Hidden Embers

by Tessa Adams

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Despite the late night, Jasmine woke at dawn feeling like something was out of place. She fumbled for the bedside light, but her hand only met air—and that’s when it occurred to her that the thing out of place was her. She wasn’t in Phoebe’s luxuriously appointed guest room. Instead, she was in Quinn’s underground cavern. There was no bedside lamp because there was no electricity.

  Of course, he didn’t need it. He’d said a few words while they’d been walking into the cave last night—after their marathon sex session in the car—and light had suddenly bloomed all around them.

  She’d been astounded, and impressed, with his magic, for lack of a better word, and with the gorgeous cave he inhabited when he wasn’t crashing in town. The cavern was huge, with stalactites hanging from the ceiling and beautiful, colorful helictites blooming everywhere she looked.

  Despite her tiredness, she’d wanted to explore, to follow the sound of the waterfall echoing off the walls. Quinn had laughed and swept her into his arms, convincing her that there was another, more pressing exploration that needed to be done. She hadn’t been sorry, but now that it was morning, she was itching to learn more about his home.

  Lying there against Quinn, she felt more at peace than she had for a long, long time. For once, her body didn’t hurt—not one of her injuries so much as twinged, and she knew he was responsible. Yesterday, she had ached in every bone in her body, and now she felt ready to hike ten miles through the desert—or to make love to Quinn again. Snuggled up as she was against his strong, hard body, the second option definitely held more appeal.

  Yet something was not quite right. When she lifted her head to look around, she finally realized what it was. Both of their cell phones, which were resting on the small carved table on Quinn’s side of the bed, were going crazy.

  Rolling over Quinn, she ignored his sleepy sigh of satisfaction and the hands that settled on her hips, and reached for her phone.

  “Hello?” she mumbled, after punching the accept call button.

  “Jazz?” Phoebe’s frantic voice came through loud and clear despite the fact that Jasmine and her phone were several dozen feet underground. “Where are you?”

  “I’m, uh, with, umm…” Pushing her hair out of the way, Jasmine struggled into a sitting position and tried not to feel like she’d just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “I’m with Quinn.”

  “Oh. Oookay.” There was a strange tone in her friend’s voice, one Jasmine couldn’t help thinking sounded like censure. But she didn’t know who it was directed at—Quinn or her.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I wasn’t—”

  “I’m not worried about that. I called because I’m at the clinic. We’ve got another case of the virus, and I thought you might like to see it at work, in a living organism.”

  She shoved herself off Quinn in a hurry, stumbling around in the dark as she searched for her clothes. “You’re right. I do.”

  She found her pants, scrambled into them. “Who’s the patient?”

  “Male dragon, six foot four, two hundred pounds. He’s been sick with another disease that is normal in the dragon world, but it’s currently in remission. Like in the other cases, this thing just seemed to sprout from nowhere.”

  Phoebe paused. “Is Quinn awake?”

  “Not yet.” She pulled on her bra and went searching for her shirt, only to remember that Quinn had shredded it the night before. “I’m about to wake him.”

  “He’s awake,” Quinn mumbled from the bed, his voice husky with sleep. “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s another case of the virus. Phoebe—”

  He was out of bed before she could finish the sentence, ripping the phone from her hand. “Who is it?” he demanded. Then, a few seconds later, “Shit. I can’t believe this. Can’t the guy get a fucking break?”

  Another pause, followed by a flick of his wrist that had light flooding the bedroom. Jasmine squawked in alarm, clapping her hand over her eyes. “Tell him to hang in there. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  He hung up the phone and tossed it to Jasmine as he reached for the jeans he’d thrown on the floor the night before. “I don’t suppose there’s any way I can convince you to stay away from the clinic today?” he asked almost conversationally. Only the fine trembling in his hands as he neatly folded the jeans betrayed just how much he wanted her to agree to his request.

  “Not a chance. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to see how this baby works in action.”

  Quinn’s head came up, and he shot her a reproachful look. Suddenly she realized how insensitive she sounded. “I’m sorry,” she said, fumbling awkwardly for a way to make him understand that she meant no harm. “I wasn’t celebrating the fact that there was another case. I just need to be able to see—”

  “I know what you mean.” He crossed to the dresser, pulled out a navy T-shirt and fired it straight at her, before pulling out another one and dropping it—still folded—on the jeans. “It’s a little big, but I figure it’s probably better than the bra look. At least in public.”

  “I’m forced to agree,” she said, then thought about changing her mind after she put the shirt on and it fell almost to her knees. And she was six feet! She’d hate to see what the shirt looked like on a normal-sized woman.

  “You ready?” he asked impatiently.

  “I am.” She eyed him dubiously, as she knotted the shirt at her waist. “But I think you forgot something.”

  He smiled at her for the first time that morning, and despite the sorrow in his eyes, the grin was just a little bit wicked. “It’ll take at least half an hour to get into town by car.”

  “As opposed to hiking naked through the desert?”

  “As opposed to flying,” he answered, shoving the clothes into a backpack and then slinging it over his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  He grabbed her hand and started through the cave, moving so fast she had to run to keep up. “I’m sorry. Did you say flying?”

