scowling. It doesn’t look good on you.”

  “Sorry.” What else could she say? She brushed a stray strand from her face. If her face continued to heat up, she’d be the one imploding.

  “People are trying to harm you for something you have, and I have been trying to keep you safe. Surely you owe me an explanation.”

  “But I’ve not asked you to keep me safe.”

  Marek hitched his shoulders. “Take it for what it is.”

  She lowered her chin to her chest as she hesitated. Quitting her job didn’t mean that she could divulge what she did for Sebastian Pharma. The non-disclosure clause in her contract made sure of that. She did owe him an explanation but there was no way she could explain without letting him on what she had been doing. Ah bloody hell.

  Fuck the contract.

  “All right,” she said on a breath. Taking off her jacket she sat back down on her seat and rummaged through her knapsack. She couldn’t stop the pleasure spreading through her body. She was holding the attention of one man longer than she had with her ex. God, she was pathetic! Finally, she found was she was looking for. An elastic hair band.

  “Until yesterday, I was working for Sebastian Pharma.” She bit part of the band while she gathered her hair up. “I was part of the team studying a unique type of blood that had not been encountered before.” Her T-shirt hugged her body as she raised her arms to secure her hair in a messy bun.

  “Go on.” Marek stood, his deep voice soothing.

  She brushed her tongue over her lower lip and exhaled, hyperaware of Marek moving behind her that caused a tingle of excitement traipsing down her spine. She inhaled grabbing the notes of his scent from the air, the one that made her want to keep him close so she could breathe him in.

  “The type of blood was very different from what we generally know,” she said. “There’s A, B, O, positive and negative Rh factors, antigens, and so on. This one was not any of those. It was a new strain.”

  “Keep talking.”

  Her chest expanded. She only had to angle her head to her shoulder to see Marek’s mouth close to her ear…so dangerously close to hers. Her eyes snapped to his. They darkened like the blue green pools she longed to swim in before they lowered to her mouth.

  Thoughts of Marek touching her ran through her mind heightening her senses. But just as she inched closer to his mouth he stood, leaving her flustered and embarrassed. Flushing, she swallowed to hydrate her suddenly dry throat. She sat on the edge of her seat, her back straight. She knew her nipples were hard points against her shirt. Even in her T-shirt and jeans, she felt sexy. An ache began to blossom in the middle of her sex and she squirmed to ease it.

  “The blood was something I had never come across before.” She continued in a huskier voice. It was taking a lot more fr
om her to concentrate on her research and not on tracking Marek. “It reacted differently to the chemicals already in the vial.”

  “How?”

  “The blood we were studying was different because after going through the centrifuge, something was extracted that rose to the top of the serum or blood plasma. The serum rises from the blood clotting. That’s the only thing that’s supposed to be there but there was another layer above it. A deep bluish substance almost dark purple in color. I did more tests by subjecting it to plasmapheresis.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The process of removing the antibodies from the blood. I thought that might be a part of the subject’s antibodies. It was not.”

  “What happened to what you extracted?” His voice skated over her. A deep, dark, sexy sound that sent lust pooling in her sex.

  How could a clinical conversation turn sensual? Leave it to Marek and his bloody sexy voice!

  Gwen didn’t care if her nipples were two equidistant pebbles on her chest. She couldn’t get enough of Marek and as if he heard her, he trailed his mouth against her nape. Gwen breathed in sharply. Her head automatically lowered giving Marek more access before angling her head to the left so that his mouth trailed up the right side of her throat to her ear. Sparks of electricity lit inside her at his touch and she felt herself getting wetter.

  “Marek…” she whispered.

  “Hmmm?” He continued his gentle onslaught.

  “What are you doing?”

  Don’t stop!

  She needed to feel his mouth on her but his lips paused its gentle onslaught.

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “I do.” Her voice squeaked out of her drying throat. “But I won’t be able to finish telling you about my research.”

  Marek laughed softly moving away. He reached for the phone.

  “Greg, no one comes in here until I say so, got that? Thanks.”

  The click of the receiver being placed back into its cradle cracked in the air conditioned cabin. Gwen’s heart was racing a thousand miles a minute and had her blood thundering in her throat, her veins. Hell, her pulse seemed to be everywhere!