Dark Embers (7 page)

He was beginning to feel like a bug under a microscope. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

“So I obviously need a specialist with your qualifications.”

She looked him over from head to toe, an ice-cold perusal that nonetheless kindled flames right below his skin. God, he wanted to fuck her. Maybe then he could have a normal conversation with the woman.

“I’m kind of busy right now.” She gestured to the lab around her. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I noticed.”

“Yet you still think I’ll take your case.”

“I do.”

“And why is that?”

He paused for a moment, tried to gather his thoughts. This was the question he’d been dreading from the second he’d decided on this course of action. How did he enlist her help without telling her everything about his clan?

After all, he couldn’t expect her to help without knowing exactly what she was going to be required to do. Still, he couldn’t just blurt out the truth, not if he wanted her to take him seriously. She already thought he was dangerous; he’d hate for her to think him unstable, as well.

It was a vicious circle, an argument without end. One that had him stressed out, uneasy and more than a little concerned.

With her medical degree and her doctorate in neuroscience, she was his best hope, he reminded himself. His people’s best hope. He didn’t have a choice. He had to trust her.

Taking a deep breath, he leaped off the proverbial cliff. Then started in with the speech he’d been rehearsing for the past three days, ever since he’d made the decision to go ahead with a plan that just might be as stupid as it was suicidal.

CHAPTER FOUR

“
T
here’s a disease affecting my . . . people,” he said, determined to get the whole story out now that he’d committed himself. “It’s at least partially a nervous-system disorder, partly autoimmune, but not completely. The healers say that it shows signs of some of the hemorrhagic viruses—”

“Hold on a minute. Your people? Healers? Where, exactly, are you from?”

“New Mexico.”

“New Mexico?” Her voice was ripe with disbelief. “And you have
people
? Do you mean your family?”

“It’s not that simple.”

She raised one red brow. “I’m pretty smart. I think I can follow along.”

“I live in the middle of the New Mexican desert with my clan. We’ve lived there for well over five centuries, and nothing like this has ever happened before.”

He paused, trying to assess how she was taking his words. A huge part of him wanted to just blurt out the truth, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t listen to anything beyond the word
dragon
. And then she’d ask him—not nearly as politely this time—to leave.

Impatience worked its way through him, had him drumming his hands on his thighs. Better to just get it over with.

But it seemed Dr. Quillum had an agenda of her own, because she was already scribbling furiously on a long, yellow legal pad. “Clan?” she asked. “What is that—like a tribe?”

He thought of his people, of the powerful traditions and magic that bound them together. “I suppose you could call it that.”

“What’s your ethnic background?”

“Excuse me?”

“Some diseases affect certain ethnicities more than others. Your last name points to Scottish, but what you’re describing—healers, tribes—sounds more Native American in nature.”

“I’m both.”

“And the rest of your tribe?”

“Clan,” he corrected absently. “We’re made up of a lot of different ethnicities, but the one constant is Native American.”

She nodded, wrote furiously. “What tribe?”

“Mescalero.”

“Do you live on a reservation?”

“No.” He paused, tried to gather his thoughts. “We’re not really associated with the tribe. Haven’t been for centuries.”

“Why not?”

His mind blanked and he stared at her.

She watched him for a moment, as if waiting for an answer, then moved on when none was forthcoming.

“And your . . . people. They’ve lived on the same land for nearly half a millennium?”

“Yes.”

“Even after Native Americans were moved to reservations?”

“Yes.”

The look she shot him said she didn’t know how much to believe. But she didn’t call him on it. Instead she simply continued her questioning.

“Have you changed anything recently? Brought anything new to the mix? Is there any new building near you? Nuclear testing? How far is White Plains from you?”

“Far enough that it shouldn’t affect us. Besides, they haven’t tested there in years.”

“And you know this how?”

“It’s my job to know it.”

Another disbelieving look. “So, is anything different? Your water? Your food sources?”

“Not that I can find.”

She glanced up then. “That isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of your investigative skills.”

He shook his head, snapped himself out of the unusual tentativeness that had taken him over. “I am certain. Nothing’s changed in our ecosystem, our diets, our lives.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Frustration churned in his belly. “Do you think I came to you on a whim? I’ve had every healer in the clan, every farmer, every soldier looking for something—anything—that might have brought this on us. We can’t find anything.”

“And what exactly is
this
?”

“I don’t know. A disease that causes paralysis, that shuts down one body system after another. But that also causes its victim to bleed out. It’s excruciatingly painful—”

Her head snapped up. “How do you know? Have you contracted the disease?”

“No, but I’ve watched a number of my people die from it over the past few years.”

“Is it contagious?”

“Not through normal channels.”

It was her turn to lift a brow. “Meaning?”

“It’s not airborne, doesn’t seem to be spread from contact with the infected person.”

“Water?”

“Not that we can trace.”

“Soil?”

“Again, not that—”

She cut him off, went back to her notebook. “What’s the survival rate?”

“There is none.”

“Excuse me?”

“No one who contracts the disease survives.”

“No one?”

“No one.”

“Are they receiving proper medical care?”

“Of course. Our healers—”

“I don’t mean your shamans.” She said the word as if it left a bad taste in her mouth. It got his back up, though he’d reminded himself numerous times on the journey over to be prepared for her skepticism.

“They aren’t shamans or witch doctors or whatever else you’re thinking. Our healers have all gone to medical school. They practice a mixture of old and new medicine.”

