by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor
Protection from just-in-case scenarios.
But for now, Bea was still speaking to the guests. “I would like to introduce you to our male vampire, Griffin Montfort. He is a success story for us.
“You have seen how our daily UV treatments, initial blood transfusions and the withholding of human blood have caused the female vampires to shed most vampiric characteristics. Our process has made them think more like humans and act this way, as well. For Griffin, we are also using a strict diet of animal blood that has been cleansed of all hormones. At the same time, we are gradually introducing human foods—grains, meats, vegetables and fruits. Administering serum shots, the first of which you are about to witness, will be the next phase in their healing. We have examined our subjects and come up with a formula of proteins and antibodies that will hopefully be the final cure. I will be taking you to the lab proper to discuss the composition in more detail.”
Bea signaled to the male assistant, who in turn injected Griff with his first serum dose. Griff lowered his head, hands grasping the padded table he sat on.
Camille couldn’t bear it, so she glanced behind her, at the row of captive strigoiaca.
At the moment, Tina, a cute graduate student, was feeding Ana. Camille’s fellow hunter was doing well, almost fully healed since she hadn’t been infected for long. She’d be going back to Vasile within days—under observation, of course. And the one Griff called Claudia, the backpacker girl, wasn’t very old, either. Her wings had shrunk to nubs and she had a quasihuman disposition and pallor. However, Mina and Star were old—over two hundred years, Doc had estimated. They hadn’t shown as much improvement yet, and were being kept in cells at the end of the hall, isolated until more progress was made.
“Good morning, Griffin.” Bea’s voice was amplified by the cell’s two-way speaker.
The sound of his name hooked Camille’s attention. She touched the glass, wanting to feel him instead.
But the cold, hard material was nothing like the skin she remembered. The body she hadn’t laid hands on for so long.
His own greeting was a polite nod, a glance of those serious brown eyes before he closed them and clenched his jaw.
Camille watched closely. Was he having a reaction to the serum?
“You already know that Griffin and Petar Vladislav were the remaining captives,” Bea said, studying Griff, too. “Mr. Vladislav, who is living safely under surveillance with his mother in Juni, survived without exchanging blood with the strigoiaca. But our Griffin kept himself alive by doing just this. As he described it to us, he used a stone to open his vampire’s palm one night. He drank of her blood while she was feasting on him. Then he used the last of his strength to put his mouth on hers. To exchange saliva and complete the process. After that, she would allow him to drink from her, sustaining him. He was her pet, and it was to her benefit to keep her food healthy.”
There went Camille’s stomach again. A tearing ache.
Though Griff hadn’t talked much since his rescue, he’d told Camille and Bea about his experiences. But the reserved black centers of his eyes made her wonder if he was revealing everything.
“I remembered the stories about male vampires,” he’d said on that first day, after being extracted from the Huey in his UV coffin. “It was clear that I could be a vampire—alive—as well. I drank Mina’s blood just to be with Camille. I would’ve done anything.”
Just as she had for him.
Now her stomach rebelled again. Was she too young for ulcers? Thinking about Sarge, the blood, the tragedy, she couldn’t help punishing herself with contained guilt.
What’d happened to him? What’d Ashe done with his body? Buried him? Done useless magick on him?
And did Griff even remember laying fangs into Sargent?
Sometimes she wondered if the UV treatment had scrambled the kill out of his memory. He never talked about it. But both she and Bea had agreed that broaching the subject could wait. The truth might be detrimental to his healing, they reasoned.
All Camille knew was that her conscience weighed heavily with Sarge’s downfall every morning. Every night.
Griff relaxed his white-knuckle grip on the table, and she sighed, averted her gaze to the soothing sight of their guests and their white coats.
Bea was still talking, bless her exuberance.
“It is interesting to note that the strigoiaca sought male victims because they were addicted to the testosterone derived from the blood.”
Scanning the crowd, Camille took in the clipboards, the handheld recorders. Academics. Her old milieu.
“Yet Griffin seems to work differently. Among other things, he craved the estrogen from healthy human women. When he was rescued, the scent of my assistant, Ms. Howard, excited the need for this addictive hormone in him. It brought out the monster, triggering superhuman strength and capabilities.”
As Bea went on about how the vampires’ fangs hadn’t disappeared yet, even though the rest of their symptoms were in the process of doing so, Camille stared at the intellectuals, missing the safe structure of their world.
One man toward the back of the crowd caught her attention. Tall, light brown hair.
A flicker of panicked hope shook her. Sarge?
Drawn, she moved away from Griff’s cell.
“Ms. Howard?” Doc was watching her as if she’d called Camille’s name a few times already.
Rattled, Camille glanced back to Sarge, only to find empty air where the specter had been.
But it wasn’t the first time her brain had created his image, had flashed that neon reminder of her victim.
In a daze, Camille stepped back up to the front of the group, next to her mentor.
“You are here to witness a momentous step for Griffin,” Doc said. “We have kept him in this sensory-deprivation chamber. He has not caught the scent of humanity until now.”
Bea tucked on her headgear and ushered Camille toward the reinforced-steel door. But Camille couldn’t help glancing to the back of the crowd, just one more time.
