by Dianna Love
“Not up to it? I see.” He started to return the mirror to the drawer.
“Give it to me.”
“Are you sure?”
Her answer was to peel the adhesive dressing away with one swift motion.
“So be it.”
She accepted the mirror from him, angling it to get a look at the puncture marks. Once again, her pulse skyrocketed. The skin of her throat was smooth and unbroken, with nothing but some faint bruising and some redness from the adhesive removal to suggest any kind of trauma.
Impossible.
She put a hand to her throat, running her fingers over the area to confirm what her eyes had already told her. Sweet Jesus.
“You see why the medical staff at the hospital might question your story?”
“But how? I was bitten… I can still feel the burn. Where did the puncture marks go?”
Behind the lenses of his glasses, his eyes seemed to blaze even stronger than before. “These creatures cover their tracks by infusing their victims with a substance that promotes coagulation. It’s similar to the MPH beads you might use in surgery to stem a bad bleed, but it also promotes ultra-rapid healing of the wound.”
She laughed, a choked sound that bordered on weeping, which God knew was closer to what she felt like doing.
“You’re telling me vampires walk around with Bleed-X in their pockets, ready to sprinkle it on their victims’ wounds afterward?”
“They secrete the substance at will.” He pried the mirror out of her hand and put it back in the drawer. “Of course, the victim of an attack like this typically expires from shock shortly after the evidence fades.”
“Well, that must give the Coroner’s Office fits on cause of death.” She heard her own words and marveled at how reassuringly sarcastic they sounded. Was she really having this conversation with this stranger about vampires?
He shrugged. “Occasionally. Though many victims are street people — drug addicts, prostitutes, vagrants, runaways. No one investigates too closely when one of them turns up dead.”
The truth of the latter statement was undeniable. She’d seen for herself the ease with which street deaths were accepted. She’d even protested it. Until the business with Lucy. Until she decided she couldn’t afford to make waves over something she wasn’t going to be able to change anyway.
She forced her numb mind to work. “I still don’t understand why you brought me here. Why not call an ambulance and let someone else worry about it?”
“Because, as you must be coming to appreciate, I have a special expertise in these matters that conventional medicine lacks. Indeed, I think it’s safe to say I’m alone in my field.”
Well, there was something she had no trouble believing.
“Besides,” he added, “had you not been coming to meet with me, you would not have suffered the attack. For that, I feel a burden of guilt.”
Going to meet him? Then he must be… “My God.”
A smile ghosted over his lips. “No, not God, Ms. Crawford. Though on occasion, I have been accused of harboring a God complex.” He offered his hand. “Dr. Delano Bowen.”
Chapter 2
DELANO WATCHED emotions chase each other in the depths of those lovely violet eyes.
A few moments ago, he’d seen the exact instant when she remembered the events in the alley. Terror, followed quickly by doubt of her very sanity. He knew how hard it was for the human mind to confront the unacceptable. He also knew some minds splintered under the stress. But not this one. Through the window of her eyes, he’d seen her emotions roll and tumble together as she grappled to integrate that one simple, shocking, world-changing bit of information. Vampires are real.
But now it was surprise and confusion that warred in her eyes.
“Dr. Bowen?”
“At your service.”
“But why … how…?”
“A belated attack of chivalry, I guess you’d call it.” He leaned back in his chair, consciously relaxing his posture. But not too relaxed. Don’t want to look like you’re selling it too hard. She’s smart. “My access code to override the alarm on the front door quit working, which is why I redirected you to the rear entrance. That alarm operates with a key, and was still functioning. But I started thinking that was no way to begin a potential employer/employee relationship, leaving you to navigate a dark alley, so I went down to meet you. You know the rest.”
He saw her breath catch, knew she was thinking what would have happened if he hadn’t intervened. Once again, she mastered herself quickly.
“I’m glad your chivalrous streak chose that moment to assert itself.”
If she but knew.
He smiled. “Me too.”
She returned his smile, but hers looked distinctly strained. “I guess a job interview’s not in the cards this evening then. Can we reschedule when you come back from San Franciso?”
Ah, yes. He’d thrown that artificial time constraint into the mix to pressure her into keeping their rendezvous. “San Francisco is no longer in my plans. I’ll be staying here.”
“But I thought it was pressing?”
“My priorities have changed.”
A new gleam came into her eye. “Then maybe we can do the job interview after all.”
His eyebrows shot up. She was one determined lady. “Now?”
“Why not? I’m here. You’re here. You need a research assistant, and I need a job.”
“At this juncture, I’ve got bigger problems on my hands than finding an assistant. And you, quite frankly, have bigger problems than finding a job.”
She smiled again, this one more genuine if somewhat self-mocking. “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, Doctor Bowen. I need immediate employment and I intend to find it.”
“But there’s no way—”
“You think this’ll slow me down?” She nodded toward the IV assembly. “I’m stronger than I look. I’ll be back on my feet and will have landed a job by week’s end. You can bet on it.”
