3013: FEVER (3013: THE SERIES Book 16)

by Kali Argent

  Chuckling under his breath, Luke stepped forward to offer his hand but jerked to a stop when a deafening explosion reverberated through the house. The windows rattled in their frames, books tumbled from their shelves, and the floor shook with enough force to make him stumble.

  Frozen in place, he and Xi locked eyes and said at the same time, “Jael.”

  Crossing the distance in two strides, Xi grabbed him by the wrist and squeezed tight. “Hold on.”

  Then, everything went black.

  Pressure increased behind his eyes. His chest constricted, leeching all the air from his lungs, and his stomach rolled, forcing bile into his throat as he tumbled through an endless void.

  Only a second or two later, he found himself back on solid ground, doubled over as he wheezed for breath and tried to keep his breakfast from making a reappearance. If that was what transporting felt like, he’d just take the stairs in the future, because that had been the single most unpleasant thing he’d experienced in his life.

  “Jael!” he called, then immediately doubled over again in a coughing fit as thick, acrid smoke burned his lungs. “Jael!”

  Stumbling through the wreckage of his lab, his heart seized when he finally got a good look at the destruction. Chairs and tables were overturned, some of them broken and twisted into unrecognizable pieces. A purple haze floated above the clouds of gray smoke, and a blue, gelatinous mass flowed across the floor like a glowing river.

  Alarms blared, and a red light strobed across the room, glinting off the thousands of pieces of broken glass that were littered across the white tiles. A robotic voice spoke over the sirens, counting backwards from thirty with intermittent warnings of the imminent lockdown.

  Navigating through the debris, he held the collar of his T-shirt over his mouth and nose, breathing shallowly as he staggered toward the back of the room. Jael would be there, right where she always sat at the workstation nearest his office. She’d be okay. She had to be. Her magic would protect her. Luke had to believe that, because the alternative was too painful to consider.

  “Jael!” Xi yelled, still searching near the front of the lab. “Jael, answer me!”

  Stars save them if Jael wasn’t okay, because her brother would raze the entire planet to the ground. Luke would probably help him.

  Nearing what had once been his mate’s workstation, Luke slowed when he noticed the black, wooden box with its intricate carvings. “Jael!” Franticly, he pushed aside the warped and dented lab table. “Jael! Can you hear me? Jael!”

  This time, a quiet moan answered him, and while it was weak and thready, it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.

  “Jael? Baby, I’m here. Talk to me. Where are you?”

  Several pieces of metal that had once constituted the frame of the cubicle lay in a jumble on the floor. Reaching for it, he jerked his hand back and cursed when the molten steel scorched his skin.

  “Luke…”

  “I’m here. I’m right here.”

  Bracing himself for the pain, he grabbed the silver bars in both hands and lifted the heap, pushing it over and out of his way. A layer—or two—of his skin went with the metal, and the pain that laced over his palms and up his arms was excruciating. He kept going, shifting through the rubble, moving more debris, and pushing over a charred, smoking chair.

  And there she was.

  Curled into a fetal position, her arms wrapped around her head, Jael groaned as she blinked up at him. “Luke,” she croaked, tears filling her eyes. “Oh, neelum.”

  “Hey, no, you’re okay. I’m going to get you out of here.” He stooped to pick her up, but stopped, suddenly unsure if he should move her. “Are you hurt? Can you move?”

  “I…I think I’m okay.”

  Luke nodded and lifted her from the floor, cradling her protectively against his chest. “Xi!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Over here! I’ve got her!”

  In the next blink, Xi appeared directly in front of him, reaching for his sister. “Give her to me.”

  Yeah, not going to happen. “This isn’t the time. Go.” Luke jerked his head toward the corner of the lab. “Stairs. That way.”

  “I can transport her,” Xi explained. “It will be quicker.”

  Ah, Luke hadn’t thought of that. “Will it hurt her?”

  Xi shook his head. “I’ll come back for you.”

