Jared (34 page)

Allie asked the question on Raisa’s tongue. “Can you
do that?”

“Not with you within a hundred miles,” Caleb retorted.

Slade didn’t take his gaze from Raisa’s. “Anything can
be done.”

“Safely,” Jared clarified.

Raisa didn’t care about safety, she just wanted the
bomb gone.

Slade came to a stop in front of her, his head canted
to the side. His energy reached out, testing. “It’s a bomb. Safely is a
relative term.”

Jared’s response was succinct. “Shit.”

“How long do we have before they contact you again?”

“If they do what they did before, a few hours.”

He reached for her head. His hands were covered in
scars from half-healed wounds. She drew back. “What happened to your hands?”

“One of my experiments didn’t work out. Let me see
your neck.”

Not the kind of information she wanted to hear right
before he planned on operating on her. “How did you know the implant’s in my
neck?”

He shrugged. “The most logical place to put it would
be the base of your skull.”

Behind her Jared drew a breath and held it. All around
them people did the same, an instinctive effort to hold off the inevitable
disaster they all feared.

One side of Slade’s mouth kicked up in a wry smile.
“You can all breathe, I’m just checking where it is and its depth.”

Raisa didn’t share in the nervous chuckle that rippled
through the air. She could feel the probe extending from Slade’s hand. Subtle,
it was almost the equivalent of a magician’s sleight of hand. She caught his
wrist. “Not with Jared here.”

If Slade blew her up, Jared was not going to be
anywhere around. He’d had enough pain in his life. She wasn’t leaving him
injured, or worse, with the guilt of watching her die and thinking he could
have done something about it.

Slade’s gaze met hers. “Agreed.”

“Agreed, hell.”

Jared’s forearm locked across her chest, pinning her
back against him. “You don’t come within ten feet of her unless I’m present.”

“That’s not your call,” Raisa pointed out, not
struggling to be free because she could feel the desperation in Jared, the need
to protect her at war with the need to protect his family. It was a no-win
situation. She understood that even if he couldn’t accept it. Slade’s response
surprised her. “I know what she means to you, Jared. I wouldn’t risk her
needlessly.”

“I don’t think you should risk her at all.” Allie cut
in.

“She’s got a bomb in her head, baby. It’s all about
risk.”

“Shut up, Caleb.”

Instead of getting angry, the man merely lifted his
brow at Allie. “What? That’s not the truth?”

“It’s not the way I’m coloring it, thank you very
much,” Raisa interrupted. “And if you keep shattering my rose-colored-glasses
view of my situation, I’m liable to freak out.”

Immediately, Jared came to attention.

“You tell him, Raisa.” Allie piped up. “He so does not
get it’s all in the perspective.”

“In that case, we’d better get you to the lab.” Slade
slid his arm between Jared’s chest and her back, neatly separating her from
Jared’s embrace. “Because sure as shooting, Caleb’s going to put his foot in
his mouth within the next few seconds.”

“What makes you say that?”

“His need to have the last word.”

That was from Jared. He walked beside her, nothing in
his expression or his energy implying happiness. She wanted so badly to soothe
him, but what could she say? She felt like she was being swept up in a tornado
of events. “I’ll be fine, Jared.”

“You’re scared.”

“Of course, I’m scared. As everyone keeps pointing
out, I have a bomb in my head.” Along with a couple more secrets she didn’t
dare reveal. “But, Jared, I don’t want you with me.”

He glared at her. “Tough.”

She clearly wasn’t going to get anywhere this way. She
turned to Slade. “I don’t want him there.”

He glanced at Jared, then Caleb, then back to her.
“You don’t ask for much.”

“Just asking for what I need.”

He studied her for a second. If he was questioning her
resolve, she only had one answer to give him. She meant it. He sighed and
motioned with his hand. Derek and the two other weres grabbed Jared from
behind. Relaxed, in the company of his family, he was easily taken off guard,
but still it took Caleb’s strength added to the weres to subdue Jared.

“Son of a bitch, Raisa.”

“This is one of those things I have to do my way.” It
was an explanation and apology in one.

Jared’s The hell you do followed her as she walked
away.

“SO what exactly are we doing?” Slade asked as soon as
they stepped into the sterile coolness of his lab.

She looked around the room. It would have done a James
Bond movie proud with all its beeping lights and impressive lineup of monitors,
computers, and other gizmos she didn’t recognize. She took a breath and rubbed
her hands up and down her arms. Terror and flight had taken its toll on her
strength. She wasn’t heavily depleted, but she was definitely diminished.

“Are you feeling all right?”

“Yes, why do you ask?”

“You’re rubbing your arms, which would suggest you’re
cold.” Except vampires didn’t get cold. Healthy ones at least. “Nervous habit.”

“Hmm.” That hazel gaze of his, so much like Jared’s,
ran over her. “How long have you been a vampire?”

She knew where he was going but didn’t see any way to
avoid it. “Two hundred seventy years.”

“Long time to be holding on to a habit.”

Smart men, she decided, once and for all, were
annoying. “It hasn’t been that long.”

He motioned her to an office chair over by a very
fancy-looking screen. “Oh?”

She sat in the chair, scooting back and resting her
feet on the pedestal bottom. “I’m probably the most sickly vampire in history.”

He grabbed another chair and wheeled it over. He spun
it around and straddled it, folding his hands across the top. “How so?”

