Jared (42 page)

“It’ll be okay, Jared.”

“I know.” It was a lie. He didn’t know a damn thing,
and after he talked to Slade today this playing Russian roulette with her life
was going to end. The Sanctuary wasn’t being predictable and that changed
everything. He set Raisa down outside the stall. The way her hands lingered on
his chest soothed the restlessness prowling inside.

“There’s no time for that,” he teased, putting the
growl in his voice that always brought that little flicker of interest to her
lids and the smile to her lips.

Her first reaction was predictable. A flush crept up
her torso, but her second was the more intriguing. Those lids came down over
those gorgeous eyes of hers in a pure invite, and her finger trailed past the
low-slung waistband of his jeans. “There’s a nice warm bed in the other room.”

He chuckled, desire rising in him at the temptation of
the invite. “There’s a hot shower right here.”

With a gentle push, he sent her into the hot spray.
Water poured over her head and down the slope of her breasts in tiny
waterfalls, sluicing down from the peaks to moisten the tawny tangle of curls
between her legs. He shut the door on the temptation she presented.

Her “Coward” came to him easily over the sound of the
water.

“I just know when I’m outgunned,” he countered,
admiring the blur of her silhouette through the glass. She pushed her hair off
her face, her back arching, presenting the curve of her breasts to his starving
eyes as she turned into the spray. Damn, he craved her like a drug, and while
that should scare him witless, it didn’t. Needing her, wanting her, it was all
good.

“I’ll wait for you in the kitchen.”

“Are you making coffee?”

“Why, you want some?”

The subtle scent of gardenia came to him. Exotic, like
her. He could imagine how the scent would linger on her skin later when he
collected on the promises she was making him now.

“I thought I might try some now that I’m stronger.”

“You ever have it before?”

“No.”

“In that case you might want to hold off until we get
to the main house. Allie has a lighter hand with the beans.”

A pause and then, “Can I have my cinnamon roll, too?”

Damn he’d forgotten about that. First he had to watch
her shower and not touch, and now he was going to have to watch her eat and get
no taste. “I don’t see why not.”

Her chuckle floated out to him on the mist of gardenia
and heat.

If you scrub my back, I’ll share with you.

He turned and unbuttoned the front of his shirt. A man
could only resist so much temptation. “Well, if you put it that way.”

FROM the frown on Slade’s face, he wasn’t pleased with
the delay in their getting there.

“What was the holdup?” he asked impatiently, looking
up from the computer screen he was sitting in front of.

“We overslept,” Jared answered evenly. The blush that
rose up from the collar of Raisa’s shirt and flooded her face with a deep rose
was a dead giveaway to his lie.

Slade arched a brow at them. “Uh-huh. Was there any
contact from the Sanctuary?”

Jared pressed his hand into the middle of Raisa’s
back, moving her farther into the room. “No.”

“Good.”

“Good?” Raisa echoed. “I don’t think it’s good.”

Slade rolled his chair away from the computer screen
to the other side of the corridor to pick up a bulky rectangular device. “Well,
maybe not from a peace-of-mind standpoint, but considering what we’re dealing
with and all the ramifications to your—” He paused and then obviously
rephrased. “Health. I wanted to have this ready before the next signal came
in.” He motioned them forward as he hit a few buttons on the keyboard.

There was no enthusiasm in Raisa’s steps. “He’s not
going to hurt you, baby.”

“Logically, I know that,” she whispered back.

“But?”

“I have an aversion to being experimented on, and your
brother does have that certain gleam in his eye.”

“The one that says he can’t wait to test out his new
toy?”

“Yes.”

Slade looked up and smiled as they stopped in front of
him. He held up the device, which had a couple of wicked-looking metal points
underneath. “Want me to test it on Jared first?”

Jared felt Raisa’s start as she looked at those metal
points, and then, incredibly, she stepped in front of him. “No. That’s all
right.”

Jared put her firmly behind him. “Sure, why not.”

Slade watched the byplay with open amusement. “You two
sure are well matched in the suspicion department. This”—he pointed to the
device—“is a rather crude mock-up of an energy blocker. If it works, I’ll
create a much sleeker design.” He flipped a switch on the side. Jared didn’t
feel the pulse of power he expected. Slade intercepted his look.

“Pretty slick, huh? I have an energy neutralizer
attached to it, which is why I was worried about it working. I created it to
record incoming energy while negating outgoing, but the premise is pure
speculation.” Slade held the device out. “Focus some energy on me.”

Jared sent him a beam. Raisa stepped forward and slid
her fingers through his. Slade looked at the needle and then checked the
computer screen. He frowned.

“Raisa, step back. No, Jared. You keep focusing.”

Slade’s frown deepened. He hit a few buttons on the
keyboard. “Stop focusing, Jared. Come here, Raisa.”

After one anxious glance, Raisa went, the set of her
shoulders reminding Jared of a woman facing her executioner.

Slade put the device in his lap. “Touch me.”

Jared took a step forward, the growl welling from
within.

That got him an exasperated look from his brother. “On
my hand is fine.”

As soon as Raisa’s hand touched his, Slade started
typing with the other, his fingers flying on the keyboard, his frown deepening
with every second. The flurry of activity ended on a “Hot damn.”

Slade sat back in his chair and stared at the screen.
“Well, this is going to complicate things.”

“What?” Raisa turned to Jared, who merely shrugged.
Slade would get to explanations when he had all the elements sorted out in his
own mind. Raisa took a step back. Jared wrapped his arm around her and dropped
a kiss on the top of her head as she leaned back against him. She was
definitely getting more comfortable with him. She reached up and grabbed hold
of his forearm.