“But Ms. Crawford—”
“If this job’s off the table, just say so. I’ll find another.”
“Ms. Crawford, you were bitten by a vampire tonight,” he said. “Has it not yet crossed your mind that you might have been infected?”
From her sharply indrawn breath and the way her fingers dug into the blankets, he realized the notion had not occurred to her. And he was the worst kind of bastard for raising the specter, particularly when he knew it wasn’t even a remote possibility. The vampire had been feeding, pure and simple. He would not have imbibed so deeply and weakened her so thoroughly had he planned to turn her. And in any case, he’d have had to abandon the carotid artery in favor of the jugular vein, which he had not done. The blood that spurted from Ainsley’s neck was definitely the bright red of arterial blood, not the slower, bluish-tinged venous blood. Ergo, no infection could or would ensue.
“Infected?” The word emerged on a faint breath.
He forced down the self-revulsion that rose in his gorge. “Yes. As medicine will one day be obliged to accept, vampirism is an infectious disease, viral in nature, inducing an extraordinarily rapid genetic mutation in the afflicted. We’ll need to monitor you carefully for the foreseeable future, take frequent blood samples to screen for the virus and so forth.”
“Omigod, I could be infected.”
“There’s an equally good chance you’re not,” he said gently. “But we have to treat it as a possibility.”
She threw back the covers and tried to swing her legs out of the bed.
He restrained her easily. “What are you doing?”
“I need to get to the hospital.”
“They can’t help you.”
“I know a virologist. If I could just—”
“Listen to me carefully, Ms. Crawford.” He waited until she subsided again on the pillow before continuing. “This is one disease state to which mainstream medicine is willfully blind. If you try to open their eyes to it, I can guarantee you that the
local psychiatric ward will quickly become your new address of record.”
“But—”
“And if you’re actually infected … well, God help you. Your attempts to feed, to survive, will be greeted with restraints and higher and higher doses of antipsychotics and sedatives, until you die a slow, excruciating death from starvation approximately 26 days after onset. And this despite all the nutrients they will force you to ingest through a digestive system that can no longer sustain you.”
She covered her mouth with her hand, but a moan escaped.
He cursed himself, but didn’t let up. “Do you see what I’m saying, Ms. Crawford? They can’t help you. Worst-case scenario, they will literally kill you with their ignorance. Best-case scenario, you turn out not to have been infected and will eventually be released, albeit permanently stigmatized by your mental illness. Do you understand?”
She didn’t nod or otherwise signal comprehension, but the spreading bleakness in her eyes was all the confirmation he needed.
“They can’t help you,” he repeated. “But I can.”
Hope flared in her eyes, taking a savage bite out of his conscience.
“This is my domain,” he continued softly, hypnotically. “It’s my sole area of inquiry and has been for my whole career. I assure you, if anyone can help you, it’s me.”
“That’s the blood disorder you’re investigating!”
Ah, so she’d checked his credentials. Smart girl. “Someone’s been doing their homework.”
“I’d hardly make an evening appointment with you if I hadn’t already checked you out. Though much good it did me.” She narrowed those unusual violet eyes. “So, how much did you pay them to say you were legit?”
“I assure you, Ms. Crawford, I am legit.” Granted, he was the majority shareholder of Bio-Sys Genomix, but it was as legitimate as the next bio-pharm company. “And just because conventional medicine isn’t ready to accept the research is no reason not to do it. I would remind you that when penicillin was first introduced, it languished for over a decade before it found acceptance.”
“But vampirism? They actually advanced money to investigate it as a … what? A phenomenon? A disease state?”
“It is a disease state. And I would say it’s a very fortunate thing for you that I persevered in this line of inquiry.”
Ainsley blinked rapidly. Dammit, he was right. The hospital was not an option. Not unless she was prepared to forfeit what was left of her professional reputation, or her freedom, or oh God, her very life. Suddenly, she wanted to cry, badly. But no way was she going to do that in front of this man with the disturbing eyes that seemed to see deeper than they should.
The man who a few moments ago, in her dream, had lifted his head from between her thighs to lock that intense gaze with hers.
She pushed the image away hastily. Good God, what was wrong with her? How could she be thinking about sex when she needed to be thinking about her very dire situation?
She took a deep, calming breath, then released it. Then took another and another. Better.
“Okay, you’re right,” she said. “The hospital is out. They’d lock me up in the psych ward and sedate the hell out of me. If I’m not infected, they’d eventually let me go when I stopped babbling about vampires and the mad scientists” — she shot him a pointed look — “who study them. On the other hand, if I am infected—”
“If you are infected, the only way you’d get out of that hospital is in a pine box.”
No! She couldn’t die. She wouldn’t die. She cleared her throat to ease the ache of unshed tears. “And what will you do, Dr. Bowen, if I start to turn? Will you sedate me, too? Will you confine me? Will you let me starve to death?”
He leaned closer to the bed, fixing her with the full force and intensity of that burning gaze. “No harm will come to you so long as you are in my care. That’s a promise, Ms. Crawford.”