  Reluctantly, he transferred Jael into her brother’s waiting arms and took a step back, shaking his head. As much as he hated to let her go, it was the right thing to do, the best thing for his mate. He didn’t want to leave her alone, though, not even for the few seconds it would take Xi to return for him.

  “Don’t worry about me. Take her to the den, and I’ll meet you there.”

  There was a shimmer of the air, a movement in the smoke, and they were gone.

  Coughing and wheezing, Luke staggered toward the back staircase, relying mostly on memory to guide him since he couldn’t see a damn thing. His eyes stung and watered, his blistered hands throbbed in time with his pulse, and every step sent searing agony through his right leg. He didn’t know when he’d injured it, or even how, but when a particularly sharp pain had him grabbing his thigh, his fingers came away slick with blood.

  He’d almost reached the stair when a soft, feminine cry pulled him up short. At first, he didn’t know what to think of it. Jael was safely upstairs. Cami wouldn’t have been in the lab, and he’d given Nell the day off.

  Nell. Damn it, he should have known she would sneak into the lab anyway.

  “Nell!”

  “Luke? Oh, thank the stars. Help me, please.”

  Feeling his way through the thick haze of smoke, he found his lab assistant sprawled on the floor near the foot of the stairs.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked as he crouched down beside her. “Am I going to cause any permanent damage if I pick you up?”

  “No.” She winced but shook her head. “My leg is stuck, though.”

  Sure enough, her right foot was wedged under the top panel of what had once been his desk. “Ready?” he asked, grabbing the edges of the wooden slab. “Push!”

  He strained as he lifted the panel, moving it just enough for her to scramble out from underneath it. Once he had her free, he dropped the piece of his desk and hurried over to help her up from the floor.

  “Can you walk?”

  She leaned against him and nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

  Her first step nearly dropped her, though, and she cried out as her left leg buckled under her weight. Muttering a string of curses, Luke lifted her into his arms and started up the staircase, careful not to bump her injured foot on the railing. Three steps from the upper landing, the emergency door swung open, shining bright, golden light down the stairwell.

  “Luke?” Tariq stepped forward, his arms outstretched. “Damn, here, let me take her. Are you okay?”

  With every muscle in his body protesting the added weight, Luke didn’t argue as he passed Nell to the Helios. “I’m okay. Jael?”

  “In the den with Xi and Cami.” Shifting the female in his arms, Tariq followed Luke through the doorway that opened up under the grand staircase on the main floor. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’re bleeding everywhere.”

  “It looks worse than it is.” He had no idea how bad it looked, nor did he care. He just needed to see his mate.

  The short trip through the long corridors to the den seemed to take ages, and he could feel his strength waning with every passing second. There was a heavy pressure in his chest, preventing him from breathing too deeply, and it was starting to make his head spin. His legs felt heavy, especially the bleeding one, and he tripped as he stepped down into the sunken den.

  Luckily, Xi was there to catch him, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him upright. “I think you need to sit down.”

  Luke waved him away. “I’m okay.” Making his way to the sofa, he basically fell to the floor in front of it and reached for his mate. “Are you okay?”


  She looked okay. A little sooty, a little disheveled, but still absolutely gorgeous.

  “Yes, neelum, I’m okay.”

  “That’s good,” he slurred, lowering his head into her lap. “That’s…that’s really good.”

  That was the last thing he remembered before the darkness swallowed him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Luke came awake to the feel of a cold nose in his ear, and a rough tongue lapping his cheek. “Daisy, stop.” The pain in the ass insisted on waking him the same way every morning, no matter how many times he’d scolded her for it. “Knock it off, pup.”

  Trying to push her away, he groaned when it pulled at the skin on his palm, sending a shooting pain up his arm. Holy nova, he felt like he’d been through hell and back. His head pounded, his leg throbbed, and his lungs still protested necessary things like breathing.

  Prying his lids open, he blinked against the brightness of the room and lifted his head, surprised to find himself sprawled across the brown and gold area rug in the den. “Jael?”

