Dark Embers (4 page)

Dylan suppressed a smile. The rebel and the peacemaker. They made a good pair, helped balance out his council. But he knew where Quinn was coming from—they all did. He’d grown up with Marta, had been her friend since childhood. Losing her was hard on him, and he wanted nothing more than to be back at his lab, attacking the very thing that had killed her.

This time he’d have to wait in line.

Because everything in Dylan told him it wasn’t going to be enough this time.

Glancing around the room, he made sure to meet the eyes of everyone there. Part of it was the fact that he was the alpha and needed to remind them of his dominance, but at the same time he was checking out his closest friends and most trusted sentries to ensure that they were weathering the recent problems.

With the exception of Quinn—and, obviously, Gabe—his council was hanging tight. Jase and Travis lounged on the long red couch, each holding a glass of what looked like Dylan’s favorite Scotch. Riley, Tyler and Paige were huddled in a close circle on one of the fine Persian rugs that had covered the cavern’s floors for generations. And Callie and Caitlyn, the youngest two sentries, were pacing, energy rolling off them in nearly palpable waves. He could feel their urgency, their need to demand that he tell them what was going on. But they had enough restraint—and enough trust in him—to wait until he was ready to talk.

As he contemplated how to say what he needed to, flashes of Marta as a little girl whipped through his head. Laughing, with her long hair tied up in a ponytail, as he pushed her on a swing. Shifting for the first time, her dragon eyes bright with shock and delight. Dancing in the desert after dark, her skirts twirling as she spun in circle after circle.

Regret was a knot in his throat; sorrow a sharp blade in his gut. With a grimace, Dylan headed for the huge bar carved into the frostwork speleothems in the corner of the room and poured himself a shot.

Marta would never smile at him again, never tease him, never roll her eyes at his escapades even as she rubbed a soothing hand over his back. His sister was truly gone, and it was up to him to ensure that the rest of his clan members didn’t suffer the same losses he had.

Tossing back the shot, he set the glass on the bar and turned to his council.
His sentries
. And in a voice that he made sure filled the cavern from one end to the other, he said, “I think it’s time to look outside the clan for help with this disease.”

Complete silence met his proclamation, and as he looked in their eyes, he realized that they wouldn’t have been more shocked if he suggested that they shift into dragons in the middle of Santa Fe at rush hour.

“We’ve been trying to find a cure for this thing for nearly a decade and we’ve come up with nothing—no matter how much time, energy and resources we allocate toward it.”

“That’s not strictly true, Dylan.” Quinn regarded him with furious emerald eyes, his mouth tight and fists clenched. “We know what kind of disease it is now, have a good grasp of how it attacks—”

“And yet my sister’s still dead.
Mike
is still dead. Liese and Justine, Todd and Angel are
still dead
, Quinn—and just in the past few weeks. It used to be that we would lose that many in a year. Now we’ve lost that many this month.

“How many more need to fall before we acknowledge that we’re failing?”

“But to go to another clan for help, Dylan?” This time it was Tyler who spoke, in a low hiss that made it obvious just how close his dragon was to the surface. “That’s dangerous.”

“It’s
suicidal
. We can’t let them know our weaknesses,” Caitlin added. “The Wyvernmoons will find a way to exploit them.”

“They’re not the only ones.” Shawn jumped into the discussion with a growl. “They might be our most obvious enemy, but there are other clans just waiting for a weakness. The Shadowclaws have been waiting patiently for more than two hundred years, praying that we make a mistake that will leave us vulnerable. To hand them this kind of knowledge—it’s unthinkable.”

Arguments erupted around him from all sides of the echoing cavern, reason after reason that they couldn’t share their problem with other clans.

“I know all that,” he finally interrupted, wading into the conversation with a sigh. “Believe me, I’ve spent months wondering if they’re suffering from the same disease we are. And if they are, whether they’ve been any more successful in treating it.”

“I’ve been watching.” Quinn again, his agitation obvious in the red dragon light of his eyes and in his distorted voice. He was in the middle of the shift, his anger bringing on the dragon like nothing else could. “None of the five clans are experiencing the same kind of deaths that we are. The last time Shadowclaw lost a dragon was nearly thirty years ago.”

“That’s a documented loss, right?” Caitlyn interrupted. “They could be hiding—”

“They’re not.” Dylan’s voice cut across the room like a whip. “I’ve checked, as well.”

“So either they’re disgustingly healthy or they’ve found a cure for the disease.” Riley spoke for the first time, as always the cool voice of reason amid his more volatile clan mates. “It might be worth it to—”

Objections erupted all over again, but Dylan had had enough. Normally their meetings were more organized, but everyone’s emotions were running high tonight, and he’d tried to bend. But enough was enough.

“I actually agree with you on this.” The room fell silent. “If I really thought they could help us, I wouldn’t hesitate to approach them. But letting anyone know our weaknesses—even those clans we’ve been friendly with for generations—is asking for trouble, unless it’s the only way.”

Shawn regarded him warily. “You think there’s another way?”

“I do.” He paused, pulled the sense of rightness that came with his decision around him tightly. Then said, “I want to take our problems to the humans. They have scientists, labs, generations of research that deal with disease and mutated cells. I think they’re our best chance.”

Then he stepped back and waited for all hell to break loose. He didn’t have long to wait.

CHAPTER TWO

“
I
understand,” Phoebe murmured, when what she really wanted to do was scream. Not at the unfortunate person on the other end of the line, but at the circumstances that led her here. She had very nearly begged the Atlantis Corporation for a piece of their grant money—never a position of strength, but desperate times called for desperate measures—and their head of charitable donations had just neatly slammed the door in her face.

