Silence that Sizzles (7 page)

“Only alphas can do that, and they can only do that to other shifters. We are neither of those things. I only want you to think about this situation logically. You can’t go home.”

“I need proof if I want to blow the lid on what they’re doing. I might be able to get back into my lab at home.”

“You need to let that go. That’s a horrible idea. We will figure out the best way to keep you safe and if there is anything else we can do to find your proof. Until then, the plan is the same. You’re going to stay with me.”

In any other circumstances, Kyle’s insistence on sticking to the original plan would’ve thrilled Kelly, especially after what happened between them the night before. But right now, the only thing she could think about was the fact that everything in the safe was gone. In addition to the files, she had also stored in the safe all of her research and projects notes for the work she had been doing for the last ten years. It was all gone.

She couldn’t think about Kyle. She couldn’t think about what it meant to have slept with Kyle. Her career was on the line. Without her career, she was nothing. The proof was meant to vindicate her. The truth was meant to set her free. Now, all of that was gone.

“I can’t let it go,” her words were said with a quiet finality. “They didn’t just take the proof of what they had been doing all this time, Kyle. They took all of my research. All of my work. Everything that I’ve been doing for patients like you.” Kelly knew that she’d said the wrong thing when his face turned to stone.

“So that’s what I am to you? A patient?”

Kelly felt a chill at his words. She had never abused the relationship between them. She had never tried to treat him like a number instead of a man. Her loose tongue had potentially destroyed everything that had grown between them in the past twelve hours.

“That’s not what I meant,” she tried to say. She put her arm out to touch him, but Kyle shook her off.

Kyle took his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number. He turned away from her as he put it to his ear. “I need to meet. Now. It’s important.” There was a short pause. Kelly thought that she could hear echoes of profanity from whoever was on the other end of the line, but she couldn’t be sure. “I don’t care,” Kyle barked. “I said now.”

He ended the call abruptly and stuck the phone back into his pocket. He looked around the room. “Get what you need. We’re getting out of here. I’ll take care of the hotel.” He stormed out of the room and down the hall.

Kelly was left looking at the remnants of her things and wondering how she was going to fix the situation. She knew better than anyone how testy the soldiers had been thinking that they might be part of some kind of shifter experimentation live trial. She had been so careful to always use the right words around them. She wanted them to remain dignified in spite of what she knew she and the other doctors were doing to them. It was almost impossible, but she had tried her best.

She gathered up her suitcase and started to put her clothes inside. After all of Kyle’s bluster about not leaving her alone, he had taken a beat rather quickly. She wondered again if perhaps she had been mistaken thinking that she could trust him to help her. If she was in danger, she didn’t want to put him in the middle of it either.

Kelly made a decision. She would go home. She would forget about what she had tried to do to Oak Tree. Kyle had been right; she had to let it go before anyone got hurt. She would start over.

Kelly walked out of the room and looked at the emptiness of the hallway. She saw the elevator in front of her. Kyle would be waiting for her in the lobby. She couldn’t face him. She saw the door to the staircase off to her left, and she moved through it. If she was lucky, Kyle would be looking out the front of the hotel. She’d be able to slip away out the back, and he could forget that she had ever selfishly inserted herself into his life.

Kyle made his way to the lobby and had a private word with the manager of the hotel. It hadn’t taken much more than the promise of money to take care of the damages to Kelly’s room and the eternal appreciation of the Urban Dwellers organization to get the man to promise to keep it all quiet. The last thing that Kyle needed was drawing any further attention to a matter that could be viewed as a conflict between shifters and humans in Copper City. At the end of the day, that was the biggest reason that Eric had been pressing for as much positive PR as they could muster. It helped cast the Urban Dwellers on the side of wanting the best for the well-being of all the city’s residents. Although no one was saying it yet publicly, violence had been escalating in the city between the two species for the better part of a year.

If Kyle had to trace it back, it had all started with rise of Lukas Kasper. The Greyelf Grizzlies’ alpha was out to try and unite all shifters under a common flag and a common cause. But in the process he had also opened up old wounds between the shifter clans and between shifters and humans. Lukas said that the conflicts were creating a forum for positive dialogue, but Kyle and the rest of the Urban Dwellers weren’t so sure. Now there was a tenuous link between Lukas and the Urban Dwellers organization in the form of Eric’s stepsister, Thea. She had recently gotten married to Lukas’s second-in-command, Sheriff Billy Miller. That meant that there was some dialogue now between the Urban Dwellers and the Greyelf Grizzlies whether they wanted it or not. The situation had made everyone feel awkward and uncomfortable.

The last thing they needed was for this latest incident to get out to Lukas. He would start questioning again the fact that the Urban Dwellers were keeping him out of Copper City. No matter what he said, Lukas was a divisive type of leader. You were either with him, or you were against him. Although Kyle’s family had originally come from the Greyelf Grizzlies clan, the Frost family had no formal ties to it anymore. In fact, that was the biggest reason that Eric, Tony, and Kyle had decided to create the Urban Dwellers to begin with. There were no clan allegiances in Copper City; there was free will again. That was the biggest benefit that they offered the shifters who settled in Copper City.

