by V M Black
“Well, she also knew that I’d decided to—to try the procedure with you. So she knew I was going in. And then on Christmas Eve, I scheduled a new appointment with her through the online patient portal. So she would have known that I either changed my mind—or I survived. Do you think she...?” I trailed off. I had no idea what Dr. Robeson or anyone else might or might not do. Not in the thrall of a vampire.
I said, “I made an appointment at the university Health Center, too, for eleven tomorrow morning, but the appointment with Dr. Robeson seems more likely to be the leak, considering.”
Dorian’s jaw clenched briefly, then released. “If my enemies found out about Dr. Robeson’s role in identifying candidates, subverting her would have been a poor choice. I would have found out what had happened at her next proving, so they could only try it once and for a short period of time.”
“Then how?”
“It may have been someone else who has access to her medical records and her schedule—nurses, other doctors in her practice, something of that sort. She may have made coded notes when one of her terminal patients decided to accept my offer, or maybe she mentioned you in some way to a coworker that tipped him off. You would have triggered his attention by scheduling another appointment when you should have been dead.”
“A spy network in the hospital.” It had been strange enough to think that one vampire had agents working for him at Johns Hopkins. The idea that there were others who were tracking them was even more disturbing.
He nodded curtly. “I will have my men look into it. Good thinking, Cora.”
Good thinking. He said it in the same tone that a human might tell a dog ‘good girl’ when it had done something unexpectedly clever.
Could he read my mind? Sometimes I wasn’t sure, but he certainly didn’t seem to notice that thought. He stood and closed the distance between us to stand in front of the chair I was sitting in.
He bent, and I tilted my face up to his—so eager, so hungry for his touch. He cupped my cheek in one hand and kissed me slowly, thoroughly. I gave myself up to it even as I remembered the impatience of his mouth before, the hardness of it, the feel of his teeth on my neck....
He pulled back.
“Goodnight, Cora. Get a shower. I’m needed in Baltimore tonight.”
And with that, he was gone.
Chapter Seven
I reached for my phone reflexively when I woke the next morning. My hand struck empty wood, and I peeled my slitted eyes the rest of the way open and blinked several times, trying to process the canopy bed, wide windows, and heavy smell of flowers.
Oh, yeah. I’d spent the night in the vampire’s house. Because that was such a good idea.
Except that it really was the safest place for me right now. Which was the most frightening thought of all.
“Good morning, Cora.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin at the voice. I whipped my head around to see Worth sitting in a chair against the wall. She set aside the tablet she had been using.
I muttered a curse under my breath as my heart rate slowly returned to normal.
I pushed up in bed. I hadn’t been able to figure out how to work the shower the night before. There’d been at least half a dozen knobs and an honest-to-goodness touch-screen interface. So instead, I’d taken a very long bath to soak the blood out of my hair and the knots out of my muscles, and then I’d found a silky little camisole and shorts set in one of the drawers in the closet, choosing the least frilly pair of undies I could find to go underneath. T-shirts were more my usual style, but all the ones in the closet had designer labels that made me feel guilty about sleeping in them.
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.
“For future reference, I’d rather not have you sitting in the room while I’m sleeping,” I said, sounding crankier than I intended. But dammit, her watching me sleep was creepy. “If I need you, I’ll call.”
“Yes, m—Cora,” the woman said. She sat primly, acting as if the events of the night before had never happened. “Mr. Thorne told me that you’d say that. He also told me that you wouldn’t call, so he asked me to sit in. There’s a button that rings the bell next to the bed,” she added helpfully. “We also have a house app, if you’d like to install that on your phone.”
“No, thanks,” I said. “I lost my phone, anyway.”
“Oh, I have it,” she said, reaching into her pocket. She pulled out a phone—my actual phone, in its Hello Kitty case I’d grabbed from a bargain bin. “It was found where you dropped it.”
I slid out of bed and took it from her before she could do more than stand up. Hello Kitty’s dot-eyed face was a little scuffed, but the screen wasn’t even scratched. I pushed the button to wake it up, and the lock screen lit up with the picture that I’d gotten the bartender to take of everybody at Hannah’s twenty-first birthday bash.
Just looking at it made my heart do a little flip-flop in my chest. I tightened my hand around it.
“Thanks,” I said.
It has tracking software on it, I thought as I checked for new messages. Dorian had hacked it somehow—he’d said as much.
As unsettling as it was to think about, I couldn’t fault him for it now. Not after what had happened.
“And as for calling you—I’ll use the bell,” I said. “Promise. Just as long as you don’t hang out in my room while I’m sleeping.”
I looked around the room for telltale cameras, remembering the bank of video monitors in the room off the foyer. I’d been too tired the night before to think or care about it. But I did both now. “No video, either. Not cool.”
“I’ll let Mr. Thorne know,” Worth murmured.
“Okay,” I said, not sure if that would actually change anything.
Yeah, probably not.
I stepped past Worth and into the bathroom, closing the door with a firm, “Excuse me,” when she tried to follow.
The silk fabric of the shorts whispered over my legs—the night before, I had shaved for the first time in over a week. It felt almost scandalously decadent to feel clean and smooth and strong again.