“Old medicine?”

“Yes. Herbal remedies and other things that have worked for generations.” They also used a healthy dose of magic, but he didn’t think she was quite ready for that revelation yet.

“Such as?”

“You’d have to talk to them about that.”

She watched him for a moment, her blue eyes as sharp and direct as arrows, but infinitely more arousing. He felt the impact of her intelligence deep inside himself, felt his already-hard cock strain for her attention.

What is wrong with me?
he wondered, even as he returned her stare. He was here, desperate to save his people, and all he could think about was finding out if her skin was as soft as it looked.

Or if she would taste even half as good as he imagined she would.

He’d always had a thing for smart girls, but this—this was so far beyond his normal response that he didn’t even know how to classify it. All he knew was that he wanted to devour her.

His dragon, which had settled down during the questioning, came to a predatory awareness inside him. It flexed and stretched and watched her with a hunger it, too, had never displayed before.

A hunger that was fast putting something other than his brain in the driver’s seat.

“So, what, exactly, am I looking at here?” she asked. The tone of her voice said it wasn’t the first time she’d asked the question.

Dylan pulled himself out of his lust-induced stupor and struggled to make sense of her words. He was so far gone that he had to replay them several times in his head before they actually made sense.

“What do you mean?”

She pushed away from the table, rolled her seat over to the nearest computer, clicked the mouse a few times. “You live in the deserts of New Mexico, are part of a clan and have healers who use nontraditional medicine, yet you say you aren’t part of the tribe or the reservation. That you don’t hold with the lifestyle.”

“We don’t.”

“So what, exactly, do you hold with?” Phoebe demanded. “What, exactly, are you and your people?”

He froze as she asked the question he’d been dreading, but inside the dragon preened arrogantly, as if thrilled to finally get some acknowledgment.

The damn thing was going to be the death of him yet.

Phoebe was in the middle of searching Harvard Med’s database for diseases specific to Native American populations, which was why it took her several minutes to realize that Dylan hadn’t answered her question. When that knowledge sank in, however, she turned to him inquiringly.

“I can’t help you if you aren’t forthcoming with me.”

“I don’t know how to answer your question.” He looked uncomfortable for the first time since he’d stormed into her lab.

“It’s not a difficult one,” she began, but the look on his face contradicted her statement. “I was just wondering what ethnic or social group you and your people used to identify yourself with. So I know where to start looking.”

He still didn’t answer, though it was obvious he was growing more uncomfortable by the moment. She paused in her search—it wasn’t like she knew where to start at this point, anyway—and really looked at him.

His skin was a golden bronze, darker, certainly, than the average Caucasian skin, but not as dark as other Native Americans she had met. His mixed ancestry could definitely account for that, and the black of his hair and eyes fit any number of ethnicities.

Yet something felt off to her, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. A chill moved down her spine, and if she was a superstitious person, she might have been concerned.
But I’m not superstitious
, she reminded herself. She didn’t believe in all that mumbo jumbo, and she wasn’t about to start now just because some big, sexy guy was ringing her bell.

Still, the day was getting more interesting by the second. God knew after the week she’d had, she needed something to attract her interest. Something to keep her mind off her own problems.

“Look, Mr. MacLeod—”

“Dylan.”

“Dylan. I’m going to be honest with you. I’ve got two months to finish up my research, so I’m on an incredibly tight schedule. I assume, since you flew all this way to see me, that you, too, are working on a timetable. I’ll admit to being intrigued by your story so far, but I don’t have the time to pursue it. This afternoon is probably all the time you’re going to get. So, if you really want to help your people, it doesn’t make sense to me that you aren’t being more forthcoming.”

Instead of answering her question, he asked one of his own. “Why are you on such a tight schedule? You’ve been working here for six years—what’s the sudden rush?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

He flashed a smile at her—one she knew was meant to charm and disarm. She steeled herself against it, made sure her expression didn’t change at all. And ignored the fact that her knees could barely hold her up.

“Sorry. I just don’t get the impression that you’re ready to wrap up here so soon. Plus, I obviously need more of your time than just an afternoon.”

“As I said, that’s all the time I can spare. In truth, I can’t even spare that.”

“Is it money?”

“Excuse me?”

“Is it money?” he repeated. When she didn’t answer, Dylan continued. “I know how academia works, Phoebe. Grants are often uncertain things.”

“That’s not your business.”

“No, it isn’t.” He glanced around her lab, his face filled with an odd understanding. “But I’m asking, anyway. I need your help, and I plan on compensating you for it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t normally freelance. I wouldn’t know how much—”

“Three million dollars.”

She gaped at him like a fish out of water, mouth moving but no sound coming out.

When she finally regained control of her faculties enough to speak, she said the first thing that came to her mind. “Get out.”

“What? Why?” For the first time, she saw a hint of uncertainty flash in those wild, wicked eyes. She told herself she was too furious to notice how attractive it made him.

“Because I don’t have time to play games with you.”

“I’d like nothing more than to play games with you, Phoebe, believe me. But I’m not playing now. I’m serious. I need your help and I’ll pay whatever it takes to secure it.”

“Three million dollars.”
She worked to keep her voice flat, to ignore the unexpected—and completely unwanted—thrill working its way through her. If she was careful, she could keep the lab open for another four years with that kind of money. She could—