He didn’t know what he was going to do about Kelly. He did think that perhaps he had been rash in the way that he had spoken to her. Her words had been a reminder that their relationship had once been sterile and awkward, and that made him angry. Still, he knew that he was going to have to get over that. Part of Kelly’s job was working in doctor-patient situations. He didn’t expect that she was going to give up her research or change that part of herself for him. But he did expect that she was going to be respectful of what their relationship was now, and how that would affect the types of research she chose to pursue. It was important to him to know that she would never consider using shifters in any type of live drug trials again.

As he waited for Kelly to return to the lobby, he looked through his email on his phone. Sophie had sent several requests for supplies and other things for the club that he needed to approve. It was a reminder that no matter what he tried to do, he did have ties and responsibilities that he had to take care of. He wasn’t anxious to get back to the club, but he had two big events to worry about. Tonight was the veteran’s benefit gala and tomorrow night was a Wednesday. It was actually the third Wednesday of the month, which meant it was a fight night.

Although shifter fights were technically illegal in the country, Urban Dwellers ran a nationwide shifter circuit fight once a month. It was their way of trying to let the shifters in the city blow off some steam. He knew as well as anyone that living in the city meant that it often felt as if he was confined in a cell made up of skyscrapers and the consistent bustle and noise of hundreds of people around him.

Lately, though, with the recent escalation of violence between the two species, he wasn’t so sure they should be promoting the fights. Eric and Tony remained steadfast in the fact that the fights were a major source of revenue that shouldn’t be ignored, especially with the revitalization plans that were in the works. Kyle was uncomfortable with the whole thing, despite the fact that he used to be a fighter himself. It had been a long time ago and a part of his life that he would like to forget.

He looked at his watch with a frown. It had been more than fifteen minutes since he left Kelly in her room. He started to worry. He pressed the button to call the elevator and made his way up to the top floor. He walked out of the elevator and saw that the door to the room was closed. He walked up to it and rapped on it. He waited a moment, but there was no answer. That wasn’t a good sign.

He caught a whiff of something in the air, and he raised his nose to follow it. It was definitely Kelly’s scent, and it was going towards the staircase. Kyle cursed. He had been too harsh with her. Now, she might have put herself in even more danger by going off on her own. He quickly pushed the door into the stairwell and sniffed again. She had definitely come this way recently. He had to follow her and hopefully catch up to her before she got too far out of his reach.

For the briefest of moments, Kyle considered phasing into his bear. It would make him quicker, and perhaps he could catch up with her faster. But in the back of his mind, he realized that was the worst idea possible. What would a guest think if they accidentally stepped into the stairwell and saw a giant bear bearing down on them? He dismissed the idea. He had to catch her on his own. He flung a quick glance over the side of the railing to see all the way down to the bottom floor. His ears caught the sound of the closing of a door below him. She had exited the stairwell, but the good news was that he wasn’t that far behind her. He skimmed down the steps as quickly as he could and then when he was a flight off the bottom, he vaulted over the railing and landed on all fours on the hard concrete floor. If he had been human, he would have probably broken an arm, but Kyle wasn’t human. He was going to use that to his every advantage.

He slammed out of the emergency exit door and found himself in a shadowed alley. He caught a glimpse of movement at the far end that opened to the street. He took off in that direction. It was just as he was coming around the corner that the face that he had seen on the dance floor the night before appeared before him in the sea of people across the street. He came to a halt. He stared at the face, and it stared back at him. He couldn’t move. It wasn’t possible.

Kyle grabbed his head willing the face to go away. He was trapped in a place between the past and the present. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. He started to feel pain throbbing in his head as his mind tried to make sense of what was happening. The stabbing pain told him he was pushing himself and his mind beyond the acceptable boundaries. He fell to his knees. Then he felt a hand on his arm, and he snapped at it without even knowing who it belonged to.

“Kyle?” His name was spoken hesitantly. He wasn’t going to have to go find her after all. It was surely his distress that had stopped her flight. He couldn’t look at her. He was afraid that if he opened his eyes, he was going to see that face again. Not Kelly’s sweet face, but the face that haunted his dreams.

“Kyle, open your eyes. I need you to look at me.” Her voice was like a soothing balm. He’d been so afraid that he was going to lose her, that he had opened himself up to something far more terrible. He wasn’t sure what game this entity in his mind was playing with him. If it was to make him think he was crazy, it was more than successful. Half the time, he already thought he was.

His mouth watered for a massive shot of scotch, but that wouldn’t help him. He knew where he needed to go. He slowly opened his eyes. He was relieved to see Kelly’s face peering down at him. He could see the concern written all over her face.

“Hallucination?”