To feel healthy.
Thanks to Dorian.
I regarded my refection as I brushed my teeth, color in my cheeks that hadn’t been there in months. Where had Dorian gone, the night before? What kind of business did he have in Baltimore?
I wondered if he would tell me if I asked. I wondered if I wanted to know.
I wondered where he was now because I missed him.
With quick, irritated strokes, I brushed out my hair. Withdrawal, I decided. I was having withdrawal symptoms. I wondered—with time and distance, could they go away?
Hi, I’m Cora and I’m a vampire addict, I thought.
Hi, Cora.
I made a face at my reflection and emerged from the bathroom to find Worth waiting patiently for me again. I should be able to talk to her—another human, another woman in the vampire’s mansion.
Except that I wasn’t human. Not anymore. And she might be a human, but she was in his thrall.
“I have appointments today,” I said to her instead of all the other thoughts that crowded in my head. “Two of them.”
I wasn’t sure if it was really safe to go. Dorian had said I wouldn’t be in any more danger directly once the puppets that had been set in motion had been dealt with, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to gamble my life on that.
On the other hand, I couldn’t spend the rest of my life hidden away in Dorian’s mansion.
Could I?
“Mr. Thorne left a message,” Worth said. “He said he’ll accompany you today.”
“He could just email,” I pointed out. “Or text, like everyone else. He doesn’t have to play a kid’s game of telephone.”
“I’ll let him know,” Worth said.
By carrying my own message back to him. Right. Was that a glimmer of humor I saw in her eyes?
And as for Dorian coming with me.... Yeah, that was going to be awkward. My first appointment wa
s at the Health Center to get a birth control prescription. I didn’t feel like telling him that I didn’t trust his word that I couldn’t get pregnant. But I also wanted the pills.
Hell, I still didn’t know where baby vampires came from. And that seemed like a pretty important point, given that we’d had sex twice in as many days.
When I’d made my second appointment, I’d wanted to see Dr. Robeson because I’d thought she was an impartial authority who could verify whether I really was cured. Now I knew she was just another one of Dorian’s...minions, thralls, whatever, I wasn’t sure if there was a point.
I didn’t plan on explaining that to Dorian, either.
There was a knock at the door.
“That will be breakfast,” Worth said, going to open it. “I ordered it when you started to stir.”
“Thanks,” I said weakly as she took an overloaded tray from a woman outside. My appetite had come back with a vengeance over the past couple of days, but that was enough food for at least four people. “You should tell the chef that I’m really flattered. And impressed.”
“Oh, you will have to tell him that yourself, Cora,” Worth said, setting the tray onto a small round table. “As soon as you’ve finished, I’ll help you dress, and I’ll message Mr. Thorne that you’re ready to go.”
“Help me...?” She might as well have offered to brush my teeth for me.
“Of course, Cora,” she agreed brightly, pulling out the chair and smiling hopefully at me until I sat.
Of course.
Chapter Eight
When I came downstairs, Dorian was waiting for me by the front door, the collar of his clean-lined pea coat turned up around his face and a pair of aviators dangling from one hand. My chest squeezed at the sight of him, and I had to stop myself from running down the last flight of stairs.
Not away from him, this time, but into his arms.
He caught me with a hand on my shoulder, holding me at a distance even as his keen regard communicated with perfect clarity all the things he would like to be doing to me instead. I swayed slightly in his grasp, echoes of the lust and terror of the night before coming over me again.
“That is quite enough of the U.S.T., you two.”
I tore my gaze from Dorian and noticed his companion for the first time, a slender female with lips the color of fresh blood.
Another vampire. After my time with Dorian, it was impossible to mistake her for an ordinary woman. She had his unnatural perfection, but more than that was the sense of power that surrounded her, as if she were larger than her physical body.
“Clarissa Kerr, allow me to present Cora Shaw,” Dorian said.
“Charmed, I sure,” she purred, holding out her hand, each nail shining with red lacquer.
I was dressed in designer clothes from the closet Worth had stocked—well, all except for my running shoes—because nothing else of what I’d worn the night before was in a fit state to wear. I’d always admired Lisette’s fashion sense, but Worth was a clothing genius, able to put together an outfit at a glance that looked better on me than any clothes had a right to look. Even so, next to Clarissa, I felt downright frumpy.
She burst into laughter when I took her hand gingerly, and she shook with a businesslike firmness.
“Don’t worry, girl, I’m not going to eat you!” she said. “I’m one of the good guys.”
Dorian cast her a quelling look. “You will have to excuse Clarissa. She is very young and enjoys a certain amount of mischief.”
She laughed again. “He’s lucky I do, or else I might not find it so entertaining to be an Adelphoi. The subversiveness of the young, and all that.”
I smiled somewhat tightly, not sure what she meant. Next to her, I knew I looked like a homely, ungainly adolescent. The easy camaraderie between her and Dorian left me feeling very much like the odd one out.