No Sargent.
Hell, her conscience wanted him back. That’s all.
She shook it off, steadied herself. An assistant unbolted the door.
“You fine?” asked Bea. “I worry about you.”
“Thanks. But there’s no reason to.” Camille winked, just to keep Bea happy, then she strode through with Doc trailing her.
The room lacked scent since the air system kept the atmosphere sterile. As she approached, every lean muscle in Griff’s arms bunched, letting her know that he was just as apprehensive about this as she was.
The armed male assistants shuffled, ready to strike if Griff made a move.
She came to stand next to him, the need to touch him overwhelming her. Conversations via the window hadn’t done the trick.
“Hey,” she said softly. Shyly.
“Hey.”
Well, this was first-date awkward. “How’re you feeling so far?”
He breathed in, crept his fingers to his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut again. “Headache.”
Bea stuck a stethoscope on his back. Through her suit’s speaker, she said, “A reaction to the serum. We will monitor that.”
“Your body’s under a lot of stress,” Camille said. “Migraines could be normal for what you’ve been through.”
Doc grabbed her student’s hand, squeezed it. “Now you touch him?”
She knew how much this meant to Camille, yet it was Aunt Bea’s big moment.
Still feeling the observers’ cold, assessing stares on her, she hesitated. Her loving touch, the moment she’d been hungering for since…forever…would be reduced to scrawls on clipboard paper.
She inhaled, held her breath, skimmed her fingertips over Griff’s upper arm. He shuddered, watched her with that foreign who-are-you? curiosity.
Bea gave a tiny, thrilled hop and walked toward the window. “Look, they are applauding.”
When Camille glanced over, she saw doctors nodding, beaming, bringing their
hands together in a pantomime of approval.
So why did she still feel so alone? So beaten?
“Tomorrow,” Bea said, coming to put an arm around her and Griff each, “we move on to more contact. Maybe even a hug this week, yes?”
Yes, Camille thought, wanting so damn much more.
Maybe she’d even get a hug from him this week.
Over the next two months, Camille ventured into Griff’s cell for more time each day. They progressed to holding hands, then that long sought hug.
Under constant observation, they cautiously talked about general things: The summer weather outside the lab. Camille’s lunches with their old friend, Ms. Godea. Camille’s record of having avoided the paparazzi for over a year now. How Camille had put off her doctoral work and how Griff wanted her to continue. She’d still been researching the male tribe in the Carpathian Mountains, but her heart wasn’t in using it to further her lot in life.
And there were things they didn’t talk about: How the strigoiaca were acting more human each day. How Camille had started a weapon collection.
She tried not to think about why, or how each added machete or stake amounted to the sum of her fears. An arsenal had replaced her faith in logic, and she couldn’t admit it.
Couldn’t let go of what had been keeping her together all these years.
Though the conversations flowed and looked good on lab reports, they were definitely lacking in intimacy. After all, having a team of vampire restrainers in the room wasn’t the most romantic of settings.
In the meantime, she contented herself with knowing he was alive and getting better. Knowing that he was starting to watch her with something less dangerous than vampire hunger, or less disheartening than his distant gaze.
So on the night when Griff was finally released from his cage, Camille was beside herself with excitement.
Bea had seen to it that he would move into an apartment in the laboratory until she was convinced he was in full remission. Their confidence in Griff’s recovery had been spurred by Ana’s moving out of the lab three weeks ago, definitely recovered, though Camille had hired an assistant to monitor the woman in Vasile for the next year. Also, as a precaution, more guards armed with sedatives had been added to the around-the-clock shifts.
Meanwhile, the rest of the strigoiaca were still in their cells, receiving more treatment.
To celebrate his return, Camille had gone out and bought ingredients to make a prescription-friendly chicken curry, one of Griff’s favorite dishes.
Regular food, she thought with a smile. Maybe thrifty, home-cooked meals would make her uncle Phillip feel better about the fortune she was spending “out there in Europe.” She could just imagine him back in New York, steam coming out of his ears as her accountants blabbed to him about her secretive investments. Well, too bad. She didn’t take his phone calls anyway, so she didn’t really care what he thought.
With a liberating sigh, she cheered up. Chicken curry would be her and Griff’s return to normalcy, the beginning of forgetting.
So why did she still feel as if Sarge was following her?
It was crazy, she knew, to think he was behind her when she walked the city streets to shop or run errands. It was nuts to feel him stalking her while she researched male Carpathian tribe lore in the university library.
“You must put Sargent behind you,” Bea had told her several times, deep mother-hen concern etched into her wrinkled skin. “If you had not brought Griff back to us, the world would have suffered. Sacrifice needs to be made for science, sweet girl. Remember this.”
She’d try, Camille thought, opening the door to the apartment she’d furnished for Griff: sleek steel furniture with black accents, computer equipment, a kitchen stocked with nutrients for Doc’s specially prescribed diet.
And there he was—the most valuable furnishing of all, sprawled on the lone couch. He was watching a grainy detective movie on a plasma TV, waiting for her.
Dropping the market bags on the ground, Camille rushed over to him, and he stood to meet her. They embraced, laughing like kids who’d gotten surprise presents.