He looked very relaxed. Too relaxed. “Don’t you want
to check out my implant?”

“Right now, I’m more curious about this sickliness.”

The screen beside her flashed in an exploding pattern,
the burst of light making her jump.

“It’s not relevant.”

“How do you know? The implant could be linked to your
chemistry.”

“It’s not.”

“You know this because . . . ?”

“Because Jared’s blood made me better, but the implant
hasn’t changed.”

He straightened. “Better how? What happened before?”

“Pretty much, taking blood has always been a miserable
experience for me. It kept me alive but made me violently sick. Almost like I
was allergic.”

“You don’t look sick now.”

“Apparently Jared’s blood doesn’t have that effect on
me.”

Slade’s eyes narrowed, his thick lashes shadowing the
thought processes going on behind his lowered lids. Something that made her
very uncomfortable. “What?”

“Nothing. Just thinking.”

“Care to think out loud?”

He shook his head. “It ruins my thought processes.”

She had her suspicions that wasn’t the truth, but she
didn’t know him well enough to argue it. “And what are your thought processes
telling you?”

“That between your difficulties in accepting blood and
your ability to manipulate energy, you’re going to be interesting to study.”

“Why do I suddenly feel like a speck under a
microscope?”

His chair creaked as he stood. His smile was as subtle
as his energy as it skated the edges of hers. “I have no idea.” He made a quick
circle with his finger. “Open up and say ‘Ah.’ ”

He wasn’t talking about her mouth. “If you fiddle with
the implant, it will send an alarm back to the Sanctuary.”

“It won’t self-detonate?”

“Not that they told me, but—”

“That doesn’t mean anything when dealing with the
Sanctuary,” he finished for her. He motioned with his hand. “I’ll be careful.”

She forced herself to relax and open her mind. His
first touch was light. She braced herself for the mind probe every man indulged
in, but Slade was very single-minded in his approach, focusing on the energy
humming from the device. Touching on the energy with which she countered the
homing signal.

“You’re blocking the tracking component.” He glanced
up, his eyes more blue than green. “Do they know?”

She shook her head. “They think it’s defective.”

His eyebrows flicked up and then down. “Nice work.”

He sounded sincere. “Thank you.”

It was strange to be talking with someone as they
probed her mind, but the purely analytical way Slade went about it made it less
offensive than it normally would be.

“Do me a favor while I’m doing this?”

“What?”

“Breathe in my scent and tell me your gut reaction.”

She did. He smelled clean and slightly metallic from
the things he worked with. Trace scents of dirt from the spatter on his coat
mixed in. Underneath it all was a pleasant masculine scent. Nothing to really
bother her. But the voice inside shrieked, Wrong.

“You smell fine.”

His eyebrows rose. She felt him testing the vibration
at the attachment point to her spinal column. “That was your gut reaction?”

She shrugged. “That’s all that’s important.”

He tilted her head to the side, his finger pressing
into her nape. “How about you let me be the judge of that?”

He pressed on a sensitive spot. “Ow.”

“Sorry. Now give. What was your gut reaction?”

She pulled away and closed off her energy, rubbing the
spot on her neck. “You smell wrong.”

“Interesting.”

What was interesting was he wasn’t surprised. “Why
aren’t you surprised?”

“Allie had the same problem when she got pregnant.”

“I’m not pregnant.”

He straddled the chair again, exuding that easy
Johnson charm she’d noticed so inherent in the brothers’ mannerisms. It came
from the inner confidence that they carried forward from their previous lives.
Unlike her, who carried forward a legacy of uncertainty.

“I know, which just makes it more interesting.”

“Why am I feeling like that speck under the microscope
again?”

He smiled. “I have no idea.”

“So, can you take it out?”

“Yup.”

She froze. “Then why is it still in there?”

“Because I want to talk about something before Jared
comes barging in here.”

“What makes you think he’s going to barge in?”

“Because no one can keep Jared from what he wants, and
he definitely wants you.”

“He doesn’t even trust me.”

“That’s a nit.”

“Not to me.”

“That’s just because you don’t understand the man.”

“What don’t I understand?”

He smiled. “That’s for me to know and you to find
out.”

“You are as much a pain in the rear as your brother.”

He pointed with a lazy movement of his hand. “That’d
have a whole lot more impact if you put a cuss or two in there.”

She sighed. “It never sounds right when I try it.”

“Probably doesn’t sound any more right than Jared
marrying up with a woman he doesn’t trust.”

She wasn’t going there. She wasn’t letting him build
false hopes in her. She’d had too many in the past, and it’d never worked out.
“What did you want to talk about?”

“Why don’t you want me to remove the implant?”

“How did you know?”

“There were things I should have been seeing that I
wasn’t.”

Maybe when she was in the libraries, she should have
spent more time in the science section. “Have I mentioned how much I hate smart
men?”

“Not out loud.”

She rolled her eyes. “I thought you weren’t paying
attention.”

“There’s always bleed over.”

“So Jared says.”

“I’m sure it’s not the same.”

“It better the hell not be.”

Raisa spun around. Jared. He stood just inside the
door, moonlight casting him in a silhouette of power. He moved, coming forward
with long strides. As he stepped into the light, the bruises on his face and
the cut over his left eye rendered her first question of how he got here
irrelevant. He’d fought his way to her side. Because he was worried about her.
Was still worried about her. And she didn’t deserve it.

“Deserve it or not, he’s your problem,” Slade said
dryly.