  “I did.”

  “But I can’t fly.”

  “Good thing I can.”

  They burst out of the cave and into a desert just coming to life as dawn rolled slowly over the horizon. Despite the urgency of the situation, she paused for a moment, spellbound. “It was here. That picture at the restaurant last night. Michael painted it standing right here.”

  “He did.”

  “My God.” She shook her head. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Here, hold this.” He tossed her the backpack.

  She caught it, then started to ask him what was going on. But it was too late—he’d started shifting. She watched, captivated, as Quinn disappeared body part by body part. It was nothing like what had happened in the car the night before, when he’d been fighting the change with everything inside of him.

  This was something else entirely, something beautiful and joyous and absolutely fascinating.

  It was over too quickly, and then she was staring at a huge, gorgeous dragon with skin the same deep emerald as Quinn’s eyes. She’d never seen anything like it, never imagined that such a thing could even exist. And yet she was enchanted, mesmerized, completely transfixed by the creature in front of her.

  Reaching out a tentative hand, Jasmine waited for him to rebuff her. But he didn’t. Instead, he lowered his head so that she could rub him on the long bridge of his nose. She was shocked at how warm he was, how silky smooth his scales were when she’d braced herself for something cold, and maybe even a bit slimy.

  She might have stood there all day, petting him—admiring him—but he snorted impatiently. It was amazing how much the dragon Quinn looked and sounded like the human one.

  Slinging the backpack with his clothes over her back, she said, “All right, all right. Don’t get your scales all bunched up. What should I do?”<
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  The dragon bent forward, extending its long regal neck, and she blinked at him for a second before it sunk in that he expected her to swing onto his back, much like she would a horse. Excitement burst through her, wiping away any worries she might have had about the dragon not knowing her, and she grabbed onto his neck.

  Within seconds he’d lifted his head, flinging her up and onto his back in one fluid movement. Then with a snort that sounded very much like a warning, he took off—soaring straight up and into the purple and red sky that stretched before them like a promise.

  It was the ride of her life, the experience of her life—and that was saying something, as she’d ridden just about everything there was to ride in the last few years. Except, of course, for a dragon.

  Quinn was in a hurry to get to town, and not in the mood to fool around for her amusement. But still, he managed to thrill her with his headlong flight across the desert. The ground rushed by at an amazingly quick rate, and she hugged his neck more tightly, pressing her body against him so that she could hold on with her knees as well. He bellowed at the move—a sound of approval that whipped through her like lightning. And then he was spinning, around and around and around, never once slowing his speed as they whirled through the sky.

  She held on tight, laughing a little more with each twirl. Too soon, the town came into view, followed by the large, imposing structures of the lab and Quinn’s clinic. With a growl of warning, he arrowed straight toward the ground, flying so fast that she was sure there was no chance he could avoid crashing.

  She braced herself, but Quinn was a lot more flexible than the average airplane, and he managed to pull up at the last second. Within moments they were on the ground, and he was shifting back to his human form.

  Jasmine watched him again, just as fascinated by the process in reverse. As soon as he was human again, she unzipped the backpack and threw him his jeans and T-shirt. He donned them quickly, then took the clinic stairs three at a time, leaving her to trail behind him.

  She didn’t mind, as it gave her time to brace herself for whatever she would run into inside. She’d read the case notes, seen the samples, but when it came to diseases like this, no file in the world could compare to seeing how the disease actually worked as it attacked its human host.

  One look at the room Quinn led her to, one look at the patient laying in the middle of the bed, reinforced that opinion. Because even knowing how the virus worked, even thinking that she was ready for whatever she found, even having spent years in the field dealing with the worst hemorrhagic viruses on the planet, nothing on earth could have prepared her for this scene.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Inside Room 124 of the clinic, Brian Alexander was dying in the most atrocious, undignified manner possible. The second Jasmine saw him, her professional detachment went out the window. She watched the man struggle into a sitting position, his body shaking wildly from the effort.

  “Quinn,” he whispered, in a voice rife with knowledge. “It looks like I’ve reached the end of my time limit, after all.”

  Jasmine was standing near the door and didn’t catch Quinn’s answer, but the healer was devastated. That much was obvious.

  Whatever he’d said must have been amusing because Brian threw back his head and laughed, a full-on belly laugh that shook his entire body and caused blood to leak from his nose and ears.

  Jasmine pulled his chart from where it rested on the inside of the door, wanting to know the timeline for the patient’s deterioration. What she saw there chilled her to the bone. He’d been fully mobile when he walked in three hours before, suffering from chills, vomiting and a strange tingling in his hands and feet. The day before that, yesterday, he’d been in the clinic for a quick blood draw and he’d been perfectly healthy—as had the blood.

  Now, less than twenty-four hours since his routine check-up, Brian was running a sky-high fever, even for a dragon. He was bleeding from every orifice in his body, and his legs were completely paralyzed. All this within five hours of his noticing the first symptom.

