Black And Blue (Quentin Black Mystery #5) (41 page)

Dr. Nguyen looked over at that, tapping her pen against her lips. Looking down at Black, she studied his features for a few seconds, as if seeing him for the first time.

“You might be onto something, Gina,” she said after a pause. “I admit, it hadn’t occurred to me until you said it, but vampires have been documented to routinely become sexually aroused while they feed. Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps he’s an object worth fighting over to them because they find him attractive. Or perhaps they associate that attractiveness and arousal with a healthy food source?”

Gina glanced at Black, smiling. “Can’t say I blame them,” she said, giving him another shy smile. “He’s gorgeous.”

Black flipped her off with one of the hands cuffed to the side of the padded table.
 

When she saw his upraised middle finger, she winced, almost like he’d struck her. Then she frowned, looking petulant.

“I meant it as a compliment,” she said, her voice carrying a hurt tone.

“You’re letting those fucking things
eat
me,” Black growled back. “You can take your moronic ‘compliments’ and shove them right up your ass.”

She mirrored the same words Puzzle had used that first night, her voice still reflecting the hurt he saw in her eyes.

“They have to eat.”

“They don’t have to eat
me.”

“Well, what should we do? Let them feed on the staff?”

“Why the fuck not?” he snapped. “Let them dry hump you and suck on your veins for awhile. Maybe you’ll grow a goddamned brain in the process... or the capacity to feel a little fucking empathy, at least.”

“No need to be nasty––” Gina began, her voice even more hurt.

“Stop talking to him.” Dr. Nguyen’s voice cut through both of theirs, an unambiguous command. Despite her tone, Black heard nothing but disinterest in her words. “I’ve warned you about that, Gina. They are test subjects, nothing more. You need to stop treating them like regular patients. They’re not.”

“Must be nice to be a psychopath,” Black said, turning to her. “Uncomplicated. Sleeping’s not a problem for you at all, is it?”

Dr. Nguyen gave him a flat stare.

“I’m married,” Black snapped. “I have a fucking wife. I’m not a goddamned rabbit, okay? If you don’t give a fuck about me, what about her?”

Dr. Nguyen’s lip’s pursed briefly, but that flatter disinterest never left her eyes. She turned to Gina, her voice unchanging.

“Still no signs of transformation?” she said. “No change at all in his vitals?”

“No.” Gina shook her head, sighing. “No changes. He has that elevated heart beat, but he had that before. Glen thinks he might have a mild heart murmur, or maybe his heart just runs at a slightly elevated speed for some reason. Or it might have something to do with his blood type. Glen thinks he might have some genetic anomalies that are confounding the venom...”

Dr. Nguyen nodded, her face still expressionless. “We’ll try solution #PZZ98 today. Hook him up. We’ll do a full work-up on him tomorrow, if this one doesn’t work.”

“Are you going to give him to one of the others?” Gina said, as she began preparing the needle to put in Black’s arm. “Or leave him with Puzzle?”

Dr. Nguyen looked up from her tablet, which she’d been writing on with a stylus.

“We don’t give the animals new feeding partners halfway into a study, Gina,” she said, her voice a touch cold. “I don’t care how much they whine. And Puzzle is harmless. I don’t trust the rest of them to behave with this one... not given how they’ve been acting.”

Squinting at Black’s face, she looked him over a second time, again seeming to notice his physical appearance anew, likely based on what Gina had said.

Gina spoke while Dr. Nguyen was still staring at him.

“Do you really think that’s why they’re arguing about him?” Her voice was more timid that time, but still curious. “Because they all want to have sex with him?”

Dr. Nguyen shrugged, her voice studiously clinical.

“It seems likely,” she said. “They don’t have gender preferences the way humans do... but they might still care about aesthetics. It’s possible that different humans taste differently to them as well, but they’d have no way of knowing that with him, unless Puzzle’s been making claims... or sharing his experiences through that mind thing they do. But neither thing is really in his character. He’s submissive with the others, normally.”

She glanced at Gina, that thoughtful look still in her eyes.

“Puzzle’s the smallest of them, so he’s usually cautious with the alphas. Which aligns again with most of our dominance theories of group behavior in highly predatory animals... they tend to be very conscious of hierarchy and respectful of their own place within it. It appears that vampires are no different than lions in that respect. So maybe they see Subject
3297T2
as a status prize of some kind, and feel Puzzle doesn’t have the social rank to be worthy of it.”

She frowned as she turned over her own words, tapping the stylus on her lower lip as she studied Black’s face. Then she sighed, pulled from her thoughts as she focused back on her lab assistant.

“Is he ready? I have a meeting I need to go to.”

Black just lay there, thinking of ways he’d like to kill this woman.

While he grimaced at the thought of another night spent with Puzzle, he couldn’t help but be relieved they weren’t going to pass him around like a breathing
hors d’oeuvre
to the other vampires, either. As bad as Puzzle was, Black knew it could be worse. Puzzle hadn’t actually
tried
to hurt Black yet, despite everything else he’d done to him.

