by J. R. Ward
Sometime later, he lifted his head. His eyes were worried.
“More . . .” she said roughly. “I want more . . .”
That purr from him was so loud, it drowned out the fall of the water, and then he peeled back his lips and flashed his fangs.
This time, when he struck, she knew what to expect and she was greedy for the twin stings, well aware of the incredible pleasure that came next. He did not disappoint. More of that volcanic passion came back, otherworldly, unbelievable.
She was with another creature, something other than human. An entity capable of killing her.
Vampire.
And she loved him.
Murhder only wanted to keep going. He wanted to drink from his Sarah, right next to her sex, so close he could taste her core along with her blood, for the rest of his life and hers.
But he would never endanger her.
He had to force himself to release her sweet flesh, her delicious vein—but he was rewarded with an incredible sight. Lifting his head, he found her in the thralls of ecstasy, her breasts tight, her cheeks flushed, her boneless legs loose and totally open to him.
He would keep this image of her for however long he had.
But then he had to take care of her. Her blood welled at the puncture marks he had made—the second set—and he felt the hunger for her vein rise in him again. But no. He would seal her up and give her more pleasure and then they would sit together under the warm water, holding on to each other . . . until the time came for him to try the drug.
Lowering himself back to where he had been, he extended his tongue and drew it up the twin marks he’d made in her. Lapping. Sucking. Making sure that they had closed and then licking into her sex some more just because he couldn’t get enough of there, either.
Then he reared up over her, his much larger body dominating her graceful form, the predator claiming what he wanted, what he needed.
Gripping his cock, he put his head at her core and sank in deep, pushing in hard. Her breasts registered the penetration, gleaming under the spray as they moved with a bump, and he touched them, caressing the nipples with his thumbs.
Gritting his teeth, he pumped hard into her, her sex’s hold tight on him even as the rest of her was lovely-loose. Reaching up to one of the rails screwed into the wall, he grabbed on tight, using it as a way to go even harder.
Just before he started to come, he pulled out and sprayed her sex, her lower body, even her breasts with his scent. Marking her. And then he reentered her and filled her up from the inside, too.
Murhder went for longer than he ever had. And when he finally kicked out a final last release, he collapsed without warning, clonking himself a good one in the head on that rail. Not that he cared.
He was breathing hard. He was dizzy. He was lost and found at once.
Sarah’s lids slowly opened. And her smile was the sunrise he would never see outdoors.
Except then she frowned. “Why are you crying?”
Funny, he thought. It was the same question he had put to her before they had been together for the first time.
“Am I?” he whispered in return.
Without waiting for a response from her, he gathered her in his arms and sat them together on the tile, her in his lap. As she held on to him, and put her head on his pec, he settled back against the shower’s wall.
With the warm water falling on his head, his vision was blurry and he told himself the hot trails flowing down his cheeks and off his jawline were just the shower doing its job.
He also reminded himself that the click fit of their bodies was momentous, but momentary.
Their meeting of souls was forever.
No matter what happened next.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
I’m not going to let you say it.”
As Xhex spoke in a pushy, kind of bitchy, manner, she was marching into the bedroom she shared with John. He was across the way in their bathroom, naked in front of the mirror over the sinks. He was poking at that goddamn shoulder wound, flexing his arm, turning this way and that as if attempting to measure the progression.
The area of infection—or whatever it was—was so much larger, there was no question it was getting worse.
“Did you hear what I said,” she snapped.
He stopped the prodding and looked over.
Walking across to him, she put her hands on her hips and was well aware she was spoiling for a fight.
“There’s no goodbye for you and me,” she announced. “So you can just cut that shit out right now. I am very aware of what you’re doing, checking in with the people in this household, going around, seeing them one by one or in groups. And that’s fine. But you’re not going to do it to me because I refuse to believe you’re going to die from that thing.”
When he lifted his hands to start signing, she slapped them down and shoved her forefinger in his face. “I am going to fight for you. I don’t know what I have to do or where we have to go, but that”—she jabbed her finger in the direction of the wound—“is not getting in our way. It is not ending us. And you need to get on board my fucking optimism train, John Matthew. I love you. You love me. We are survivors. Do you hear me!”
Her voice got louder and louder, and she might have even stamped her boot once or twice. But goddamn it, if your mate was giving up, sometimes you needed to kick them in the can—
They think they’ve found a new approach, he signed. Doc Jane and Sarah, the human. They think that maybe they can trick my body into thinking it’s in the transition again, and that as a result, my immune system will respond aggressively and kill the infection.
His hands moved super fast, his fingers flying through the positions—as if he knew damn well she was going to get on her high horse again and talk over him if he didn’t get the news flash out quick.
“Wait, what?” she said, shaking her head. Like that would help with her translating the ASL. “What about the infection?”
