Chosen by Sin (19 page)

“Giselle!” she screamed, hoping her friend was nearby. “I need my
triage kit. Hurry!”

Quickly, she stripped back Dex’s clothes and assessed the damage to his
body while still keeping an eye on the flames behind her. Even now they were
dwindling. “Cy!” she called.

The flames flickered and then went out completely, leaving what looked
like a huddled human form, charred black. As she watched, Cy’s black outer
exterior cracked and crumbled until it fell away completely, peppering to the
ground and exposing Cy’s stone-encased body again. In seconds, that exterior
also gave way, this time dissolving without leaving any trace of itself, until
Cy was once again flesh, blood, and bones. Nude, but alive. Jes moaned with
relief when Cy moved, then came to crouch beside her.

“Are you okay?” she sobbed. Her gaze swept over Cy for signs of injury,
but there were none, enabling her to accept his curt nod.

“How’s the were?”

Swiftly, Jes returned her attention to Dex. Physically, he was going to
be fine. He’d sustained third degree burns in several areas, primarily his
hands, but he was lucky his injuries weren’t worse. He was unconscious. Her
body shook from shock and distress, but gently, she ran her hands over his
skull, searching for bumps or bleeding. He had a small lump on his left side,
but it didn’t appear serious. “He blacked out. I don’t know if it’s because of
the fire or when he hit his head. I don’t know. But he’s okay.” Turning to Cy,
she grasped his arm with one frantic hand, desperate to make him understand. To
forgive her. “I’m so sorry, Cy. It’s my fault. He went crazy when I told him.
I’m sorry.”

Cy broke her grip, grabbed her arms and gently shook her, abruptly
stopping her words. “It’s okay, Jes. I’m fine. Tend to him.”

Giselle ran up and sank down next to them with Jes’s bag of emergency
medical supplies. Jes took a deep breath and dove into the duffel. She pulled
out antiseptic and bandages, her movements crisp and efficient. Suddenly, she
was calm. In control. All emotion pushed aside so that she could tend to the
patient who needed her. But as she did so, she was ever aware of Cy’s eyes on
her and the echo of her own words.

He went crazy when I told him.

And that’s exactly what had seemed to happen. Dex had seemed to be
caught in the grip of insanity as he’d choked Cy.

Would he still be that way when he woke up?

Dex woke disoriented and feeling like he’d been dragged behind a car
for several blocks.

Make that dragged behind a car for miles across mountainous, rocky
terrain, then dumped down a steep ravine covered in shards of broken glass and
left to the mercy of a dozen hunger-crazed vultures.

On top of that, his mouth felt dry, his head fuzzy.

Where the hell was he?

After several failed attempts, he finally managed to open his eyes. He
blinked until the world stopped spinning and came into focus.

He was
surrounded by white. White walls. White sheets. Sunshine spilled into the room
from a window where heavy drapes were pulled to the side. He heard the beeping
of a monitor beside him and figured he was in some kind of hospital. But the
last hospital he’d been in had been in L.A. to talk to the wounded
shape-shifter. He was supposed to be in France now.

Colors exploded through his mind. Red hair—Trosseau. White
robes—the trio of shape-shifters. Grey on green—a castle on a lush
expanse of land.

A rainbow of ivory and pink, silvers and blacks—Jesmina.

France. Jesmina.

Jes.

Pregnant.

Oh shit.

He bolted to a sitting position, wincing when his head violently
protested. Instinctively he raised he hands to press against his temples,
frowning when he saw they were covered with bandages. Why? Had he cut them?

No, he realized. Not cut. Burned. In some kind of explosion that had
sent him flying off the man he’d been fighting. The man he’d been choking and
trying his damndest to kill.

Jes’s friend, Cy.

But why? Sure, they’d gotten in a few punches before Jes had shown up,
but they hadn’t actually been trying to kill each other.

“Cy—” He croaked out, not really expecting him to answer. Only he
did.

“Yeah, man. I’m here.”

Dex caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye and jerked
his head to the right. Sure enough, Cy sat next to Dex’s bed, his hands folded
against his chest and his body deceptively sprawled back in a straight back
chair, despite the tension emanating from his tightened shoulders and the scowl
on his face.