  “Luke?” Cami sat beside him on the floor, her face a mask of worry as she took Daisy and pulled the puppy into her lap. “Are you awake?”

  “Obviously, chipmunk.” Grunting, he pushed himself upright and glanced around the room, searching for his mate. “Where’s Jael?”

  Cami nodded sideways.

  Twisting so that he could look over his shoulder, he sighed with a profound relief at the sight of his mate sleeping peacefully on the sofa behind him. Even with tangled hair and soot-smudged skin, she was beautiful. Just like that morning when he’d left her in his bed, she had one hand tucked under her chin, and it was still the cutest damn thing he’d ever seen. The wheeze that blew through her lips with every exhalation concerned him, but her chest rose and fell steadily, and there were no signs of distress on her lovely face.

  “She’s not hurt?”

  “She has a burn on her leg. A few cuts and bruises.” From the adjacent loveseat, Xi leaned forward to rest his forearms on his thighs as he shook his head. “Nothing life-threatening, but I placed her in a healing sleep as a precaution. She’ll wake soon.”

  Nodding, Luke returned his attention to his mate and caressed the back of his hand along the curve of her jaw, smiling when she leaned into his touch. “How long was I out?”

  “Only twenty minutes or so,” Cami answered. “I bandaged your hands.”

  Indeed, blue, medicated burn-wraps had been wound over his hands in sloppy, crisscrossing patterns. Upon further inspection, he realized she’d also cleaned the gash on his thigh and slathered about a pound of ointment on it.

  “Thanks, chipmunk. I appreciate it.”

  “Luke?” Curled up in the armchair by the fireplace, Nell had one knee tucked under her chin and the other leg stretched out in front of her on the cushioned ottoman. “Luke, I’m so sorry.”

  Her apology confused him, but he didn’t dwell on it. “Are you okay?”

  Her gaze flickered to the foot perched on the ottoman. “Just a sprained ankle. All things considered, I guess I’m lucky. It could have been a lot worse.”

  Given what he’d seen down in the basement, both she and Jael were lucky to be alive. “Nell, what happened?”

  “I’m not sure.” She’d wrapped herself in a green throw blanket, and as she spoke, she pulled it tighter around her shoulders like a cocoon. “I know I wasn’t supposed to come in today.” She ducked her head and peeked over at him sheepishly. “I was in your office getting my notes when Jael came in and sat down at her workstation. That’s really all I remember before waking up by the stairs.”

  She hadn’t told him much, and what she had said sounded plausible, but something about her version of events bothered him. “You didn’t see anything out of the ordinary?”

  “No, nothing.” No hesitation.

  “Did you talk to Jael before the explosion?”

  Again, she shook her head. “No. I saw her come in, but I was in the office, so I don’t think she saw me. The explosion happened just a few seconds later.”

  She was lying. Not only would she not meet his gaze, but he could hear it in her tone. Furthermore, he’d seen the black, wooden box in the debris near Jael’s workstation—the box he distinctly remembered her putting away in his office after the last time she’d used it. So, if what Nell said was true, and Jael had entered the lab after her, how did the box of samples end up at her workstation?

  Luckily for him, and quite unfortunate for Nell, he didn’t have to play 20 Questions to get to the bottom of things. “Cami?”

  His sister looked at him and shrugged as she scratched behind Daisy’s ears. “She’s lying,” she answered as casually as if they were discussing what to have for breakfast. “You already knew that, though.”

  “What?” Nell sputtered and shook her head, but her eyes went wide with fear. “I’m not lying. Why would I?”

  Luke snorted and returned his attention to Cami.

  “Sorry. I don’t know.” A shallow V formed between her eyes, and she cocked her head as if trying to hear better. “She’s…doing math. Formulas, maybe? Oh!” Cami’s puzzled expression cleared, and her gray eyes lit with merriment. “She thinks I’m a bitch.”

  Only his sister would find humor in being insulted.