Sarah, the scientist, believes that my own immune system—if, like, properly motivated, I guess—will win. It’ll kill this. It’ll fucking stop it. They just called me.
It was the very last thing she had expected him to say.
“When . . . what . . .” She rubbed her eyes to take the sting away. “I’m sorry, I—did you say they’re going to try and put you through the transition again?”
That’s the plan.
Xhex dropped her hands. “Won’t that kill you?”
They’re trying it out on someone first.
“Who?”
Murhder. John reached for his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. Even though they’re kicking him and that human woman out of here, he’s still willing to put his life on the line for me. That is a male of worth right there.
Wait . . . what? she thought.
“He’s going to allow them to experiment on his body?” Okay, fine, totally rhetorical there. But still. “He’s got to be out of his mind.”
As soon as she said it, she wanted to take the words back even though she and John were alone. It just seemed disrespectful, after everything Murhder had been through. And P.S., what the fuck was he thinking?
But . . . what if it saved John’s life?
“I guess he’s determined to be a savior,” she said in a voice that cracked.
Without realizing she’d decided to move, Xhex went over to the edge of the inset Jacuzzi and sat down. When she still felt wonky, she put her head between her knees and breathed slowly and evenly through her mouth.
Holy shit, the world was going around and around . . . and around.
John came across and sat with her. When he put his arm around her shoulders, she leaned into him, which was not something she did very often. She had always preferred to stand on her own. But God . . . she couldn’t believe Murhder was rushing in and saving something again. Someone again.
Her mate, this time, instead of her. The male either had the biggest conscience in the world or he was determined to be a martyr.
A rahlman.
“We’ve got to help him,” she said. “I don’t know how . . . but we have to help him.”
After Murhder dressed in some scrubs and left the patient room to go feed from a Chosen, Sarah dried her hair at the sink—and was interrupted when Ehlena knocked and came in. As Sarah cut off the dryer and got the report that the drugs were in early, she wanted to slow down time. Everything seemed to be moving so fast—which, granted, was what the scientist in her needed.
Her heart, on the other hand, just wanted things to go at a crawl’s pace.
“The powder is being compounded right now by Jane,” the nurse said.
“Okay. Is the OR ready?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you so much.”
As Ehlena left and the door eased shut, Sarah looked back at the shower and thought of what Murhder had said about the vein he was going to take from that other female. He had assured her that, as it had been at Nate’s transition, there was going to be nothing sexual in the encounter, and he had even invited her to watch if that would reassure her. She’d declined that offer for two reasons: One, she trusted Murhder; and two, she was liable to get jealous.
Even though, come on, it was a medical thing, like a transfusion, for godsakes. Still, now that she knew what it was like? Watching him do that with anyone else was more than she could handle.
Heading for the door into the corridor, she found it hard to leave their patient room. There just seemed to be such a hard divide between what she and Murhder had shared here and all the unknowns that waited for them—
Murhder opened the door wide.
She stopped short. And then jumped back. “You cut your hair! Oh, my God!”
Murhder brought his palms up to his new haircut, all of his red-and-black glory gone, just a tidy little trim left behind that was lighter than what had grown out for such a long time.
“What have you done,” she whispered as she put her hands to her mouth.
As he explained things—something along the lines of not having had a haircut for twenty years—all she could think of was Steel Magnolias. When Julia-frickin’-Roberts cut off her gorgeous mane before her transplant. Because she wanted to “simplify things.”
Shortly after which she collapsed and was hooked up to all kinds of wires and her mother ended up sitting at her bedside, reading articles about makeup to her.
And then she died.
“Sarah?”
She shook herself back into focus. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s only hair.”
He brushed his big palm over the short length. “It feels so silky. Try it.”
She obliged, and he was right about the softness. But all she could think was that he wouldn’t be around to grow it back out.
No wonder the Food and Drug Administration had such stringent rules about drug trials. What they were about to do to him was nuts—and would never happen to a human. Yet . . . even as she thought that, she had to consider the courageous cancer patients who volunteered to take the drugs she and her colleagues developed in the immunotherapy field. This was no different.
Except Murhder was not the sick one.
“It’s going to be fine,” Murhder said. “It’s all going to turn out exactly as it needs to.”
Sarah threw her arms around him and held him tight. As she put her head over his heart, she considered how she was going to feel if this test killed him: Like a murderer.
“I’m going to be fine.”
She looked up at his chin and didn’t want to say what she was thinking: You don’t know that.
“Trust me,” he said. “And wait, there’s something I want to give you.”
He eased back and reached up behind his neck. When he brought his hands forward again, the necklace he always wore dangled behind his fingertips.
“I want to give you this,” he murmured as he tied it onto her.
The quartz gleamed in the midst of the leather crisscrosses that kept it in place, hanging much lower on her than it did on him. As she picked up the stone, she looked down—
Sarah recoiled and stared up at him. “It’s a painting of you.”
“What?”
