Blood of Life: Cora's Choice 1-3 Bundle

by V M Black

  He really isn’t that tall, I thought as I took the chair the host pulled out for me. But that chiding did nothing to still the racing of my heart. Mr. Thorne looked down at me across the expanse of snowy linen. His slow smile was predatory.

  Damn him, I thought, my breath catching. No one had any right to be that handsome. All my fussing in front of the mirror and whatever defense I thought I’d built with it went out the window with one look from him.

  “I hope you understand that I cannot possibly afford this,” I whispered tensely. “This is not exactly an insurable expense.”

  His lips quirked. I tried not to stare at them. “My treat.”

  I had the sense of undercurrents of meaning that I didn’t understand, of secret motives that went beyond my cure or even, for that matter, any kind of simple attraction to me. If Mr. Thorne wanted to seduce someone, he could do a far sight better than an emaciated, exhausted, dying college student.

  I tried again. “I don’t think this is the proper kind of setting for a doctor and patient to meet.”

  “Does the name Mr. Thorne mean nothing to you?” he asked, delicately stressing the title. “I am no one’s doctor.”

  My stomach flipped over. Was this some kind of sick joke?

  Before I could confront him, the sommelier appeared, bearing a bottle of wine. “You specified the Egon Müller Scharzhofberger Riesling Spätlese now and the Valdicava Brunello di Montalcino with the main course, sir?”

  “Indeed,” Mr. Thorne said.

  The sommelier uncorked the white wine, pouring a small amount into the wineglass in front of him. Mr. Thorne sniffed it and nodded, and at his signal, the man half-filled first my glass and then his. I murmured my thanks reflexively even as my mind churned, waiting until she was out of earshot before I pounced.

  “If you aren’t a doctor, then what the hell do you think you are doing?” I demanded. “Why did you touch me?”

  That wasn’t what I had meant to say, and the words made my cheeks redden. Way to keep the moral high ground, Cora.

  “Why did you take my blood?” I corrected. “Why did you tell me you could help?”

  He lifted the wineglass and took a small sip as if to hide his amusement. “One hardly needs a medical degree to be a competent phlebotomist. And I did not hear you protesting at my skill.”

  His fingers on my wrist... I could almost feel them again. I realized suddenly that my lips had parted, my breathing speeding up involuntarily.

  I took a gulp of wine, angry and ashamed, and tried again. “If you’re not a doctor, how can you help me?”

  “Do you think I am playing at this?” His expression was grave.

  “I don’t know. How could I know?” The tears, never far from the surface now, pricked my eyes. I shoved them back mercilessly. “You seem rich enough to be able to play at anything.”

  “Not this,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Not with lives.”

  Not anymore.

  That thought appeared abruptly in my head, as if it had been dropped there. Rattled, I looked away and tugged at my necklace, then took another—much more controlled—sip of my drink. I had a feeling that the bottle was ruinously expensive, full of subtleties and delicate bouquets that only the most refined palate could appreciate.

  To me, it just tasted like white wine.

  Another server materialized beside our table. “This evening’s meal begins with a selection of twelve mezzethakia,” he explained, setting a plate in front of each of us. “The first: smoked wild salmon with crème fraiche and coarse ground sea salt on a filigree of squid-ink toast.”

  The food looked exquisite, though it was small enough to finish in two bites.

  “You ordered for me?” I asked as the server retreated back toward the kitchen, a little offended.

  Again, that slow smile that melted my middle. “The menu is prix fixe,” Mr. Thorne said.

  I stared blankly.

  He added, “It means you pay a great deal of money to eat whatever the chef cares to feed you.” He lifted the salmon on toast in one piece, holding it as if he were saluting me. “Or, in this case, I pay a great deal of money.”

  He bit down, and I watched, mesmerized, at the movement of his teeth and lips. Another bite, and it was gone.

  I blinked and looked down at my plate. There was something seriously wrong with me. No man could possibly be that fascinating. I picked up my own squid-ink toast, whatever that was. I took a hesitant bite.