It was the same door that she’d run up against again and again in the past two weeks as she struggled to find a way to keep her lab open and her research alive. So far, she was batting zero, and for the first time in her life, she was very aware of the passage of time.

Each slam of the door was another few days wasted; each polite—or impolite—
no
ate up time she didn’t have. Already one of her lab assistants had quit, citing the difficulty of his classes this semester. She’d seen him yesterday working in Brandon’s lab. It seemed everyone recognized a sinking ship when they saw it. Everyone but her.

“Lupus is a very important disease,” the woman on the other end of the phone continued. “One that we here at Atlantis would be very interested in supporting. But the money for next year has already been allocated. In four months, the process opens up again, and you can file for a grant for two years from now. I’m sure we’d be very interested in looking at it then, Dr. Quillum.

“Your credentials are above reproach, and, as I said, lupus is a disease that needs more attention in the research community. If I had anything to give you now, I would.”

“I know. Thanks, Jeannie. I appreciate the fact that you tried. I’ll definitely fill out the papers for that funding.”

Even as she said the words, Phoebe knew she would be doing nothing of the sort.
Two years from now? I could get funding two years from now?
Despair swamped her, and she closed her eyes as she leaned her head onto the cool, Formica top of her ancient desk. In two years, her lab would be nothing but a distant memory, her research outdated and hopelessly behind the times.

But what choice did she have? The grant committee had completely screwed her, and they knew it. It had taken her nearly a week to get someone over there to answer a phone call, and though she’d filed an appeal, she wasn’t holding out much hope. Harvard wasn’t going to help her. The big corporations couldn’t help her—at least not for the next eighteen months. Their grants had already been chosen. So unless she won the lottery, she was pretty much screwed—and so was everything she’d been working toward since she got out of med school.

The idea was unbearable, especially when she thought of some of the research subjects she’d dealt with through the years. Jennifer, who had contracted lupus when she was nineteen and whose immune system was so compromised after six years of the disease that half her organs had ceased functioning. Nina, whose body had started attacking itself before she was thirty. She had died last year, at thirty-four, the victim of a disease that was absolutely brutal in its more virulent forms.

And before Phoebe could slam the door in her mind, she thought of Larissa, her beautiful sister who had lived—and died—in more pain than any person should ever have to endure. The idea that Larissa had died in vain—that she would never be able to save another woman from suffering her sister’s fate—nearly killed her. Particularly after she’d promised both Larissa and herself that she would never let that happen.

The fact that she would have to break a promise to her sister hurt more than anything else. Phoebe didn’t break promises; no matter how big or how small, she always kept her word. Which was just one more reason she was so careful about which promises she made.

Having been raised by a mother who had believed every promise she’d ever received—and a father and stepfather who broke promises like they were porcelain tea cups—she’d never known who or what she could trust. She refused to do that to anyone else, particularly someone she cared about the way her father had professed to care about her mother.

But what choice did she have? No matter what she did, she wouldn’t have enough money to keep the lab going. Even if she gave up her salary, gave up eating and stripped her lab down to the bare bones, it wouldn’t be enough. She and her research were doomed.

Pushing away from the desk, she went over to the bookshelf where she kept binder after binder of research. Pulled down the latest one and started going over the numbers. It was difficult, though, as they kept blurring on the page. Stupid printer had obviously screwed up, because there was no other explanation for why she couldn’t read the data.

I’m not crying
, Phoebe assured herself. She didn’t know how to cry anymore. She hadn’t shed a tear since the day her father had walked away for good, right after her mother had gotten sick. And today was not the day to start. Just because her entire life was falling down around her was no reason for her to turn weepy and whiny.

Blinking her eyes quickly—once, twice—she brought the numbers into focus.

Maybe the printer was working after all, but she’d have to have the lab cleaned. Something in the air must have been aggravating her allergies.

Dylan was feeling antsy as he walked through the bustling campus little more than a week after he’d laid down the law to his council. There were so many people—on the sidewalks, on the streets, even sitting on the steps leading up to the various buildings. They were talking, laughing, studying, walking—doing all the things people did on a college campus, even one as illustrious as this.

Their proximity was driving his dragon insane. Always close to the surface, now it seemed to be sitting right under his skin. With each breath he took, it roared and scratched, determined to get out. He was, of course, just as determined to keep it hidden.

Ignoring the beast and his own discomfort, Dylan covered the grounds in steady strides. It had been a long time since he’d been to Massachusetts—even longer since he’d walked Harvard’s hallowed halls—but he hadn’t missed it. Not the crisp chill of the October morning, not the red and gold leaves that crunched beneath his feet as he walked, and especially not the stares and whispers of the students as he passed.

Though the Harvard he’d attended more than three hundred and fifty years ago was very different from the Harvard of today, it was interesting to note that some things hadn’t changed. Even here, in the midst of some of the best research facilities and hospitals in the world, there was a feeling that was uniquely Harvard. Uniquely elite. It was just one of the many things he’d hated about the school when he’d attended.

Of course, he could have left, could have run back to the New Mexico caves he’d been born in, no matter what his parents had said at the time, but there had been parts of Harvard that had enthralled him. Namely, the books and education that had been so hard to come by three centuries before.

He had to admit that there had been changes to the Harvard he remembered. Big changes. For one thing, in his day, it had all been one campus. No medical and public health schools built miles away. No supercomputers.
And no top-notch research library, either
, Dylan thought as he passed the Countway Library.