She turned to Margo and met her assessing eyes. A full body shiver shook Beck. It was one thing to comprehend what was swimming around inside her, taking her over one cell at a time. It was another to watch the process happen in the microscopic world of her own blood drop.
Her world teetered, making her light-headed. “I’m turning into a vampire, aren’t I?”
“For the time being. But we’re close enough to a vaccine that we can still beat it. The virus is acting at a slower rate than normal, giving us more time.”
Beck couldn’t think straight. “How long do I have?”
“Given the rate of reproduction and the possible protomutations occurring—”
“Margo! How long?”
Margo shrugged. “Maybe a week? Possibly two?”
“Great.” Beck worried her bottom lip between her teeth, then had second thoughts about that long-standing habit. She wouldn’t be able to do that anymore once she had fangs or she’d be sporting twin lip piercings.
“I can help you pack up your desk if you want.”
Margo’s comment had the impact of an electric shock—sharp, totally unexpected and completely unpleasant. Beck jerked forward in her chair. “Excuse me?”
Margo turned away obviously unable to meet her eyes as she pulled a crisp white envelope from the top of Beck’s desk and ran her fingers along the edge. “The investors won’t let you stay. They’ve already sent an email to their human resources department earlier today stating that if transformation began to occur you were to be suspended from the project immediately. They think that a vampire, or even someone turning into a vampire, could be a liability on the project. Here’s your copy.”
Beck snatched the paper from Margo’s hand and had the insane urge to rip it in half before she’d even read it. “Bastards. I can’t believe they’d do this to me. I should sue.”
“I’m sorry, Beck. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
Well, that was partially true. Margo could have stepped in and taken the shot for her. But nobody would have done that willingly. Beck put her hand to her head. Was she fevered? How was she supposed to figure out a viable vaccine for this virus and stop it unless she had access to the lab?
Margo was the only solution. It was up to her to find the missing link. After all, wasn’t that what the investors really wanted—a vaccine that worked? And given that Margo was the only person at Genet-X besides herself who had the highest level clearance on the project, she was the only one who’d understand where they’d failed.
Beck folded the paper in half and stuffed it into the back pocket of her jeans, then turned to put her hands on Margo’s shoulders. “You can do something. You can get the PCR primers going and do a site-direct mutagenesis on the plasmid. You said all along that you thought using the PCR method would be the only way to achieve the results we were looking for.”
“Yes, but that’s going to take a lot more time than trying a different cassette mutagenesis,” Margo hedged. “Maybe if we just inserted the restriction enzyme in another site on the plasmid the results would be better.”
Beck dropped her hands and began pacing the lab. “Margo, I’m turning into a vampire, a freakin’ vampire, against my will I might add, for the benefit of this project. And I’m getting kicked off of my own research endeavor! We don’t have the luxury of being wishy-washy about this. Try the PCR approach and keep me informed of how progress is going. I’ll try what I can from my end to see if I can find something we missed in the last vaccine.”
Margo stiffened. “But what if I get suspended from the project for leaking the information to you?”
“You won’t. They wouldn’t dare. Not with the amount of money they’ve already sunk into this. They need for at least one of us to continue, especially after the current vaccine has been proven to be unviable.”
Margo shifted her weight uneasily from one foot to the other. “I don’t know, Beck. I mean I know you got me the position on this project and all, but this is just too important to jeopardize things.”
Beck’s stomach cramped harder. Margo’s reluctance seemed like a slap in the face, but she totally understood. After all if their positions were reversed, what choice would she have had? “Don’t you think I know that?”
Margo swept her paper-bootied foot in an arc across the scrupulously clean floor. “I think you need to go home. I’ll work on the PCR option and see if I can make some progress.”
Beck huffed, frustration oozing like stale sweat out of every pore. Wait, how did she know what frustration smelled like? She realized that her sense of smell had taken on a whole new dimension, the ordinary scents of the lab had become so pungent they almost made her gag. And there was that strange scent of rosemary that seemed to be a constant presence. A result of the virus? Who the hell knew, but Margo seemed utterly unaffected.
She could have chalked it up to coincidence and been done with it, but then she’d never believed in coincidence. That wouldn’t have been scientific. And she’d always placed her faith in the absolute certainty that science could provide the answers to any question if one applied herself diligently enough. Margo was something of an opposite, a scientific mind bent on seeing everything through the idea of a creative force with an ultimate plan. It had made them a stronger team for this particular research project.
As Beck made her way out the lab door and waited for the elevator doors to slide open, the idea of nothing being a coincidence stood out starkly like the brilliant flash from a camera. She reflected on the still frame moments in her mind leading up to her inoculation with the vaccine.
Margo had handled the aspiration injector. She’d explained how to insert the vaccine vial into it and operate it. She’d handed the injector to the investors. And she sure hadn’t stopped the men from grabbing a vial and using it.
The whole way down in the elevator Beck’s brain spun. All along Kris had pointed to Margo’s apparent uneasiness about being the second in the project rather than the lead. Could Margo have brokered a little deal with the investors on the side to skim an extra portion of profits for herself? Had Margo truly believed the vaccine was viable, she certainly wouldn’t have needed Beck any longer. And now that Beck, as the guinea pig, had proven their assertions weren’t correct the first time out, she got to remain while Beck got the big boot.