  Involuntarily I gasped, my gaze snapping up to meet Mr. Thorne’s. The cream and salmon and salt melted together in my mouth, and the toast was the perfect level of crispness to balance the smooth melding of the other ingredients.

  Mr. Thorne was watching me with half-lidded eyes. “Exactly,” he said.

  I ate it greedily—perhaps too greedily. It had been four days since my appetite had finally returned after discontinuing the alemtuzumab, and I couldn’t have invented a better way to celebrate.

  The rest of my protests died in my throat. Whatever reason he’d chosen to have our consultation at a restaurant, I was willing to go along for the ride, as long as that ride included more food like that.

  As if by magic, our plates were whisked away as soon as I finished, and two more appeared. “A spoon of minced scallop with Greek yogurt dressing,” the server explained before vanishing again.

  It was a different taste revelation, complementary to the salmon toast but tart and complex.

  “I didn’t know that food could do this,” I marveled. I considered whether it would be rude or—far worse—suggestive to put the whole bowl of the spoon in my mouth and suck off the last savory molecules of scallop.

  “Think of all the other things in life you haven’t had a chance to experience,” Mr. Thorne said softly. “That you won’t, unless you are cured.”

  Suddenly, I was no longer as hungry, and I set the spoon down. “And you believe that you can save me? You aren’t even a doctor. Why should I trust you?”

  He was doing that thing to me again, whatever it was, messing with my head. It was hard for me to confront him, to say the words that might mean the difference between life and death. I’d been my own health advocate since my first diagnosis. I’d read piles of studies, checked out mounds of medical books from the university library, even found Dr. Robeson because of her interest in T-cell leukemia. No man, however attractive, could push all that out of my brain.

  But he could.

  “I doubt the CEO of Merck has a medical license, either,” he said. “Rest assured, I have a team of doctors at my disposal. Medical researchers, to be precise. And they have been working for years at making the outcome of our methods more reliable.”

  “So you do own a pharmaceutical company, then?” I asked as another course appeared before us. My Google searches for Thorne and pharmaceuticals had turned up nothing relevant.

  “I own many companies. The medical research is but one endeavor, and it is not run for profit. In fact, none of the patients are charged for our services.”

  He took another sip of wine, and I found myself unconsciously starting to mirror him. With an effort, I put my hand in my lap instead. I needed to keep a clear head.

  “So you do it out of the goodness of your heart, rescuing the terminal from their afflictions,” I said, not bothering to keep the skepticism out of my voice.

  “There is a benefit to me, as well,” he said. “But you must fully understand the scope of the risk before you make a decision.”

  “Is that what this”—I waved my hand—“appointment or meeting or whatever is for?”

  “Precisely.”

  “If you’re supposed to be informing me of this procedure of yours, you’re doing a bad job of it,” I said. “All I seem to be doing is asking questions, and you’re only half-answering them. If giving an explanation was what you wanted, we could have met in your office, like we did before.”

  His blue eyes went dark, and my breath caught. He held me in his gaze. “It is safer
here.”

  “Safer,” I echoed, somehow believing him even as I didn’t understand.

  “Look around you.”

  I did. Half a dozen servers bustled among twice as many tables in the warm candlelight.

  “There are so many witnesses,” he said, the words so soft I almost felt them more than heard them. “Too many witnesses to lose control.”

  I turned back to be caught up in his gaze again, knowing what he meant, the words calling up a shadow of the sensations that I had felt then to rush over me again. I saw my need reflected in his intensity, and I bit my lip hard. He felt it too, this connection between us. And that was far from reassuring.

  “In my office, I nearly did something that I had sworn never to do again,” he said.

  “Attack me?” I said, my throat suddenly dry. The words came clumsily off my lips, and I knew they were wrong even as I said them. It hadn’t felt like a potential attack, not then or in any of the thousand replays I’d tried to keep out of my mind.

  Not even close.