He figured if he was going to have any solace in the idea of starting a relationship with Kelly, it was that she already knew almost all the dark parts of him. Hallucinations, nightmares, the whole gamut of crazy. These were all things he had been dealing with ever since he left prep school. It had been part of the Army’s psychological evaluation of his mental status. Sometimes, Kyle was amazed that they had even let him in at all. But then on the other hand, he had to wonder if it was because of his profile that they had. He nodded.

“How about we get out of here?” she said softly.

Kyle was starting to feel the edges of reality solidify around him once again. He had been in the hotel with Kelly. She had tried to get away from him. He had an appointment with Eric. It was all coming back to him.

“Why did you come back?” His question demanded an answer. He was pissed. If she hadn’t taken off, maybe this hadn’t this episodic break with reality wouldn’t have happened.

“I hailed a taxi and was getting in when I saw you come out of the alley. I saw…your distress. It was obvious you needed help. I couldn’t leave you like that,” Kelly said.

“But you could leave me just hanging in the lobby without knowing that you had decided to take off?”

“Look, I’m sorry that I came to you. I thought you might be able to help me, but I think you’re right. I need to leave this alone before anyone gets hurt. I am sorry that I dragged you into my mess.”

“No, I was the one who was wrong,” Kyle said. He let her help him to his feet. “You could try to leave it alone, but Oak Tree wouldn’t let you go. You have to fight. It might help you sleep better at night too.” Kyle knew that better than anyone. Once you got your hands dirty, it was incredibly difficult to wash the blood off.

Blood. The edges of his reality started to waver again. He couldn’t think about his hands being covered in blood. Those memories wouldn’t help him now. There are so many things that he wasn’t sure about. One empty night. One gaping hole in his memory. It haunted him and taunted him.

Kelly took his hand gently and guided him to the taxi that was waiting at the curb. She carefully got him inside. He was so much bigger than she was, and yet she maneuvered him around like he was a child. He didn’t like feeling vulnerable. He didn’t like the feeling at all. But there were so many things that suddenly felt uncertain. His tight, orderly world was in chaos. Perhaps that’s what the vision meant. Perhaps it was a warning.

Kelly started to give the driver the address for his place, but Kyle stopped her. Instead, he gave the driver a different address. At Kelly’s questioning look, he told her. “We have an appointment with Eric, and I need to make a pit stop before that.”

Kelly didn’t say anything else, and he was grateful. He let his head fall back against the headrest and closed his eyes. He used the calming breathing technique that one of his various therapists had taught him. He wasn’t sure if it really worked, but at least it was something.

When he felt the taxi slow to a stop, he opened his eyes. “Stay here, I’ll be right back,” he told Kelly as he got out of the cab. He looked up at the small, decrepit looking building in front of him. No one looking at it would guess that inside, it housed a state-of-the-art care facility.

Kyle ambled to the door and knocked on it. Hard. The small opening halfway up the door slid open.

“State your business,” said the gruff voice.

“It’s Kyle Frost,” he said with a growl.

The door opened immediately, and he found himself toe to toe with the ugliest man he’d ever seen in his life. “You don’t have an appointment,” Dr. Clarkson said with a sniff. The diminutive doctor barely came up to Kyle’s chin, but he spoke with an annoying confidence that came from an overinflated ego.

“I don’t need one,” Kyle said as he pushed his way inside. Dr. Clarkson barely managed to get out of his way before he stepped on him. “I need a refill.”

“I just refilled that prescription last week,” Dr. Clarkson said as he started to close the door. He gave a small yelp of surprise when another hand forced the door open.

“A prescription of what?” Kelly stood in the doorway with a worried look on her face. She crossed her arms over her chest.

“That’s between myself and my patient,” Dr. Clarkson said, clearly annoyed by the interruption.

“He’s my patient as well. I’m Dr. Kelly Malone,” Kelly said as she raised her chin.

“I wasn’t aware you’ve seen anyone for a second opinion.” Dr. Clarkson looked outraged.

Kyle sighed. “I haven’t. I saw Dr. Malone while I was in the service. She is no longer operating in a medical capacity for me.”

It was obvious that Kelly wasn’t going to go anywhere, so he turned away and walked over to the medicine cabinet next to Dr. Clarkson’s desk. He pointed at it. “You can either give it to me, or I’ll take it. It’s up to you.”

Dr. Clarkson moved across the room and flung himself in front of the cabinet. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would,” Kyle said with a hard smirk. “Now, give it to me.”

“Kyle.” Kelly’s voice held a note of warning.

“Not now,” he said with a low snarl. He needed the throbbing in his head to go away. Soon, if he didn’t do something to intervene, he would be fully incapacitated for who knew how long. This was the only way to keep functioning.

Dr. Clarkson opened the cabinet and dug inside. He pulled a small baggie out that held six yellow pills in it. “Need I remind you of the consequences of overmedicating again, Mr. Frost?”

“You certainly do not,” Kyle said as he grabbed the baggie out of Dr. Clarkson’s hand. “Put it on my tab.” Then he moved out of the room and out the door before the doctor could say anything else.