He crushed her to him, hands buried in her loose hair.
They were a little more comfortable with each other now, after three months of lab courtship. But when they pulled away to grin at each other, there was still that chasm. A gulf filled with things they now knew about themselves but were too afraid to share.
“Finally away from prying eyes,” she said, breaking the ice.
“Not a sneeze without Dr. Grasu penning a lab report.”
Now that they were out of the glass cage, his sheepish gaze had been replaced by something more mysterious—that chemical need of a man wanting a woman.
He had his urges under control with the help of continued treatments, Camille thought. So it seemed safer to experiment with emotion now. Besides, he’d been desensitized to her scent. There was no need to worry.
She held back a smile as he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra under her thin white tank top. The dark centers of her breasts were visible, stimulated just from the intensity of his gaze.
“It’s so different,” she said, “not being watched.”
She didn’t add that there was a definite element of danger. The knowledge that he’d killed and she’d allowed him to do it.
Before she could catch her next breath, his mouth was on hers, sipping, lulling her into a swaying dizziness. He slipped one hand down her spine, shaping her to his lean body, then resting his palm at the small of her back. With the other hand, he held her head, pressing her closer. Devouring her.
Then, what started as a fierce hunger slowed. Their kisses stretched into lazy tastes of possibility.
He was here, thought Camille. She’d done it. Gotten him back. Risked everything for these kisses.
She rubbed against him, and he moaned, fisting her hair. He was getting aroused, stiff with wanting her.
As she stroked his mouth with her lower lip, she talked. Her kisses doubled as words.
“How do you feel?”
“Don’t become officious, Tex. Just keep snogging me.”
A smile claimed her, and he snuggled against her neck, planting tiny kisses along the center of it until he reached her lips again.
She playfully grabbed a handful of hair, taking control, forgetting her inhibitions and giving in to her painful longing for him. Under the pressure of his kiss, she opened for him, meeting his tongue with hers, then sweeping inside his mouth. Between her legs, she grew damp, slippery with eagerness.
Then her tongue scraped against his teeth.
The still present fangs.
They both stopped. Griff put a hand up to his lips, as if hiding what was there.
The background noise of the TV became much too loud. Two people arguing. A gun exploding.
“I…” She didn’t know what to say, only knew that she ached for him.
Making a casually frustrated gesture, Griff spread out his fingers, let his hand drop to his side. “Maybe I can get these bloody things filed down now?”
The fangs had grown over his human canines, forcing them out during the first phase of vampirism. Camille and the doc had wanted to see when they’d be replaced by human teeth again, but maybe they could observe Claudia instead.
“Forget it,” she said, forcing a smile and backtracking to pick up her dropped market bags. “I’ve waited for you a long time. I can wait a little longer.”
“I’m okay, otherwise.” He paused, and the missing words echoed between them.
I think I’m okay, at least.
He was right. Besides the fangs, Bea and she hadn’t seen remainders of the disease in him. No fins, no claws, no red eyes…He was cured, for heaven’s sake. They’d even fed him human blood last week, just to mark his reaction.
No reaction. Except for some understandable gagging.
While she unloaded the groceries, she heard him turn off the TV, move to stand behind her. Ignoring the urge to turn around�
�good God, she could keep her back to her own boyfriend, couldn’t she?—Camille washed the vegetables, arranged to cut them.
He cleared his throat. “I couldn’t talk about this in front of all those people, but since we’re alone…”
She started chopping the celery. Please don’t bring it up. Don’t—
“I killed your friend. Mr. Sargent.”
The knife jarred out of her hand, nicking her index finger. But she didn’t register the prick. Instead, she turned around, searched his face. His shadowed eyes, the cross Ashe had burned into his neck just below his jaw.
“Sarge wasn’t a friend,” she said, hiding her light cut from Griff. “Never a friend. Besides, you didn’t kill him. I did. It’s all on me.”
“No.” He moved to the sink, facing her. “I don’t recall much of that day, just bits, really. My head is like a broken film spliced with scenes from another life, but…I killed him. And I remember enjoying it.”
There was an odd shine to his eyes. Camille groped for the water faucet, wanting to wash away the blood on her finger. As she did, the pressure hissed against porcelain, and she thrust the injury under the cleansing stream of it.
Closer. He was inches away now. “Sometimes I wonder if my head’s all together, Tex. I wonder what that serum has done to my body. My mind. Maybe I should be back in that cage. Maybe my innards have been muddled so much that I’ve become something you never planned to create.”
“We know your fears.” With a forced smile, she purposefully shut off the water. She’d give her right arm to make him feel better. “You’re living in the aftermath of trauma, and you’re still under observation so we can keep an eye on any fallout. There’re guards posted around the lab. Don’t worry.”
“Then why do I feel somewhat insane now?”
She wanted to cover his mouth, to stop these words.
“Stress. Really. This all has a rational explanation.”
You still believe that, Howard?
The echo of Sarge’s voice shook her.
Get out of my head, she thought. You knew what my choice would be if it came down to you and Griff.
Her boyfriend paused, took her wounded finger in his hand. Her heart clutched.