Cy looked pissed but otherwise normal. Not like a creature that could
transform itself into a fireball. But he had. At least, that’s what Dex
remembered.

“What—what happened?” he asked, then winced. What was wrong with
his voice? He sounded like his throat had been scraped raw.

Cy straightened and leaned forward. “Funny, I was going to ask you the
same thing.”

Dex shook his head to indicate he didn’t understand. He’d been talking
to Jesmina in her library and things had gotten pretty hot pretty fast.
Although he’d been troubled by not knowing why she’d sent for him, he’d also
been relieved to see her again. To be inside her again. Only those feelings of
relief hadn’t lasted long before the tides had turned, and things had gone to
hell in an instant. Why?

He strained to remember. It was on the tip of his tongue. He’d
remembered it a second ago, but it was gone again. She’d been telling him
something. But what? He scanned the room. He and Cy were alone.

“Where’s Jes?”

Cy’s mouth flattened into a thin line. “She’s finally catching up on
some sleep. She was up most of the morning worrying about you. Worrying about
the baby and what’s going to happen next.”

“The what?”

“The baby,” Cy repeated, his face going eerily blank.

Baby.

Clarity and memory combined to ruthlessly drop kick Dex in the head.

In a flash, he remembered everything again. Him and Jes having sex. How
right it had felt. Then her telling him she was pregnant. That he had to stay
with her through her pregnancy or the baby would die. He’d responded with
denials and recriminations before freaking out completely and running outside
into the night. There, he’d suddenly been overcome by a sharp stabbing pain in
his chest. Automatically, he raised his hand and rubbed at the spot that still
throbbed.

“I lost it,” he muttered.

“Yeah, you could put it that way.” Cy shoved to his feet and stepped
closer until he towered over Dex. “Can’t say I completely blame you, given the
shock you’d just had. But frankly, you losing it isn’t what has me worried.”

At the other man’s threatening posture, Dex’s muscles automatically
tensed. He braced himself to take a blow or to deliver one. “What do you mean?”
he asked. At the same, he deliberately rested one hand against the small table
to the right of his bed and gripped the edge; if he had to, he’d use the table
as a weapon and bash Cy’s head in.

Cy’s gaze followed the small movement. He frowned, then took a step
back and held up his hands, silently indicating he wasn’t a threat. Dex
relaxed, but only marginally.

“What I mean
is that you lost it for a while there, but then you were gone. And whatever was
in your place instead wasn’t lost—it was exactly where it wanted to be.
Inside you and wanting you to kill. A
diabol
.”

Dex glanced at the small clock by his bed. Seven p.m. Roughly eighteen
hours had passed since Dex had tried to kill Cy, and Jes still hadn’t been by
to see him.

Go figure.

Instead, Jes’s assistant, the full-blooded werewolf who’d looked at him
with such disdain the day he’d arrived—had that been just
yesterday?—occasionally stopped by to check on him. She did her job,
taking his vitals and changing his dressings, but she barely looked at him and
only spoke when she needed to, which was pretty much not at all.

If he’d been physically capable of it, he would have gotten out of bed
immediately after talking to Cy several hours ago. Unfortunately, any time he’d
tried to stand, his limbs had crumpled like straws under an elephant’s feet.
He’d finally decided to take it easy for a while rather than risk falling flat
on his face and not being able to get up again without someone’s help.

But despite the werewolf’s final instructions to take the pills she’d
left him and get some sleep, Dex couldn’t take it anymore. He’d go mad if he
stayed in bed any longer.

Assuming, of course, he already hadn’t.

Damn Cy for dropping his bomb and leaving to let Dex stew about it,
which the other male had no doubt done deliberately. At first, when Cy had
implied Dex had been possessed by some kind of dark spirit, Dex had laughed his
ass off. But then he’d remembered the look on Trosseau’s face just before the
shape-shifter had done his best to kill him and his laughter had quickly faded.

With Dex stunned into silence, Cy had turned on his heel and walked
out. Dex had been too busy weighing the possibilities, including the status of
his own mental health, to even think about stopping him. What was so ludicrous
about a person being possessed by a demon? He’d thought the same thing
himself—that Trosseau had been possessed, his actions completely outside
his own control except for that one flash of clarity when he’d seemed to
recognize Dex and had said his name.