Beck rubbed at an uncomfortable persistent itch that was starting at the back of her neck. Coincidence? Maybe. But not damn likely. But then again considering how her life had tipped itself upside down in the last twenty-four hours it could just be a serious case of paranoia.
The doors opened, the metallic hiss louder than she remembered and she stepped quickly through the lobby intensely aware of every security camera as she went. No. Screw the paranoia theory. Heat scorched along her skin. She’d been played. Big time. And her life now hung in the balance.
Chapter 4
Achilles could tell Rebecca was pissed. He waited for her to get into her car, then followed her home, phasing through the outside wall and materializing in a pale blue recliner in her feminine living room just as the front door opened. Maintaining invisibility for long stretches was tiring, and tagging along had done nothing more than gotten him shut down in less time than the two-point-five seconds it took his Bugatti Veyron to accelerate from zero to sixty.
He didn’t trust Margo. The thoughts he read buzzing around that busy little mind of Rebecca’s had only confirmed his suspicions. If the investors behind the vaccine were willing to sacrifice one of their top researchers in this manner, then they were far more ruthless than he’d anticipated. Even if she wasn’t under their direct control, she still would ultimately pursue her goal to change the virus that created his kind.
Dmitri?
Has there been any change?
The backers behind the vaccine research have suspended Dr. Chamberlin. I have a gut. They ‘re looking for a weapon of mass destruction. They want vampires eliminated.
The pause before Dmitri replied to h
is report weighed heavy on Achilles and prompted him to nudge his superior officer. Dmitri. You still with me on this?
I’ll report this to the council. We may have to take more drastic actions. In the meantime don’t let Dr. Chamberlin out of your sight.
Shall I bring her to the clan headquarters? Being around Kristin may make her transition easier on both her and me.
Achilles shifted in the armchair as he listened for Rebecca’s entrance and waited on Dmitri’s answer.
It may not be wise to bring her here just yet, Dmitri’s voice echoed in his head. Don’t forget until tonight she was working for those who’d be satisfied if vampires ceased to exist. She isn’t our ally. Yet.
I know.
Watch your back, brother.
I thought you’d do that for me, he teased his best friend. Dmitri was the one fledgling he’d guided through transition that he’d become closest to.
I’ve got a full-time job, Dmitri gibed back. I don’t need another. Just be careful out there.
He heard a clatter as Rebecca tossed her keys into the ceramic bowl on the small table by the front door. His gaze flicked to the television he was supposedly watching. It wasn’t even turned on. With a snap of his fingers, the flat screen burst with color—but the sound remained muted. No need to let her know he’d just turned it on.
She stomped into the living room and threw a glare full of righteous indignation at him. Her hair was a wild tangle of dark brown curls burnished with reddish fire, and the bright pink in her cheeks spiked his thirst. Her pulse rushed with a steady seductive shushing rhythm under her skin. He roughly thrust the idea of how it would feel to sink his fangs into her supple skin to the dark back corner of his mind, where it belonged. Off-limits. Period.
“You’re still here?” She bit the words off like she was angry, but he saw the frayed edges of her confidence and her fear hovering underneath the bravado.
“I was expecting more along the lines of hi, honey, I’m home.”
She turned on her heel and flopped herself onto the couch. “Pfft.”
Achilles watched the curls drift around her head for a moment as she peeled off her jacket and tossed it beside her. That’s it, keep going, he thought, then mentally slapped himself. He had to stop flirting with her.
He knew he couldn’t have her but couldn’t seem to stop himself from wanting her. Teasing her tortured him. For centuries, seduction was a sport he had indulged in to pass the time. He’d given his heart once. Now he didn’t have one. Flirtation and seduction were the only thing that reminded him that a halfling could create passion in others even if they had no capacity for love themselves.
For whatever reason, this woman, this mortal woman, gave him a phantom ache in his chest where his heart had once beaten centuries ago. Worse, she made him long for things he knew could never be.
And gods help the mentor who was foolish enough to ignore the highest royal edicts binding all vampires. Involvement on an intimate level between mentor and charge was now strictly forbidden for a good reason. Too often the older vampire’s powers could become bonded with the fledgling’s, forming an imprint neither could resist. Compounding that was a mutual sharing of powers … and pain.
“What did your associate have to say?” He knew, but what the hell, he had to make conversation with her.
Her eyes flashed fire. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Yeah, he bet. No more than he wanted to think about what could happen if he were stupid enough to let an imprint form.
Breaking that imprint, or losing it, was an incredibly painful process he never planned to repeat. The fledgling could die a painful death during the transition, or worse. And he’d lived with worse for as long as he could remember.
For him, his mentor’s capture and eventual agonizing death, had been worse than death. Beheading him would have been merciful and put him out of centuries of living in an emotional wasteland as a halfling.