  She remembered the timeline Phoebe and Quinn had made up and was amazed at how much faster the disease was progressing in Brian than it had in anyone else—even Michael, whose case was the fastest so far on record. If things kept up at this rate, Brian would be dead within fifteen hours. Perhaps sooner.

  She glanced around the room, noted the number of machines and other pieces of equipment that he was hooked up to—and the fact that he had no family members in the room. His chart said he was married, that he had children, yet none of them were with him. She wasn’t sure she blamed his wife. Brian’s toes were slowly turning black, rotting, and the bleeding had increased even in the short time since she’d gotten in the room. This was no place for kids.

  Brian and Quinn were still talking, and Jasmine noticed that the sick man kept licking his lips, as if they were very dry—which wouldn’t be unusual with this kind of bleeding, even with the IV hooked into his hand.

  Slipping out of the room, she went in search of a water pitcher and some ice chips. She found both in the supply room in the middle of the hallway, and filled up the pitcher and then grabbed a plastic cup and a straw. As far as medical offerings went, it was pretty lame, but it was the best she could do. The best any of them could do, short of shooting Brian up with painkillers—which they were already doing.

  She was halfway down the hall when a woman came running into the clinic, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Help me! Please help me.” In her arms was a beautiful baby girl, no more than a year old and probably less. A steady stream of blood was dripping from her nose.

  Jasmine dropped the water on one of the counters next to the nurse’s station and ran, reaching the woman just as a nurse did. “What happened to her?” she asked, as she gently took the baby from her mother’s arms. Touching the little girl’s skin, Jasmine’s blood ran cold. She was burning up, her temperature so high brain damage was imminent.

  Shooting into action, Jasmine headed down the hall at a run. She glanced in each open doorway until she found an unused exam room. Plopping the little girl down on the bed, she shouted for ice packs even as she began stripping her.

  She turned to the nurse next to her. “What works on dragon fevers?” she demanded.

  “We don’t normally get fevers, so it’s pretty much anyone’s guess,” she answered, full of worry. “We can try ibuprofen—that’s what Quinn has been treating the fever with for other patients who contract the virus.”

  “The virus?” she demanded, ignoring the gasp of the trembling mother who was standing next to her, on the other side of the child’s bed. “What makes you think this is it? There’s never been a patient anywhere close to this young before.”

  At that moment, the little girl’s body convulsed, her eyes rolling up in her head as she began to vomit. Jasmine turned her over, so that she didn’t aspirate, and snapped out, “Get Quinn. I want his opinion.”

  The nurse’s eyes were horrified as she went to do Jasmine’s bidding. “Check in the drawers behind you,” Jasmine told the mother as she continued to hold the baby. “See if there’s a stethoscope in there. I need to listen to her heart.”

  The woman didn’t move, just swayed on her feet with blank eyes. Jasmine realized the woman was going into shock. Of course—as if they needed any more trouble.

  “What’s her name?” she asked, trying to get the woman’s attention and head off yet another disaster.

  “Rose.” It was the barest of whispers.

  “That’s a beautiful name,” Jasmine told her, internally cursing her lack of familiarity with the room—and the clinic. When this nightmare was over, she swore she would familiarize herself with every room in the clinic, so she was never at this same disadvantage again.

  The nurse came back with a bunch of temperature-lowering ice kits, a stethoscope and two syringes. Quinn was right behind her, and Jasmine swore he moved so fast she didn’t see his feet touch the ground between the doorway and
little Rose’s bed, where the baby continued to convulse and vomit, vomit and convulse.

  He closed his eyes and ran his hand lightly over the baby’s stomach and head. Within seconds the vomiting stopped and the crying began—a high-pitched wail that no one could ever mistake for normal. The baby was in serious distress, and if they didn’t get her temperature down, now, they wouldn’t have to worry about the progression of the disease.

  “Save my baby,” the woman chanted, as she stared at Quinn with pleading eyes. “Please, Quinn, save my child.”

  “I’m trying, Melinda. I promise you, I’m trying. Why don’t you go down the hall and check on Brian while I examine her?”

  Jasmine realized with dawning horror—this was Brian’s baby. Somehow he had managed to infect the baby, probably within an hour or so of getting infected himself, judging from the symptoms.

  The nurse took Melinda out of the room—presumably to visit her dying husband and deliver the news that their child was dying with him—and for the first time, Jasmine noticed the little boy trailing after her. He couldn’t be more than six or seven, with bright blue eyes and an adorable mane of blond hair.

  She closed her eyes and muttered a swift prayer that he too wasn’t infected. Surely, God, fate, the universe couldn’t be that cruel.

  She turned back to Quinn, who was working feverishly over the patient, packing the little girl in ice despite the violent trembling of her body. “What can I do?” Jasmine demanded. She didn’t know much about dragon anatomy yet, but she was a quick learner.

  “Not a damn thing,” Quinn growled, his green eyes all but destroyed as they met hers over the little girl’s shaking form. “The fever’s too high—her internal organs have already begun to fry.”

  “Surely there’s something we can do? She’s just—”

  “Besides making her more comfortable, I don’t know what to do. At this rate, she’ll be dead before her father.”