“See?” She turned the flat stone to him. “Your face.”
Murhder leaned in and stared at the thing. And then a smile, slow and sad, pulled at his lips. “That is me. And when I wore it . . . it showed me you.”
“What?”
He tucked the necklace inside the scrubs’ top. “It’s a little piece of magic to take with you after all this.”
“But what about my memories?”
“It will be a special souvenir that you were given by a mysterious man you never got to know. Every time you look at it though . . . your mind will tell you that you are loved.”
Sarah grasped the thing through the scrubs.
“Come on.” He held open the door. “Let’s do this.”
She was numb as she went down the corridor with him, and only snapped out of the dissociative state when they entered the operating room. Ehlena, Doc Jane, and their medical partner, Manny, were there, and the facilities were ready, the hospital bed under the brilliant fixture in the center of the room surrounded by monitoring equipment.
Murhder greeted the medical staff. Got up on the bed. Stretched out.
He had on scrub bottoms and a muscle shirt. When Jane suggested his chest should be bare, he sat up and peeled off the top.
Sarah went over to the bed and picked up the folded sheet that was under his ankles. Shaking it out, she draped his lower legs in it. Then she took his hand.
“The compounding is done?” she said to Jane, who nodded. “Okay, let’s get a line in, the EKG set up, and the blood pressure cuff on. Ehlena, you’re ready for the blood draws?” As the nurse nodded, Jane addressed Murhder, stroking his hand with her thumb. “We’re going to give you a series of injections and monitor your body’s response between each one. We want to see what your immune system does, but we have to be careful not to give you pancreatitis.”
Or worse.
“I trust you,” he said as he stared up at her.
He was so calm. So at peace.
When they’d been resting after their marathon sex session in the shower, he’d told her that if something happened to him, he’d requested that Xhex be the one to take her back to Ithaca and deal with her memories. He’d said he trusted the female. He’d also sworn that Sarah would be watched over for a while, just to make sure there was no fallout from the BioMed raid even with the corporation going under.
As she contemplated his contingency plan, she found it ironic as hell that she hoped he himself was the one who robbed her of her memories and their relationship.
Yay. What an upside.
I love you, he mouthed as he looked at her.
“I love you, too,” she said as the medical staff began to hook him up to the machines that would tell them whether or not he was dying.
As she contemplated the lulls between doses being administered, Sarah truly wished she was religious, because prayer seemed like the only way she could help affect the outcome. But that was nuts.
Squeezing his hand one more time, she touched the necklace he had given her and nodded at the medical staff. “Let’s begin.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Murhder turned his head to the side so he could watch what was happening on his arm. The needle they inserted into a vein at the crook of his elbow was very small, just a sliver of metal that bit delicately into his flesh. After the thing was taped into place, tubing that ran up to a bag suspended on a pole was hooked on.
“I taste salt in my mouth,” he said after a minute.
“It’s the saline.” Sarah smiled a little. But the lift to her lips didn’t last. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
She took a syringe out from behind her back and inserted it into a break in the IV tubing. As the plunger found home and the drugs went in, he felt nothing. Tasted nothing new. Took a deep breath.
His back became stiff as he lay on the flat surface—no doubt everything he had done in the shower with Sarah had activated muscles that hadn’t been used in a very long while. He wanted to turn on his side, but that was a no-go.
“Let’s increase the dosage.”
Sarah gave him more of the somatropin, as she called it, and he cleared his throat, like he was getting ready to give a speech. Sing contralto in an opera. Recite something by Robert Burns.
More waiting. From time to time, he looked over at the two physicians, the human man with the intense eyes and the female with the short blond hair. The latter had a strange scent—nothing unpleasant, but not really something that was a vampire, either. Curious, the case of this Doc Jane. She wasn’t a vampire, but neither did she read as Homo sapiens. He wasn’t going to ask for details, however. It was rude and none of his business.
More testing. A third dose. More waiting. More testing again.
And then a knock on the door. The human man went over, cracked things only an inch or two and spoke to someone softly. Then he went over to Doc Jane. When she nodded, he approached the bed.
“John and Xhex are outside. They want to come in and pay their respects if that’s okay with you?”
“I’m not dead yet, you know.” Murhder smiled. “Let’s not plan my . . .”
Funeral, he thought. The word was “funeral.”
For some reason, he couldn’t get the syllables out. He tried again, forcing his mouth to move while he pushed air up his throat and through his voice box.
Dimly, he was aware that that metronome tied to his heart rate had sped up suddenly, the sound it released more like beepbeepbeepbeepbeeeeeeeepbeep. And right after his brain registered that increase in intensity on a strange kind of delay, a wave of heat flooded his arms and legs: Starting at his fingertips and toes, the blaze rode his limbs as if they were the wicks for dynamite sticks . . . like somebody had put a match to his extremities and the TNT they were charged to ignite was stored in his torso.
