In the Beginning... (23 page)

But enough was enough; she could not lie in
this bed any longer. She knew how to remove a damned IV and it took
her less than a minute to have the tape pulled and the needle
slipping free from her skin. She could feel the vibrations of the
shower. The bathroom was an opulent one, and six jet streams
created a buzz that she doubted no hearing person would have
caught. But she knew it intimately, and knew exactly how long she
had before he returned to her side.

She pushed her hair off her forehead, wishing
Emily had braided it tighter than she had. The tunic and trousers
were wrinkled, but she didn’t care. She was getting out of that bed
and finding the answers she needed.

She’d start with her
cousins. Both Mickey and Emily had been in to see her and she had
had no difficulty seeing that something about them had changed.
Mickey actually
wanted
to stay with these people. Her Theo. She called him a ‘gentle’
man who loved animals and his family. And her. Mickey was head over
heels for the blind man. Josey didn’t understand it, but if her
cousin truly meant it, how could she tell her she was
crazy?

Mickey had always been very timid where men
were concerned. Probably because of what had happened to her
sister. When Mal and Emily had both been twenty-one, Mal had been
attacked in the parking garage of Taniss Industries.

The damage done to Mal had left a lasting
impression on Mickey—and Josey. Josey had been less than eighteen
when the attack happened. Mickey had just received her driver’s
license that day. They had driven to TI to show Josey’s dad. Josey
would never forget seeing her cousin lying on the concrete two feet
from her father’s car. Mal had crawled there after the attack,
hoping Josey’s dad would find her and save her. Instead Josey and
Mickey had found her. Seeing how gentle the EMTs and doctors had
been with Mal was what inspired Josey to become a doctor.

Mickey hadn’t dated
since
the attack on her
sister. If she had let Theo close to her, Josey would do nothing to
stand in the way of her cousin’s happiness. And Emily? Emily hadn’t
come right out and told Josey she was staying, but Josey could
tell. It was in the way Em talked about the man she called Rydere.
The king. And he had accompanied Emily to visit Josey earlier that
morning. His hand had rested on Emily’s back, he had caressed her
hair. Held her so close. And Em had let him! Josey didn’t
understand any of it.

While she wasn’t as
afraid
of Cormac anymore—having him save
her life and then cry over her had lessened any terror she had
still possessed—she was far from forgiving to him. He had ripped
her from her family, terrified her, nearly drowned her,
converted
her into a
freaking vampire, then claimed she belonged to him forever. Kind of
hard for her to forgive all that.

She wasn’t just going to accept the changes
he’d created, then stick around for him to maneuver her like a
chess piece.

She slipped her feet into the slippers Em had
brought her that she hadn’t gotten a chance yet to wear and then
slipped out the suite door. First stop would be finding Freedom. In
more ways than one.

She missed her dog and he’d kept her away
from Freedom long enough. If she had to search the entire hotel
until she found the Border collie, she’d do it.

She knew her way around the hotel well enough
now that finding her way to the girl Bronwen’s rooms should be
relatively easy. Bronwen was Theo’s younger sister, so she most
likely lived in Theo’s wing of the hotel. Mickey would know. She’d
find Mickey first.

The sitting room where she’d
spent most of the first week of her captivity was empty, no sign of
Mickey, Mal, or Emily. The doors to the garden were locked, and
Josey saw at least six strong men, equally as big as Cormac,
arranged in positions to guard. The Dardaptoans had tightened
security. The men’s presence helped her only a little. She still
refused to even
look
at the glass doors that led outside Cormac’s suite. It would
take her a long, long time to even want to go back out into those
gardens. If she ever did.

A hand touched her, and Josey spun around.
Her heart settled when green eyes identical to her own widened.
Mickey. Josey quickly signed her questions, barely giving her
cousin a chance to reply.

Ten minutes later her arms were wrapped
around her dog and her face was buried in Freedom’s fur. She
crooned softly, not knowing how loud or soft the sounds were, just
knew that both she and the dog needed the comfort.

Finally she released the dog and stood.

It wasn’t Mickey standing there in the small
lobby that housed Theo’s relatives.

She wasn’t fully healed. I
didn’t want you to see her still hurting.
Cormac held out a hand to Josey.
Come.
You should not be up yet. If you pull the stitches…

I won’t. I checked them, they’re healing. I
do not want to lie down. I’m tired of it.

Dammit, woman! Do you never
cease defying me?
When he picked her up
this time he was far gentler than the first time. Josey thought
about protesting, but she did hurt. And he was warm, and
strong.

Get used to it. You’re the one keeping me
here, in this weird world with no freaking medical care! Geesh, a
damned painkiller would be nice!

So find one, then. You think
our healers haven’t tried throughout the years?
He jiggled her closer, and Josey tightened her arms around his
neck. His words were mild, but his hold was firm.
Maybe you can do better?

Maybe I can!

Could she? That question
plagued her to the point where she could think of almost nothing
else. She wasn’t going to be able to
escape,
in a literal sense. Not with
both Mickey and Emily both planning on staying with these people.
What would she tell her father when he demanded to know where
Mickey and Em were?

Gee, Dad. I guess they liked being vamp-girls
and decided to stay in Blooddrinker land? She couldn’t see that
going over well—with anyone in her family. And if her father
thought—even correctly—that these creatures had hurt her or her
cousins, he’d want to rip them to shreds. That would not go over
well with Em or Mickey.

So she was stuck here for the next little
while. And would do whatever she had to do to help these
people.

