A Caress of Wings (9 page)

Chapter 11

“What are you going to do with him, Siobhán?” Malachai barked, pacing the length of the hallway outside of her room in the Ontario laboratory. “How the hell did this happen?”

She ran both hands through her hair, her nerves frayed by the last twenty hours of watching the Change sweep through Trevor’s body, stealing his mortality and replacing it with the needs of a vampire.

“I should’ve known,” she said grimly. “I felt the damage to his soul when I found him. He must’ve been Changing even then. They must have accidently taken too much blood from him. I knew they had to be injecting him with small doses of vampiric blood to keep him alive and disease-free in those conditions, but they wouldn’t have Changed him on purpose. It was his mortal blood they wanted.”

“Why’s it taken so long to kick in?”

“My blood. I transfused him with my blood to heal his injuries. It kept the Change at bay.” She clenched her hair in her fists. “Damn it. After all he’s been through.”

“You didn’t answer my question about what you’re going to do with him.”

Her hands fell to her sides and she inhaled a deep breath. Lifting her chin, she met his gaze directly. “I’m going to nurse him through the Change. Then I’ll put him to work around here. He has the experience and the skill, and he’ll put the other vamps at ease. I can use him.”

He stopped pacing. “And what about you?”

“What about me? I have feelings, Malachai,” she confessed without shame. “Whether he’s here or not, I still have those feelings, and I’ve come to accept that whatever consequences I may face are worth it to be with him. And don’t worry about telling Damien or Adrian. I’ll be telling them myself, face-to-face, as soon as I possibly can.”

He had the grace to look chagrined. “What can I do to help?”

“Help Aurelia as much as you can. I’ve had to leave the infirmary to her while I deal with Trevor. Once he’s a fledgling, I can begin the experiments on the captures. I’m sure his presence will help ease the way for that.”

“Okay.” He hesitated a moment, then said, “Siobhán . . .”

She offered him a harried smile. “Trevor believes everything happens for a reason. I think he may be right. Things will work out the way they’re supposed to.” She caught his hand and squeezed it. “Adrian will be coming with the angel blood I asked for. I’m not sure when, but it’ll be soon. You know how quickly he acts.”

“Yes.”

“Give me a heads-up when he arrives, will you?”

He squeezed back. “Of course.”

*  *  *

Trevor woke with a start, jerking upright with a startled gasp. Something hard lodged in his throat and he coughed, sending a gleaming projectile from his mouth to land on the blankets covering his knees. He stared at it even as he felt something else on his tongue.

Spitting it out in his hand, he realized it was one of his canine teeth, as was the one he’d coughed up. He explored the interior of his mouth with his tongue and cursed as a razor-sharp point of a fang cut him and drew blood.

He was drenched in sweat and shivering, his body aching, his mind spinning as memory returned to him. He was back in Siobhán’s room at the Ontario laboratory, once again sleeping on her couch, but she was nowhere to be seen. Extracting the IV line from the back of his hand, he prepared to go find her.

“Siobhán!” he roared, his throat burning with the effort of volume. His mouth felt and tasted like he’d swallowed an ashtray.

The door flew open and she rushed in, looking beautiful and sexy and worried.

“You’re awake.” Hurrying over to him, she placed her cool wrist against his forehead. “You’re burning up. Here.”

He accepted the insulated cup she had in her hand and he drank deeply of the ambrosia inside. It was cool and tart. Delicious.

He didn’t stop until he finished it all, his brain inundated with images of Siobhán lying beneath him, arching into him and begging for more. Of all his memories, it was the ones of her in his hotel that stood out most vividly.

“You wiped me and got rid of me!” he accused, remembering the days he’d spent at Gadara Enterprises.

She sat on the edge of the coffee table. “Then I made you remember.” Tapping a fingertip to her temple, she explained, “I wiped you, but everything I erased was stored in here. I gave you back what you need to understand what’s happened to you.”

Trevor sat for a moment, breathing hard, feeling whatever it was he’d drunk spreading through his body like a cooling balm. He knew
what
he was, what he’d become. And yet that paled in significance compared to losing Siobhán. Somehow, he had to make her keep him. Imagining his short mortal life span without her had been torture; an eternity was a fate worse than what he’d suffered in the pit.

He paused, abruptly realizing that she’d given his memories back and yet he couldn’t remember the details of what had been done to him, only how he felt about it—helpless, agonized, terrified, so unbearably lonely.

“Why are you so afraid of what we feel for each other?” he asked quietly.

She knotted her fingers in her lap. “I didn’t tell you everything about the Watchers. They fell for many reasons, but mostly because they mated with mortals. They took them as wives and husbands, and had children with them. They were supposed to be impartial observers; instead they totally changed the face of the world. They lost their wings and their souls for love.”

He stared at her for a long moment, his chest aching. “I see. That’s what you were talking about when you said your job wouldn’t let us be together. You weren’t making that up.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Her blue eyes stared into his. “I have to apologize to you, Trevor. I believed that what you felt for me was based on gratitude and fear. It felt wrong to accept your feelings if they were based on confusion.”

“And now that you know they’re real?” He ran a hand through his hair. “What does it mean now that you know I’d feel this way about you no matter what? Can we be together?”

“If you’ll still have me after everything that’s happened.”

He swung his legs off the sofa, feeling better by the minute. He was afraid to ask what it was she’d given him to drink, afraid he already knew. “What will happen to you if we’re together?”

“I don’t know.” Her gaze was clear and without guile or fear. “We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, Adrian—the captain of all the Sentinels—has taken a vampire for his mate. I won’t say that gives me permission to do the same because it doesn’t, but I’ve learned a lot about what you’ll need over the weeks and months ahead from what Adrian has had to do for Lindsay.”