She no sooner said, “I don’t like the look on his
face,” than Slade barked, “Stay just like that.”

Neither of them moved. He punched out a command on the
keyboard and then approached them with the energy meter in hand. He ran it over
them and then, motioning them apart, did it again. He then went back to the
computer, not saying a word.

“Are you feeling as much like a rather unattractive
bug caught under the microscope, as I am?” Raisa asked.

“Speak for yourself. I’m feeling like a rather
handsome bug this morning.” He tugged her back into his side. “Thanks to a
certain little vamp who had her way with me in the shower.”

She blushed and slapped his shoulder, but he noticed
she didn’t pull away.

“Come over here and look at this,” Slade called.

For all her nervous talk, Raisa had him by the hand
and was at Slade’s side faster than he could say “spit.” The woman was as
curious as a cat.

Slade waved to the screen where three graphs resided
with varying heights of red lines.

Even though he had no idea what he was looking at,
Jared nodded.

Raisa looked at the screen and then at him. “There’s
no way you know what in earth you’re looking at.”

“There’s not?”

She put her hands on her hips and stared harder. She
tossed her head and glanced at him over her shoulder. “No.”

“Prove it.”

That got a snort from her and a laugh from Slade. “She
probably can’t, but I can.”

“I’m your brother. Your loyalty should be to me.”

Slade leaned back in his chair. “But she’s a heck of a
lot prettier.”

Raisa flashed Slade her sweetest smile. Slade’s gaze
lingered on her mouth. Even though he knew it wasn’t personal and his brother’s
attention was just a man’s appreciation for a pretty woman, jealousy whipped
though Jared.

Slade, damn his hide, just grinned at him before
angling the flat screen toward them. He pointed to the graph on the left. “This
is Jared’s natural energy pattern. Note all the spikes. Usually a vampires
pattern is a steady line at some unique frequency, but Jared has a natural
ability to throw energy that he doesn’t always control, nor does it always stay
in his frequency zone.”

The look Raisa cut him was knowing. “Rebel.”

“Hey, I’m the straitlaced one of the brothers.”

“Uh-huh.” The amount of skepticism Raisa managed to
pack into those two syllables did his ego proud.

“Actually,” Slade added, “he is.”

“That doesn’t say much for you all.”

“I think it says a lot,” Jared countered. “However,
now that you’re one of us, you’ll have to ‘up your freak factor’ as Allie says,
to keep up.”

Slade pointed to the graph with the lines etched in
red and blue. “I don’t think she needs to up anything.”

Jared frowned, trying to make sense of what he was
seeing. “That Raisa’s chart?”

“Yup.”

“How come I have all those blue spikes mixed in with
my red?”

“Because, like Jared, you can throw energy, but it’s
not your real strength.”

Raisa stepped back into Jared. He dropped his arms
over her torso. She brought her hands up and rubbed her fingers on his
forearms. He didn’t think she realized she was doing it. “What is?”

Though her voice was even, he could feel her energy
tugging at his. He covered her hand with his. “Not all news is bad news,
sunbeam.”

Slade looked startled at the very thought, which
wasn’t a surprise. The man lived for discovery. “Who said anything about bad
news?”

“Not having to up my freak factor doesn’t sound good.”

He shook his head. “You, my dear sister-in-law, are a
conductor.”

Jared waited for Raisa to ask why, for an explanation.
She didn’t. “You can tell that from that little device?”

“Yup.” Slade cocked his head to the side and motioned
to Raisa. “But you knew that didn’t you?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“Because while I was up last night working on your
problem, I couldn’t help but wonder how you’d survived all these years.”

“I don’t see the correlation.”

Neither did Jared. “What’s your point?”

“My point is, whenever you get pissed, Jared, you tend
to lose control of that energy of yours and it tweaks those around you like an
electric shock. And you were damn pissed yesterday, yet Raisa, who was closest
to you, didn’t even twitch.”

He hadn’t realized he was shocking people. Literally.
He instinctively slid his hand from beneath Raisa’s. She dug her nails in. He
had a choice—get scratched or stay put. He opted for the latter. “Maybe she
just understands me.”

“If I were a romantic, I’d believe that,” Slade
continued. Then he pointed to the third graph. “But when you look here, you can
see what happens to the spike in your energy when she’s near you, let alone
touching you.”

The graph for both their energies was an even line
with the spikes leveled.

“It also explains why Raisa’s always hungry. She
expends a lot of energy balancing you.” He shrugged. “Actually, you balance
each other.”

“Seems to me that’s just one more sign that, as a couple,
we were meant to be,” Jared offered.

Raisa shot him a startled glance. Her surprise flicked
him on the raw. What in hell did she think he’d been telling her for the last
twenty-four hours except how he felt about her?

Slade paused, considered the matter, and then
shrugged. “That’s one way to look at it.”

As far as Jared was concerned, it was the only way to
look at it, but he could tell from the building tension in Rai and the
intent-ness with which Slade was studying her that there was something he was
missing. “What other way would there be?”

“That you’ve got your arms around the most potentially
deadly vampire ever created, seeing as her ability to drain energy is about
limitless.”

“FOR God’s sake, up until a week ago, the woman
couldn’t even levitate.”

“Which might have saved quite a few Sanctuary lives,
I’m thinking.”

“No.” Raisa whispered, not wanting to go through this
again. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“No one said you wanted to, just that you could.”

That was semantics. Once people knew a body could suck
their energy out, and for all intents and purposes, make them implode at will,
it colored the way they looked at a person. “I wouldn’t.”