Josey had all the medical books Kindara had
given her—even more than the half dozen Vampire man had given
her—spread out over the ridiculous spans of the bed. She needed to
get as familiar with their physiology as she could, then compare it
to a human’s. Only with that understanding could she move
forward.

Forward into what, she didn’t actually have
an idea of, yet. The basics would be pain killers and antibiotics.
Once she learned about what other types of conditions Dardaptoans
suffered, she could devise a plan of research.

The scope of the project she was getting into
weighed on her shoulders. Medical research was something that took
years, if not decades, to do properly.

Hadn’t it taken her grandfather’s company
twenty plus years to come up with their signature medication?
D-Palitren. Both an antibiotic and a blood-thinner, it was one of
the most remarkable drugs on the market. It had helped increase the
Taniss family coffers by two-fold, just in Josey’s lifetime alone.
Patients suffering from embolic disorders benefit from both
properties. It had also been found to be useful as part of various
vaccines. It had long been billed as a wonder drug.

The drug Vampire man had said was made from
the blood of his people.

Was it true? Emily had said it was, had said
she’d seen the photographs of the Dardaptoans her grandfather had
tortured and murdered in his lab.

Josey felt sick when she thought about the
lives that were lost to create such a drug. Was it worth it?

Couldn’t her grandfather have found another
way?

She needed to see the research for
herself.

It was the only way she could figure out what
to do next.

I won’t do it.

Why not?
Josey glared at the damned vampire, ignoring the way the water
from the shower he’d just taken beaded on his skin. Why couldn’t
the jerk
ever
use a
full sized towel? The scrap of terry he had wrapped around his hips
hid nothing from her sight. She strongly suspected he’d done it on
purpose.

Of course…she had barged into the bathroom
while he was showering, demanding he fetch her all the research she
wanted.

She forced her eyes away from the strange
tattoos that covered his chest. He had a freaking broad, perfectly
defined chest. The doctor in her had no difficulty cataloging a
healthy male. The female in her also had no difficulty reacting to
a healthy male. Damn him. She might hate him for what he’d done to
her, but there was no doubt she found him attractive.
Physically.

She still hated him,
though.
Why won’t you do it? I’ve seen the
human body in every kind of condition. Even an autopsy or
thirty.

Because some of the people
researched upon where
my
family. Including Kindara and Jierra. They don’t
need to be studied like lab rats again.
He
ran a comb through the dark curls on his head, plastering the wet
strands to his scalp.
Anything
else?

So take those files and
photos out. I don’t want to see them any more than you want to show
them. But I need to see my grandfather’s research. To see the real
method he’s used to create DPalitren. Maybe I can reverse it. See
if I can form something to actually
help
Dardaptoan blood clot. Has anyone
else thought to
use
what my grandfather has done to
help
the Dardaptoans?

No. Kindara is the Chief
Healer, and she refuses to allow the research to be viewed or used
by any but her. No one has pushed.
His gold
eyes met hers in the mirror.
And no one
will.

She got his message, loud
and clear.
You know, I can have Em get it
for me. One phone call to our Boulder lab and she can have every
piece of research in that place faxed here within two hours. Do you
want that to happen? If you give me what you have, I can compare
what we have in Boulder.

His face tightened, the anger plain for her
to see. She stepped back, remembering the first time she’d seen his
anger. The first bathroom they’d been in together. How frightened
she had been when he’d shoved her head beneath the water.

Her breath backed up in her throat as all the
fear and pain she’d felt at his hands came rushing back. As the
smell of raspberries and steam and soap rushed her good senses. The
feel and terror of the water over her head, his strong, relentless
hand holding her down as the bath filled her lungs. Everything that
had happened to her from the moment he nearly drowned her flooded
her mind, culminating in the werewolves ripping into her flesh.
Everything she had felt, feared. How she had known she was going to
die. At his hands and then at those animals.

His hands reached for
her.
Do not. Do not think of it. Do
not.

Josey pushed his hands away,
then signed at him to get away from her. It took her a moment to
remember he could not read her hands.
Just
stay away, please!

I cannot do that!
His left hand slipped around the back of her neck
and he pulled her against his chest. The water that still beaded on
his skin soaked into her shirt. She could smell him and the soap he
favored, could feel the pounding of his heart against her chest.
Could just feel him. She fought against him. His hands remained
firm, tight.
Jocelyn! Please! I will not
hurt you again! Stop!

He refused to let her go and she had no
choice but to rest against him for a moment. She felt the beat of
his heart beneath her ear and she forced her own heartbeat to match
his. Her breaths to match his. Her eyes closed and she began to
count the strokes of his fingers over her hair.

What would it be like to hear his heart? Why
did she want that so much? After what he had done? What kind of
crazy did that make her?

You are not crazy.
His words were a whisper in her head.
You are just not human anymore. You are my Kind
now. You are
mine
now. We belong together, you and I. We are meant to
breathe
for
each
other.

She opened her eyes and
stared at the strange tattoo closest to her face. Orange bands with
dark green stripes about as big as her pinkie finger. She counted
them again silently. Twelve on his left pectoralis major, thirteen
on his right. She traced over the ones on his left with a hand that
trembled.
What do these mean?

Demon kills. Each orange band is a type of
demon. Each green is a particular kill. It is what I do. Protect my
people from demons who wander into our world.

She let him lift her into his arms, let him
guide her legs around his waist. She didn’t know why, except that
maybe she needed the contact and the comfort. Needed the
distraction from her memories, and he was the only one could
provide that for her.

Or maybe she was suffering some sort of
vampire-induced Stockholm Syndrome? Was he brainwashing her, had
his friends brainwashed her cousins? Was that why they suddenly
wanted to stay in this strange world?