Nine
Jake opened his eyes to find sunlight creeping around the edges of his blinds. He stared at the light and shadow it caused in the room, and then pushed his blankets aside and sat up, surprised to find he was buck naked. He normally slept naked at home, but he’d brought pajama bottoms to wear here. It was always good to be prepared and if an emergency struck in the middle of the night . . . Well, having the family jewels hanging out was never good at times like that.
Standing up, he opened the top drawer of the dresser and pulled out a T-shirt and a pair of loose, cotton pajama bottoms in a black, white, and gray plaid. He’d dress properly after he made coffee . . . and brushed his teeth. God, his mouth tasted like a sewer. What was up with that?
And what time was it? He glanced around to the alarm clock, frowning when he saw that it was two in the afternoon. What—?
Jake stilled as memory washed over him like a ten-gallon barrel of water. It left him just as stunned as a sudden dunking would have done. In the next moment, he was hopping around, pulling his pajama bottoms onto first one leg and then the other. Once he had them on, Jake headed out the door, tugging his T-shirt on as he went.
Nicole’s bedroom door was open, he saw as he passed. The bed was made, which meant she was up. He checked the kitchen for her first, and came to an abrupt halt when he spotted the stranger seated at the table, an iPad on the table before her. The woman had fair hair like Nicole, but did not have her generous curves. She was dressed casually in faded jeans and a cobalt sweater, and she was an immortal. Jake didn’t know how he knew that, he just did. Since being turned, he always recognized one of their kind when in their presence. It was like a low-key awareness that went through him, as if all his nanos were sensing and saluting hers.
The blonde glanced over now. Spotting him, she leaned back in her seat to give him the once-over.
“You’re up,” she commented, pushing her long, wavy blond hair behind one ear. “How are you feeling?”
“Good,” Jake said slowly, his gaze narrowing on her eyes. They were a bright silver green. Not an Argeneau or a Notte then. Argeneaus were known for their silver-blue eyes, and Nottes for their dark metallic eyes. “Who are you?”
“Nina Viridis,” she announced, standing up. “I’m an Enforcer.”
Jake nodded, relaxing now that he knew she was a Rogue Hunter. “So Nicole did call Marguerite?”
Nina nodded, and leaned back against the table, arms crossing over her chest. She hadn’t stood to approach and shake his hand in greeting as he’d first expected, but so that she wasn’t at a disadvantage. As a Rogue Hunter, it would be second nature to ensure she was never at a disadvantage, he supposed.
“She called Marguerite, who called Lucian, who sent us over to look after things until Marguerite and the others could get here.”
“Marguerite’s here?” he asked, instinctively glancing over his shoulder as if expecting the woman to come walking across the upper living room from the stairs.
“She was,” Nina said, drawing his attention again. “And she brought Julius, Decker, and his wife, Dani, as well as Dante and Tomasso. They’re gone now though. Everyone but the twins left once you were resting quietly and obviously on the mend.”
“Dante and Tomasso are still here?” he asked with a frown.
Nina nodded. “They remained behind to help babysit the mortal.”
Jake shifted uncomfortably at this news. He hadn’t seen anyone from the Notte family since moving to Ottawa and wasn’t sure he was ready to see his cousins now. “I’m sure with you here I don’t need Tomasso and Dante to—”
“My team’s not going to be here,” she said at once. “Mark and Gill already left. Tybo’s leaving after he finishes clearing the drive of snow, and I was only waiting for you to wake up.” She smiled wryly. “Marguerite suggested it. I gather Dante and Tomasso aren’t the most talkative duo on the planet and she wanted to be sure someone told you what happened.”
Jake sighed at this news. It seemed he was going to deal with family now, ready or not. Shrugging that worry away for now, he asked, “So what did happen? Was it vampire flu or something? Because between the headache and vomiting, it sure as hell felt like flu, but I thought we couldn’t get sick.”
“We can’t,” she assured him. “It wasn’t flu. The headache was caused by some sonar mouse repellents Nicole had bought. We removed them and have wiped them from her memory. Several times,” she added dryly. “She keeps remembering them and wondering where they are and one of the twins or myself wipes her memory . . . again. We thought it best not to get into explanations like that until you could talk to her.”
Jake merely grunted at this news and then asked, “So that was the cause of the headache. What about the vomiting up blood?”
“Poison,” Nina said grimly.
Jake’s head went back at this news, and then he immediately began shaking it. “I was weak, puking, and had a fever. It was flu.”
“You were weak from lack of blood, puking up the poison thanks to the nanos, and what you thought was a fever was the nanos working in overdrive to save you. They heat up in your blood, so your blood heats up,” she said simply. “It was poison, not flu.”
“But I couldn’t have been poisoned,” he argued. “I cooked supper. I did the shopping too, and I replaced anything in the house that had been opened on that shopping trip, just in case poison had been slipped into something. There is no way—”
“It was the hot tub,” she interrupted. “Dani took a sample and had it tested at a lab here in Ottawa and there were high concentrations of some poison that can be absorbed through the skin, nicotine and dimethyl sulfate—” She paused and frowned. “Or was it sulfide?” She shook her head. “No, it had fox in it somewhere. Sulfoxy maybe?”
“Whatever. It was poisoned,” Jake said grimly. He didn’t care about the specific substances. The hot tub had been poisoned.
“Yeah.” Nina nodded. “Apparently, Nicole got lucky she put the robe on you before helping you inside. Dani thinks she might have got enough poison from just skin to skin contact to kill or at least make her sick. I guess the concentration was super high.”
Jake’s mouth tightened at this news as he distinctly recalled Nicole reaching out to help him while he was still in the hot tub. Fortunately, he’d felt sick and cranky and had waved her away, refusing her help. If she had touched his bare arm then, would she have been poisoned from just that small contact? Nina was suggesting she may have been. “So the vomiting was from the poison?”
“It was the nanos getting the poison out of your system, which is why it went on so long. I mean you got a full body dunk in poison soup, my friend. It would have been in your skin, blood, organs . . . well, if it got that far. The nanos probably went after it as soon as it soaked into your skin, but we humans have a hell of a lot of skin.”
Jake nodded and sighed. He had no doubt that particular poison soup had been meant for Nicole, and as unpleasant as it had been, he was glad he’d taken that dunk in it rather than her. He survived. She wouldn’t have. Raising an eyebrow, he asked, “Where is Nicole?”
“Down in her studio, working. Dante and Tomasso are with her,” Nina added as if he’d worry about that.
“Why? She should be safe in her studio,” he said with a frown. “I had a security system installed and as long as she keeps her sliding door locked she’s fine on her own down there.”