  His face tightened, though whether in anger or scorn, I couldn’t tell. “I would do nothing to you—to anyone—that you wouldn’t want me to. But it would still be wrong.”

  “How do you know what I’d want?” I whispered furiously, even as prickles of heat ran over my body to pool deep in my center. I shifted slightly in my chair, ignoring the tugging sensation between my thighs. “How dare you—presume to tell me what I want?”

  I could have drowned in the darkness of his eyes. He reached across the table. I could not move. He took my chin in two fingers and rubbed his thumb along the line of my jaw. I leaned forward, into his hand, toward him. Every nerve sang in the wake of his cool touch, reaching so deep inside me that I whimpered, my hands curling into fists on the tabletop.

  The corner of his lips lifted, and my heart stuttered. “You would have begged me.”

  I jumped when he released me just as the server set the next course in front of us. “Mascarpone stuffed date with olive oil and sea salt.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured hoarsely. I did not lift my eyes from my plate until I had eaten it clean, embroiled in my sudden confusion and acute, excruciating awareness of the man across the table from me.

  He was right. I knew he was right. I would have begged him—begged him for everything. But I didn’t know why. What was wrong with me? Had I lost my mind?

  And who was he, to do that to me?

  I had to say something, to fill up the space between us with words, because what hung there now was too much for me to handle.

  “Do you spend this much time with every patient?” I asked, pretending to busy myself with turning my wineglass to examine the glint of the wine in the candlelight.

  “It depends on how far they make it through the process,” he said evenly. “You must understand that nine out of ten are eliminated at screening. And of those who pass, a considerable number still decline the procedure.”

  I frowned at that, looking at my short fingernails rather than meeting that disconcerting gaze. “Are they all terminal? Like me?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Given the risks of the procedure, imminent death is a prerequisite.”

  I couldn’t help myself then. I looked up to find him regarding me steadily. “Then why refuse it?”

  “It is a choice of the last resort, Ms. Shaw,” he said. “It comes with a ninety-nine percent chance of failure and death, as you noted so aptly last time we met. For many people, a certain death tomorrow is better than a near-certain death today.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to die,” I said. I didn’t know where my conviction came from, but I was very sure.

  “I want you to understand the gravity of your decision, Ms. Shaw. No one who makes this choice wants to die. Yet most still do. Once the procedure is begun, there is no stopping it. No turning back.” The honeyed tone made the words almost soothing even though the meaning was blunt.

  I shook my head. “Any chance is better than none.” I stopped. “The procedure itself—is it so terrible? Is it an operation? Radiation? Chemotherapy?”

  New plates were delivered, the old ones whisked away. I barely noticed the server’s explanation of the spanakopita.

  “It is over in a matter of minutes,” Mr. Thorne said. He twirled a fork in his fingers, and it glinted in the flame of the candle. “Blood is collected, and simultaneously, you are given an injection. The substance consists of a blend of long-chain molecules which function in some ways like a hemotoxin.”

  Toxin?

  “That doesn’t sound good,” I said. That was probably the understatement of the year.

  He set the fork down. “The hemotoxic effect is necessary to prepare for a fundamental and irrevocable reordering of the metabolism of every cell in your body. If your metabolism can change quickly enough in the wake of the hemotoxin, the cells are converted to a new state, and you live. If not, you die.”

  I set the spanakopita down untasted. “Haven’t you tried to separate the components? So that the reordering or whatever happens without the hemotoxin?”

  “Tried and failed,” he said curtly. “For longer than you have been alive. The hemotoxic effect is a necessary precursor to the metabolic changes, and nothing we have attempted has been able to speed up the metabolic reordering. This current variation of our screening is the most successful breakthrough thus far.”

  “But one in a hundred,” I objected.

  His expression was severe. “One in one hundred who would otherwise die.”

  “So these metabolic changes....” I trailed off.