But he didn’t want to think about that, either.

He especially didn’t want to think about whether Miri felt any of that.

He’d been in this goddamned lab for over a week now. Brick made it sound like they would pull him out before this, like they were on some kind of motivated schedule.

He hoped like fuck nothing had changed.

He worried Brick hadn’t taken into account the lab’s reactions to his seer’s immunity to the venom. Maybe Brick thought they’d just kick him back to the prison if it didn’t work, and now had no way to get him out. After all, according to Brick, the vampires on the outside hadn’t been able to find this facility on their own.

Black at least understood now why Brick wanted his help to break into this freak-show in the first place. Truthfully, the idea of helping that fucking vampire burn this place to the ground was almost appealing to him at this point.

Based on what Dr. Nguyen said just now, they would figure out he wasn’t quite like other people very soon. Luckily, so far they hadn’t done anything overly invasive to him. They hadn’t even stripped him naked, so he doubted anyone but Puzzle had seen his cock.

He grimaced at that thought, as well.

Bottom line was, he was out of time.

He had to get the fuck out of here.

If Dr. Sadist and her band of merry idiots found out he wasn’t human, there was a good chance he’d never leave this underground lab ever again.

AT LEAST BRICK had been right about one thing.

The venom really wasn’t as bad after the first few rounds.

This batch made him nauseous, but it was more like a mild case of food poisoning than anything close to what he’d experienced that first night. He’d really thought he was going to fucking die that night. He came close to even welcoming it a few times.

He was back in the room with Puzzle now.

The vampire curled up against his side, his head resting on Black’s chest as he watched the chocolate movie for probably the twentieth time since Black had been in here. Black had started dreaming some of the songs, his mind making up new cautionary lyrics for the Oompa-Loompas, most of which involved killing vampires and beheading doctors in white lab coats.

More and more, he felt like the vampire’s pet dog.

A pet dog the vampire seemed increasingly addicted to eating and fucking, usually at the same time, and usually while he was far enough in Black’s mind that Black couldn’t do much about either. He’d more or less given up trying to effect that side of things, at least for now.

Reasoning with Puzzle when it came to food didn’t work. It was like trying to reason with a perpetually hungry child about candy––a bloodsucking, rapey child who couldn’t comprehend why Black didn’t want it to violate his body every few seconds.

He didn’t give up entirely, though.

“You could do it, if you wanted,” Black said, his voice coaxing, persuasive. “They must have something in here you could use. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t bother to tie me up.”

The vampire sighed, snuggling deeper against Black’s side and pressing his cool cheek to Black’s chest. He’d just spent the last hour or so feeding off Black in short bursts... all the while sending him impressions of Miri to get both of them off.

Now the vampire was full and sleepy and sexually sated... which is when he usually wanted to do what he was doing now, meaning use Black as furniture and watch his stupid chocolate movie.

“Come on,” Black coaxed. “You said you’d help me, if you could.”

Sighing in more frustration that time, Puzzle raised his head. Then, moving in that liquid way of his, he slid up Black’s body, sitting astride him, high up on his waist. He began massaging his chest, looking down at his neck.

“All right,” he said, his voice bordering on grumpy. “Show me.”

Black shifted under him, hiding his discomfort at having Puzzle pressing down against him. Fighting the grimace off his face at the intrusion in his light, he turned his head, exposing as much of his neck and the connecting part of the collar as he could.

Puzzle leaned down over him, peering at the collar’s locking mechanism from only a few inches away. He fingered the edges of it, including where it went into the skin of his neck and wrapped around his spine.

“You think cutting this would get it off you?” Puzzle said.

“If you cut it, that part connected to me should retract.”

“Why do you think that?”

Black clenched his jaw, but answered in the same tone. “Because that’s how they work. You saw it, Puzzle. You saw me wearing collars in that other world.”

Puzzle pressed against him again, still stroking his chest. He continued examining the collar though, and after a few seconds more, he shook his head.

“No,” he said. “It won’t work.”

Black clenched his jaw again, fighting frustration. “Yes. It will.”

“No,” Puzzle said, shaking his head a second time. “It won’t.” Adjusting his weight on Black’s chest, he sighed, meeting his gaze. “I’ve seen these before, too. I’ve seen the ones they make
here
... not just the ones from your other world. I know how they work.”

“So how do you get them off?” Black said.

“You don’t,” Puzzle said, frowning. “Not without the collar-holder.” He fingered the brushed metal again. “If I cut this, the connecting piece would explode.”

Black turned, staring up at him. “What?”

“You heard me. They put explosives in the connectors... I’ve seen it before. Anyway, I can see it now. Not well, with you cuffed to the bed, but enough to know it’s there.”

At Black’s continued stare, Puzzle sighed.

“We can see in multiple light spectrums, Quentin,” he said, massaging his chest. “I can see the electronics in there. I can see the living parts, too.”