The seven weeks Ione had been tortured during the Spanish Inquisition were still a fresh and agonizing memory over five hundred years later. Every slash of the whip on her pale flesh had cut into Achilles’s flesh as well, but without a mark—only the pain. The ripping apart of her tendons and muscles on the rack each day, since they grew anew each night, had left him unable to walk or move. Each time they applied the burning pokers to her supple body, he could taste the smoke of burning flesh and feel the searing heat. And when she’d been beheaded, he’d been struck blind, mute and deaf for a week, waking a halfling, unable to hope, unable to find joy, unable to love.
The memories caused a film of moisture to collect on his skin. He didn’t have the need to sweat. No vampire did. But that didn’t mean that under times of extreme duress he didn’t do so out of pure gut-wrenching terror.
He’d experienced Ione’s pain as they’d tortured her, and it had been so physically intense he’d been curled up like a newborn babe.
At the time, when he was the fledgling, he hadn’t realized how intense and binding the mentor-fledgling imprint could be. But now, from bitter experience, he knew.
And he never, ever, wanted to feel that helpless again, especially with someone he couldn’t trust.
Nor did he want to place that burden on anyone else—especially Rebecca.
“Something tells me it wasn’t what you expected.”
She glanced at him, her eyes softening just a touch. Pain tainted the air with the acidic tang of vinegar.
He needed to keep things light and easy between them. No interest, no attraction. Purely platonic. He had to treat her, see her, as his little sister until he determined her true loyalties. He forced a lighthearted grin as he looked at her. “Tough day at the office, sweetling?”
“Those jerks suspended my contract. They kicked me off my own damn project! And apparently, for the moment, I’m becoming a vampire.”
“That calls for a drink.” Gods knew he needed one. The moment her scent had hit him, his fangs had tried to engage. Achilles pressed his tongue against the barely protruding tips, forcing them back inside.
He reached up and materialized a glass with ice. From the thin air, a stream of pale amber liquid began to fill it and he offered it to her. “An amaretto sour for the lady.”
Beck didn’t have time to be astonished because the rampant curiosity that had pushed her into becoming a scientist overrode any fears. “How did you do that?” She reached for the glass, inspected it and took a sip. It was perfect. “And how did you know what I like?”
He had the temerity to grin at her as if it were his own special little secret.
All it did was bump up her determination another notch. “You should confess and tell me. I’m becoming a vampire, even if it’s temporarily, so you might as well let me in on how all this works because I’ll figure it out eventually.”
“Just so you can use it for your research?”
She shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“Has Kristin never phased or materialized items in front of you?”
“Ah, no.”
Achilles phased himself a cold bottle of beer, small beads of condensation streaking down the bottle, and took a long draw. “It just isn’t the same.”
“What?”
He held up the bottle. “Beer. Gods, I miss good Egyptian beer made with honey.”
“I’m sorry, what does that have to do with phasing or materializing or whatever it is you call it?”
“You can bring items to you, but you can’t replicate them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I can’t bring back my stallion from Greece. Gods, he was magnificent. I can’t phase myself an Egyptian beer that was brewed in the old ways two millennia ago. I can’t bring back those who’ve died.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. For a moment he seemed too far away, his green eyes glassy rather than filled with the sparkling intensity she’d come to expect. He closed his eyes, let out a long slow breath and tipped up his beer bottle, draining it in one continuo
us swallow.
When he opened his eyes he seemed more himself again, and flicked his gaze in her direction. “I’m limited to calling to me what is here, what exists in this time. Even vampires have to live in the here and now. Which is no problem when you’re young.” He gave her a wink that made her stomach flip. “But as you age, it gets to be rather tedious. One misses things.”
“But how does it work?”
He gave her a knowing smile that shimmied up her spine in a head-to-toe burst of tingling electricity and made her aware of how odd it was to have a man, a big man, so relaxed in her home. As much as he seemed out of place in her decidedly feminine living room, he also seemed perfectly at home, as if he belonged there. Which made her all the more wary.
She knew she was the kind of person who’d fallen in lust at first sight a time or two. But that wasn’t exactly what she wanted any more. She didn’t want love, exactly. Love hurt. Growing up as the illegitimate child of a powerful man meant she was neither to be seen nor heard. And when her mom left one benefactor and moved on to the next, everyone and everything she’d come to rely on disappeared, giving her a photo box of fading memories, no roots and one or two good friends—but no one who truly knew her. And, once her mother had hooked up with Victor, who had money and power, she never saw or heard from her again. Oh, it had taken her awhile to figure out who and what he was. But by then all contact with her mother was long gone. She wasn’t going to repeat her mother’s life by relying on a man, or a vampire, for anything.
Sexy as hell or not, she wanted more than a few months of a mind-numbing fling or years of patronage. She wanted … she wanted to matter.
And mattering to Achilles was as unlikely as her staying a vampire. She was already falling hard in lust with the hunk sprawled out in her recliner. With a guy who treated her like a kid sister. Or worse—a job.
“Why don’t you come sit with me and I can explain it to you.”
Where? In your lap? Fat chance, she thought, eyeing the recliner. His words were basic, normal, totally something anyone could have said. Yet the way he said it made all the little hairs on her body sit up and take notice. It was as though he was a sex magnet and she was a sexually charged lodestone.
The Vampire Who Loved Me Page 4