  He raised an eyebrow. “They will revert your cancerous cells to a healthy state, all of them, swiftly and permanently. The extraneous cells should undergo an accelerated senescence and healthy function should return to the remaining ones immediately.”

  I thought about that for a moment, turning it over in my mind. Senescence. That meant aging.

  “It is a cure, then,” I said slowly. “A real cure. Not a remission. Like you said before, the cancer can’t come back.”

  As I was trying to absorb that, another server appeared, bearing two platters, one with steaming meat, the other with various artful additions. “The entrée,” she said, setting it between us. “Spit-roasted young goat with pita and the chef’s culinary embellishments.”

  Mr. Thorne gave her a wave of thanks as she discreetly retired. I ignored the entrée.

  “Not a remission,” he agreed. “It is a cure for your present condition and as good as an immunization against any future cancer.”

  “How is that possible?”

  His smile was rueful. I could hardly tear my gaze from his lips. “We don’t know that, either. The mechanism is, of yet, very poorly understood.”

  One in one hundred. Well, I seemed to be good with long odds—my chance of developing the type of leukemia I had was one in tens of thousands, my chance for the alemtuzumab proving ineffective one in ten of that. Put that way, as illogical as it was, one in one hundred seemed like almost a sure thing.

  Could I even trust myself around him? My judgment? I knew he had a very unscientific interest in me. Maybe he was just some kind of rich sadist who liked to get into dying girls’ heads and muck with them, make them hope for things that weren’t real.

  But if it was a chance, and Dr. Robeson believed it was, what choice did I have?

  “I want it,” I said, almost before I knew I had made the decision. “I want to live. If it’s my only chance—”

  “I will not take your answer now.” Mr. Thorne cut me off. “You must think about it. Call in two weeks.”

  “Why?” I demanded. “I don’t want to wait. I’ve made my decision. I’m ready to roll the dice now.”

  His hooded eyes burned with intensity. His eyes and cheeks were even more hollow now, I noticed, but they simply put a hard edge on his handsomeness. “Because I want you to say yes too badly. And sitting across from me, you will refuse me nothing that I want.”

 
His words went through me even as I denied them. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Do you not believe me?”

  The force of his attention had me pinned in my seat. My breath caught. I opened my mouth to disagree, but nothing came out. Still, I managed to shake my head.

  “Put your hand in the candle, Ms. Shaw.”

  Chapter Seven

  What? My lips formed the word, but he had stolen the breath from my lungs. His gaze grew sharper, and I felt him, somehow, felt him through the shiver of my body, hot and cold. My hand rose. I tried to stop it, to tell it no, but I wanted this. I wanted it so badly that my bones ached.

  My breath came more quickly with a fluttering deep inside that had nothing at all to do with nervousness. I could almost feel his hands on me again, could feel my body tuning to his. My body prickled with heady anticipation, not the fear of harm but the expectation of pleasure.

  I reached for the candle that sat between us. A soft sound escaped my lips, and even I didn’t know what it meant. I extended one finger, thrusting it into the flame. The fire danced around my fingertip, sending the most exquisite pain up through my arm until I gasped with it, welcoming it, meeting with a wrenching sensation deep in my core that was a very different kind of heat.

  In an instant, it was gone. I blinked, panting. The flame was extinguished—his hand, cool and strong, was over my hand, my finger immersed in his water glass. Through the dripping sides of the water goblet, I could see the border of angry red flesh with a white blister in the center.

  I watched, stunned, as he lifted my hand from the glass to his mouth. Keeping my gaze with his icy blue eyes, he bent his head until his lips met my blistered finger, sucking the drops of water from it.

  My voice was not mine—it moaned, softly. A shudder went through my body, pure pleasure as my heated senses screamed at the touch. I pushed back against my chair without meaning to, my feet bracing against the ground.

  He dropped my hand, and I was left reeling, gasping, my finger throbbing to the hammering of my heart.

  “What are you doing to me?” The words were half-question, half-plea.

  “Nothing but what is in my nature.” His expression was full of regret—and hunger.