  Nell was clearly hiding something. It wasn’t hard to piece together that she’d had a hand—at least partly—in the incident, but he was a little iffy on the details. If it had been an accident of some kind, he’d be angry, but mistakes could be forgiven. If the attack had been purposeful, it really depended on where that anger had been directed.

  Destroying his lab would get her fired.

  Intentionally hurting his mate would get her dead.

  “Nell,” he began, only to be interrupted when Tariq called his name from the top of the steps that led into the den.

  “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  “Now?”

  The male gave him a pointed look. “Now.”

  Heaving himself up from the floor, Luke instructed his sister to come get him if Jael woke up, then followed Tariq out of the room. They didn’t go far. Around the corner and halfway down the corridor, the Helios stopped and spun to shove a portable monitor at him.

  “I think you should see this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Lab’s security footage from this morning.”

  Luke hadn’t even thought to check the surveillance. With only him and Nell—and now Jael—working in the lab, there was never a reason to, and honestly, he’d kind of forgotten about it. Nodding in gratitude, he held the monitor in both hands and pressed the screen with his thumb to play the vid.

  Seven seconds into the feed, Nell strode into view of the camera, her gait a little too quick to be considered casual or normal. She passed by Jael’s workstation without incident and let herself into his office. Thirteen seconds later, she reemerged, carrying the square, wooden box that Jael used to store her samples.

  Bringing it back to the cubicle, she placed it on top of the table, and from there, he couldn’t really decipher what was happening. There was a lot of hurried, frantic movement, but nothing that really made sense to him. She opened the box, closed it, removed something from the pocket of her lab coat, then opened the box again. Eventually, she pushed the box to the center of the worktable and returned to his office.

  Luke fast forwarded.

  Six minutes and twelve seconds after the video had started, Jael entered the lab. She had a smile on her face, and her lips moved, but Luke couldn’t hear what she was saying. Pausing the video, he lifted his head and met Tariq’s amber gaze.

  “Where’s the audio?”

  “Disabled.”

  It was another layer of security his dad had implemented. Unlike most monitoring devices, their system didn’t record audio and video from the same source. Instead, the two mediums were captured separately, then merged into a single feed. That way, if anyone ever hacked their system, they’d have to go through m
ultiple systems and layers of security.

  Luke had thought it was over the top and paranoid. He’d even said as much to his father. As usual, the old man hadn’t listened, but for once, he was grateful for that.

  Luke turned his attention back to the monitor and started the footage again.

  Reaching her workstation, Jael fisted her hands on her hips and frowned at the box. It was adorable. She looked toward his office, then back. Several seconds passed where she just stood there, but eventually, she settled into her chair and held her hand out, palm up toward the ceiling. A small, vial filled with orange liquid materialized out of nowhere, and she gripped it tightly as she reached for the box.

  At the 7:03 mark, a bright, yellow light blinded the camera, then at 7:05, everything went black.

  “I think Nell was trying to scrub the feed when Jael came in and interrupted her,” Tariq said when the vid ended. “The log shows your ID accessing the system just a few seconds before Jael came into the lab.”

  Luke didn’t care that she was young. He didn’t give a damn that she was a female or a scroll or anything else. He was going to kill her.

  “Why? Why would she hurt Jael?”

  Taking the monitor from him, Tariq shook his head. “That’s what we have to find out, but there’s something else.” He tapped on the display a few times, then turned it back to Luke. “Your ID is also logged as accessing the security footage last night at 9:28.”

  That would have been right around the time he’d been on stage giving his speech to a roomful of their guests. It was also at the same time Jael had been in the lab.

  Earlier, in his office, Jael had tried to tell him something. She’d even said that it had to do with her being in the lab the previous night. At the time, he hadn’t thought much of it. In fact, he’d assumed she wanted to rehash the conversation about their ridiculously screwed-up families. He wasn’t so sure of that anymore.

  “Come on.” He led the way back to the den, unsurprised to find everyone exactly where he’d left them. “Xi, I need to talk to Jael. Can you wake her up?”

  The male sat up straighter and scowled. “It’s best to let her wake naturally.”