“They use you,” Pate said flatly. “Just like I know how to cage you, there are others out there who know exactly how to set your power free.”
“I have no power!”
Pate glanced at Holly. “How much longer until that blood analysis is done?”
“Just a few hours.”
He nodded. Pointed toward Olivia. “You stay here until that analysis is back.” His gaze slid to Shane. “I’m guessing you’re playing guard now?”
A slight inclination of Shane’s head was his only response.
“Seeing as how you attacked her last guard,” Pate murmured, “I thought that might be the case.” He gave a little salute toward Shane. “Make sure she doesn’t leave.”
“She won’t go anyplace without me.”
Holly cast Olivia an apologetic glance, then she slipped from the room. Whoever the guy standing in the shadows had been—well, he hurried right after that woman.
Pate hesitated near the door. “I didn’t…I didn’t want you to be hurt, Dr. Maddox.”
Join the club.
“You’ll have to make a choice soon,” he continued as he glanced back at her. “You can keep trying to deny the truth, denying what you are, or you can use your powers. You can help us in the war that’s coming.”
She hadn’t signed up for a war.
“Others know about you. They won’t let you just vanish. They won’t let you go back to the normal life that you had.”
Her old life seemed so very far away.
“You wanted to know about the monsters, well, guess what? Now you’re one of us.”
The door closed softly behind him.
Olivia stared at that closed door for a few lost seconds, then she turned her gaze toward Shane. He was watching her, his stare so deep and consuming.
And angry. So very angry.
When he stepped toward her, Olivia tensed.
That stiffness just seemed to make him even angrier.
“Shane—”
He was at her side. Just like that. “Don’t ever do it again.”
“Uh…”
He sat on the bed. Pulled her toward him. “Don’t ever make me feel fear like that again.”
He’d been afraid?
His fingers curled around her chin. Held her so carefully. “The motorcycle is totaled. You went flying. When I got to you…” He gave a grim shake of his head. “You weren’t moving. I thought you were dead.”
She hadn’t realized that the wreck had been so bad. No wonder people kept asking about her healing ability.
Her lashes lowered. She couldn’t keep looking him in the eyes then. There was no more room for denial, not when it was just the two of them. “The markings hold me in.” If Pate had been telling the truth, then there was only one reason those red markings would hold her captive.
“Yes.”
“You think…you think I’m a djinn?”
He used his light hold on her chin to tip her head up so that she had to look into his eyes. “I know you’re not human. I know you taste like no one else, and when I have your blood…” He was so close to her. “There’s power in it. Power greater than a werewolf’s, and I’ve known vamps who grew addicted to the rush from a shifter’s blood…because their blood is supposed to be that damn good.” His fingers tightened a bit around her chin. “But yours is better. A hundred fucking times better. You aren’t human, love, I knew that from the first taste.”
He was telling her the truth. The terrifying truth. “You’re keeping me here…to protect me?”
“There are people out there who will use you. I don’t know what kind of powers you possess, but you were sent to Purgatory for a reason.”
Pate had implied—no, basically said—that a war was coming. And she’d be an instrument in that war. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
His lips brushed against hers. A hot surge seemed to roll through her whole body at that sensual caress. “You won’t.”
Don’t make promises that you can’t keep. Or that I can’t.
Her fingers lifted and curled around his shoulders.
“Don’t make me fear again,” he whispered those words against her lips. “When you do, I lose control.”
He kissed her again. This time, his tongue slid past her lips. Swept inside. She kissed him back, her heart beating faster and faster as she savored him.
Desire rose within her. Wrong time, wrong place but… “Why didn’t you feed?”
His muscles hardened beneath her touch.
“You could have taken from someone else, but you didn’t.” Very unvampire like. “Why?”
He kissed her again. “Something has changed.” He pulled back a bit, stared into her eyes. “You changed me.”
The words sounded like a warning. “I didn’t mean to.”
“No other will do for me.”
She could only shake her head—and still taste him on her lips.
“I wasn’t bitten, Olivia. I was never a human who was transformed into a vampire. I was never a human at all.”
His fingers slid down her throat. Rested right over her racing pulse point. “You healed from the crash, but my bite still marks you.” His eyes narrowed on her face. “Because you’re mine. The mark is proof of that.”
She was in so far over her head. Olivia fought to make sense of the madness and the magic. “Vampires are created from a virus.” There was a big, scientific explanation for them. At least, that was what her research had shown her. The files that the Para Unit had allowed her to see. The bite spread the virus, and it mutated in its host and—
“I told you, love, I was never human.”
She could see the edge of his fangs.
“My lineage is ancient. Unending. We don’t follow the rules that constrain other vampires.”
Sunlight hadn’t weakened him. “Ancient,” she whispered back. “Just how ancient are we talking here?”
“The Vikings thought we were gods.”
Okay, definitely much older than she’d thought.
“I don’t need as much blood to survive as other vampires do. Sunlight can never hurt me, but I do have a weakness. One.”
His stare seemed to pierce straight through to her soul. “What’s that?” Like he was going to tell her.
“You.”
“Is it really a good idea to leave them alone together?” Connor asked as he glanced at the cabin’s closed door.
Eric Pate shrugged. “It’s the best idea we’ve got. You saw the way he was with her. There’s no way Shane will let that woman out of his sight.”
Connor rubbed his jaw. “Yeah, I saw the way he went for my throat and that shit wasn’t normal.”
Holly and Duncan had gone back to her lab, another cabin located within the shelter of the trees.
“She’s doing something to him,” Connor continued, voice rasping. “Twisting him up somehow.”
Yes, Eric was afraid that was happening. But maybe he could use the changes. Maybe he could make them work… “I need you to take perimeter duty. If anyone comes this way, you’ll smell them long before we see them.” Because Connor was an alpha werewolf. Powerful, with senses far better than any human could ever dream. “We can’t let anyone else get Dr. Maddox.” And he knew that was exactly what would happen. She’d be tracked. Taken. Used.
Shane won’t let that happen. Or at least, the vamp had better not.
“You really think the werewolves are coming?” Now Connor sounded as if he were looking forward to the fight. Wolves and their bloodlust. They were almost as bad as vamps.
“Yes.” And he thought the mastermind of this twisted plot was coming, too.
Senator Donald Quick.