“Put your hackles down,” the woman advised, sliding sunglasses up her nose until her raised eyebrows arched perfectly over the edge. “I don’t want him—and he certainly doesn’t want me. Or has he not explained that to you yet?”
“Clarissa,” Dorian said warningly.
She pouted, flipping a gauzy veil over her thick auburn hair. “I don’t have a cognate, Dorian. Why don’t you let me play with yours?”
He ignored her. “Clarissa and I are going to come with you today to make sure you stay safe.”
“My last bodyguards didn’t help,” I pointed out.
A brief shadow of a smile flickered across his face. “They weren’t agnates.”
“You said that a djinn is stronger than a vampire,” I countered.
“But now there are two, and we’re armed. And the political fallout of attacking an agnate, directly or otherwise, is quite a bit different from killing a few humans and a cognate who does not yet officially exist.”
He let go of me to put his sunglasses on, and I mirrored the motion. The butler opened the door, and we stepped into the blinding light.
Privately, I wondered how much defense the slender Clarissa could manage, vampire or not. But as she twitched her coat, I caught a glimpse of the bulky butt of a gun and the hilts of a nasty-looking assortment of bladed weapons.
Perhaps she was entitled to a little more benefit of the doubt.
One of the Escalades waited at the curb for us. I examined the passenger side window for evidence of damage as the driver held the back door open for us, but there was no mark on the glass. Either it was different SUV than the one I’d been in the night before, or it had already been repaired.
“The UMD Health Center,” Dorian told the driver.
“Yes, sir.”
Clarissa ducked in first. She even scooted across the bench seat gracefully. I followed, taking the center seat.
My skin prickled to be so close to her. Unlike Dorian, her persuasion had no effect on me, so I could clearly hear the little primal voice in the back of my head sounding the alarm.
She was a predator. She ate people like me. Perhaps she preferred men—I had no idea—but any human would probably do in a pinch.
Only two things kept me from bolting: Dorian’s presence and his revelation the night before that if she did bite me, it would kill her as surely as it did me.
I relaxed infinitesimally as Dorian settled in beside me and shut the door, pressing as close to him as I dared without drawing attention to my movement. He glanced down, the smallest frown creasing his forehead.
Whatever he saw in my face made him hook his arm around my shoulders and pull my head so that it rested against his strong chest. I could feel the bulk of the pistol at his side, but I still I sank into him gratefully, accepting the reaction his touch called from me as the car rolled away. At the same time, I marveled at how far into the insanity I’d fallen to find anything comforting about his closeness.
“This is a great victory for us, Cora,” he said. “It will all be worth it in the end.”
To who? I didn’t ask the question aloud. I’m not entirely sure he would have understood.
I tilted my head up to meet his eyes. “Why are you taking me to my appointments?”
“You want to go, and it should be safe.”
“Yes, but you’re worried enough about it that you’ve called a friend for protection. Why not tell me to reschedule? Or just say no?”
“I believe that it’s very important that I do not.”
I saw a flash deep in his eyes and with it came comprehension. If he refused, he had to either restrain me or convince me. And with either choice, he didn’t fully trust himself not to use his powers over me.
The only thing I didn’t understand was why he cared. He clearly had no problem at all rummaging in Worth’s head. Was I different because I was a cognate?
Was it because he cared about me? Or was that, too, some obscure political point—or perhaps, even more sinisterly, that it would represent the first step on the road to losing control?
Whatever the reason he restrained himself now, I had no doubt that
he would use all his power if the stakes were high enough.
Dorian broke the silence. “The staff at the oncology unit has been proven and the leak was found. It was one of the receptionists.”
Proven. That meant that every one of the staff members who had not been in Dorian’s thrall now was. I shuddered a little, wondering just how many people in the world were walking around with a little bit of vampire in their brains and didn’t even know it.
Dorian didn’t seem to notice my reaction as he continued. “The unit should be secure now, at least for a short while. Even so, our enemies must already know about your appointment, and though you should be safe now, it seems excessively foolhardy right now to show up at a place and time where you’re expected.”
“So you’re canceling the appointment?” I asked. He’d just said that he wasn’t....
“Relocating, merely,” Dorian said. “My staff found a nearby doctor’s office where you could meet Dr. Robeson, and LabCorp can handle any tests that she orders.”
I wondered if Dorian guessed the reason I wanted my appointments. I wondered what he’d think if he did.
I’d prepared a cover story for the presence of my unusual companions at the university Health Center, but it ended up being unnecessary. The receptionist’s eyes seemed to slide right past them, as did the nurse’s when she brought me in to take my weight—I’d cracked triple-digits again, I discovered with delight—temperature, and blood pressure.
Typically, they sent me off for a urine-based pregnancy test, too. It was a running joke that the Health Center diagnosed everything from mono to a skinned knee as pregnancy unless you took a test to prove otherwise.
Except for my short stop in the restroom, Dorian kept close and Clarissa only a little farther away as she repeatedly consulted the screen of a small device she held in her hand. When the nurse showed me to the examination room, I stopped in the doorway before either of the agnates could follow.
There was no way I was going to ask the doctor for birth control pills with Dorian looming and Clarissa laughing at me.