Trevor caught her hands in his. “Like what?”

“I’ll explain everything.” She smiled and his heart stopped for a moment, then started racing again. Unless he’d lost all ability to read women, she had an open sexual invitation in that curving of her lips.

His blood began to heat, his body stirring with desire. Despite everything that had happened, everything that could go wrong and had gone wrong already, and everything they had yet to resolve, he wanted to finish what they’d started in the hotel.

“For now,” she went on, “let me show you to your room. You’ll find your luggage in there.”

“Siobhán.” He stroked his thumbs over her inner wrists, feeling her pulse quicken. She wanted him, too. She was willing to risk everything for him.

Maybe the right thing for him to do would be to walk away so she didn’t endanger herself for him, but he refused to accept that what they felt for each other was wrong. It was worth fighting for.
They
were worth it.

Trevor pushed to his feet, sucking in a breath when the room swayed.
He was a vampire.
That fact finally struck him like a blow, tensing his stomach and sending a vicious pain piercing through his brain.

He could deal with what he was, if he had her and she could bear it, but she was putting him in another room. Away from her. He’d been willing to live with abstinence when he thought sex wasn’t her thing, but after their time in the hotel . . .

He
had
to have her, but damned if he knew the best way to bring that up.

“Come on.” She linked arms with his and led him to the door. “Lean on me, if you have to.”

Trevor knew she was strong enough for him to lean on in every way a man could lean on his woman. He knew she would take care of him through this trial as she had the ones previously. He could depend on her, share with her, trust her. She was a friend and a companion and soon to be his lover. She was everything to him, and it didn’t matter that it had happened fast. The only thing that mattered was that he’d found her.

She led him out to the hallway and to the right, opening the next door over.

Unlike her room, this was an actual bedroom, with a king-size bed, a couple nightstands, and an entertainment center armoire. His carry-on was by the closet, and his duffel bag sat on a loveseat. The pictures of his sister’s family had been framed and scattered around the room, and his personal items were set out on a dresser. The room’s colors were a mixture of rich blues and coppers, the palette both soothing and attractive.

“You did this?” he asked, touched.

She nodded, looking up at him with hopeful eyes. “Do you like it?”

“It’s awesome, Siobhán. Thank you.” He turned to face her. “So you’re keeping me around?”

“Yes. Unless that’s not what you want.”

“Of course that’s what I want. I want to be with you.” Pressing his lips to her forehead, he murmured, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Trevor pulled back and studied her face, his mind filled with an endless number of questions. “Let me grab a shower. Then we’ll talk. Will you be where I can find you?”

Her mouth curved. “Yes.”

*  *  *

As he stepped beneath the spray of the shower, Trevor closed his eyes and groaned as the stickiness of sweat washed away. He ran soapy hands over his body, cataloging every inch of flesh to see if he could notice any differences.

Aside from the loss of his canine teeth and the paleness of his skin, everything seemed to be where it should be. Certainly everything seemed to be in working order, since his dick was hard enough to drive nails. There was no reason for him to be sporting such a major hard-on. Yes, he wanted Siobhán with a vengeance, but she should actually be in the same room with him before he got this turned on.

Which led him back around to wanting her to share his bedroom. Maybe she was holding back because of the other Sentinels, but if that was the case, he wanted to know that . . . so he could pull everyone aside and tell them to deal with it.

He and Siobhán were capable of making rational decisions, they knew there might be consequences, and they were taking the risk anyway. As far as he knew, they weren’t hurting anyone else in the process. Unless Siobhán told him otherwise, he didn’t see any reason to spare the others at the expense of their love. If he’d learned anything over the last year or so of his life, it was that one should never take anything for granted—especially the people you cared about.

By the time he’d shaved and brushed his teeth, he was feeling weak and achy, as if he was recovering from a long bout of the flu. Slinging a towel around his waist, Trevor reentered the bedroom and nearly tripped over his own feet.

Siobhán was in his bed.

He stared at her, frightened by the force of his hunger. It surged inside him with such violence it was only his affection for her that held him back from pouncing on her and fucking her until neither of them could move.

His fists clenched at his sides. “What are you doing?”

Her gaze dropped to where she was fidgeting with the hem of the sheet. “You need to feed. Over the next several months, you’ll need to feed every few hours until your body has completely Changed. Right now, you’re a fledgling. You’re very vulnerable in this state and you’ll require a lot of care.”

“Okay.” His chest heaved with the effort of restraining himself. His erection was tenting his towel and throbbing painfully. In his mouth, blood pooled as his newly emerging fangs sank into his bottom lip. He could hear the beat of her heart and the rapidness of her breathing; he could smell the lush sweetness of her skin and the softer notes of her desire. His senses were so sharp now that she barraged him from all sides. “That doesn’t explain why you’re in bed.”

“Feeding is very . . . erotic for vampires,” she said shyly. “You’ll want sex while you drink from me.”

“Every few hours?” he growled, gripping his cock in his fist through the towel, trying to ease the ache that was driving him half mad.

Siobhán nodded.

He swallowed hard. “You’re going to give me blood and sex
every few hours?
”

“You’ll need it.”

“Is that what you want?”

She licked her lips. “Yes. I want more of what we had in the hotel.”

“More.” His eyes closed against the sight of her tucked in his bed, unable to bear the stimuli. “I want that, too. Desperately. But—” He inhaled sharply. “Are you a virgin, Siobhán?”

There was an extended pause. “I’ve never had sex before, if that’s what you mean.”