He spoke the truth. The calm certainty he projected was no bedside routine to boost the patient’s morale. This was rock-solid confidence. She’d seen enough to know the difference. For the first time since she’d awakened to a radically changed world, her anxiety level dropped a notch.
“I think I believe you.”
“You should. On this score, you absolutely should.”
She drew a deep, calming breath and exhaled slowly. “So, I guess this means I’m committing myself into your hands.”
He nodded once, leaning back in his chair again. “A wise decision.”
“I’m sorry about that stuff earlier.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ve had a lot to absorb.”
The understatement wrung a choked laugh out of her. “Dr. Bowen, I left my apartment tonight for a simple job interview. Now I’m lying here in a hospital bed — in your house, no less — thinking about the possibility that I might turn into a ravening monster like the one that attacked me. So, yeah, I guess you could say it’s been a lot to absorb.”
He inclined his head. “I can only reiterate that you are in the best possible hands.”
“The irony is a little hard to ignore, though, isn’t it?” She lifted a hand to brush her hair back from her face and wondered belatedly how bad she looked. She wished she had that mirror back. “I mean, I was attacked by a vampire on my way to meet a man who apparently specializes in studying them?”
Something flickered in his impassive face. “Ironic, yes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do have to go out briefly.”
As disconcerting as it was to have him near, the prospect of his leaving was even more disturbing. Like it or not, she now relied on him, possibly for her life.
“You’re going out?”
“Only briefly. And you won’t be alone, I assure you. My friend Eli Grayson will be here. He’s an RN. In fact, he should be in any minute to check on you again.”
Omigod, he was going after the vampire who’d attacked her!
It wasn’t a hunch, not some leap of intuition. She just looked into that intense, still face and knew it as clearly as though he’d just announced his intention. She knew it so bone deep, she didn’t even stop to question where her certainty sprang from. She was too busy fighting off a new wash of fear.
What if something happened to him? She shuddered as she remembered how easily the creature had overpowered her. Back in that alley, Delano had somehow driven off the vampire, but would he win a rematch? And if he didn’t, where would that leave her?
“Send your friend.”
A dark eyebrow arched. “Excuse me?”
“Stay here with me and send your friend Eli What’s-His-Name to do whatever needs doing so urgently.”
The dark eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Impossible. I must do it myself.”
“What if that thing kills you?” she demanded. “What will happen to me then, huh? Can your Eli save me? Is he also an expert on vampirism?”
She’d thought those eyes couldn’t burn with more intensity, but she was wrong. She felt her skin tingle under the brush of his gaze.
“What makes you think I go to confront the vampire?”
“Please, Dr. Bowen. You couldn’t be more transparent. I could practically hear your thoughts.”
He drew back, more startled than offended.
“No denial? Well, thank you for that, at least.”
“Just at this moment, Ms. Crawford, you do not look like a woman to be patronized.”
His tone was gently mocking, the first sign she’d seen that he might not be totally lacking in humor. She thrust that thought aside. “But you’re still going?”
The sensual line of his mouth hardened. “I must. But I assure you, I will return. I’m somewhat of an expert at this, as well.”
Vampire slayer?
Yes. She felt the truth of it as the words resonated in her mind.
Healer and slayer both. The implications made her shiver. If her transformation were inevitable, if it could not be stopped, would he see it as his moral imperative to destroy her? Her pulse to
ok a jagged leap.
“What exactly is the focus of your research, Dr. Bowen? Is it a cure you seek for this affliction, or a weapon to wield against the afflicted?”
His eyes hardened. “If you’re quite finished accusing me of plotting genocide, I really have to be going.” He pushed his chair back and stood. “I’ll send Mr. Grayson in.”
Eli Grayson turned out to look more like a linebacker than anyone’s idea of a nurse. Native American, probably early thirties, though it was hard to tell. He had the kind of face she suspected hadn’t changed much in the last decade. Average height, but with the kind of body that required a lot of gym time to build and maintain. He was also competent and gentler than his forbidding physique might suggest as he attended to her.
“Delano tells me you’re a nurse also,” he said, when he’d checked her IV assembly.
Delano. The name sounded exotic, which probably had less to do with the slight drawl with which Eli delivered it than it did with the mind-picture it conjured.
She nodded. “Mainly in the OR in recent years.”
He whistled. “I did a few years in OR myself.”
“Here in St. Cloud?” She lifted her arm so he could get the blood pressure cuff on her.
“Abroad.” He paused a moment to complete her BP check, then took the stethoscope out of his ears. “US Army. Iraq, mostly. A little in Afghanistan.” He peeled the cuff off her arm.
Wow. Well, that explained the linebacker body. But why would a man like that temp himself out? Or did he work for Delano Bowen in a more permanent, full-time, multi-faceted way?
“Trauma, huh?” she said.
“By the busload.”
“I’m sorry. That’s got to be hard to see. But the adrenaline’s addictive, isn’t it?”
He grinned. “Very.”