Was that what had happened to Dex? Had someone or something been
controlling him? Because why else would he have tried to kill Cy when the male
hadn’t even been the one to deliver the news that Jes was pregnant?

Right. Can’t forget that little fact, Dex. Jes had told him she was
pregnant with his child and he’d sure as hell responded well to that, hadn’t
he?

Not.

He’d practically run from the room. But that time was over.

He was going to have to find Jes, get the truth out of her, and then
get the hell back to the States. Only he hadn’t yet done what he was supposed
to do in France. He needed to check in with Mahone, tell him about his meeting
with the shape-shifters, and figure out what to do next.

Call Mahone first. Then see Jes. But he’d already checked and there
wasn’t a phone in the room.

Dex shoved back the bed linens and swung his legs off the side of the
bed. He was feeling almost normal and surprisingly, his burns weren’t as bad as
he’d thought. They’d appeared badly burned, but with each hour, they’d improved
until they were slightly chapped. As always, Dex’s body had healed quickly.
Now, he just hoped he had enough strength to get out of the damn bed. He was
just about to put it to the test when Cy walked into the room unannounced.

“Ah, I’m just in time, I see.”

Dex glared at the other male. Cy was beginning to annoy him even more
than the pretty boy psychic on his team, O’Flare. “In time for what?”

“In time to watch you make a break for it. Or maybe I’m wrong? Perhaps
you’ve gotten over your shock at being a daddy and are about to pledge your
eternal love and devotion to your baby-mama?”

At Cy’s taunts, Dex’s composure, already shaky at best, fled completely.
His fear and anger upon learning about Jesmina’s so-called pregnancy came
barreling back at him. He gripped the mattress hard when what he wanted to do
was shout in denial. Only, he’d already done that several times before. He
wasn’t going to amuse Cy by doing it yet again.

So Cy apparently believed that Jes was pregnant with Dex’s child. Did
Cy also know Jes wanted Dex to stick around so the baby actually lived long
enough to be born? She’d said the baby would be born in less than a month, and
for a second he tried to imagine it—him at Jes’s side for all that time,
slowly adjusting to the idea of becoming a father.

Predictably, his thoughts gave way to a whole new set of denials. It
didn’t matter what Cy thought. Jes was lying. Or she’d made a mistake about him
being the father. At the very least, she was wrong about the affect of his
proximity on her pregnancy—

“Nope, I guess not,” Cy drawled, stopping Dex’s runaway thoughts. “You
just don’t have the look of a proud papa. Too bad for Jes.”

Dex ground his teeth together before asking, “So you knew she was
pregnant when you brought me here? Did you also know she wants me to stay close
in order to prevent losing the child? Because it doesn’t matter. I’m not
staying.”

“I suspected she was pregnant. I didn’t realize she’s been banking on
your presence to keep the baby healthy. And as for you not staying?” Cy
shrugged. “I didn’t expect you would.”

His utter lack of concern threw Dex off. He’d been expecting Cy to
plead Jes’s case. To start talking about how much a child needed a father
figure. The fact Cy didn’t simply further annoyed Dex for some reason. “So then
what happens?” he challenged. “To her? To the baby?”

“If she’s right about needing you around, she loses the baby, just like
the others. It will hurt her, but she’ll survive. No matter how much she
doesn’t want to.”

They stared at each other for several tense seconds. “What others?” Dex
finally asked.

“The other babies she’s miscarried,” Cy said softly. “And in case
you’re wondering, there’s been a lot of them because she had no qualms about
trying artificial insemination.” Suddenly, his voice turned tight and guttural.
“Who knows, you might get lucky after all, and Jes will lose this one, too.
Problem solved, right?”

“Get the fuck out of here,” Dex snapped, though he wasn’t quite sure
what had set him off. Unless it was hearing that Jes had miscarried. A lot. But
since he thought she was liar and a manipulative bitch, why should he care?

Instead of complying, Cy shook his head. “No. You need to hear this.
Jes has tried to have a baby for years. She can conceive just fine, she just
can’t carry a baby to term. It’s actually not that unusual for vampires. Most
give up after the first two or three losses. Not her. But it didn’t matter. No
matter what race the father was, whether she used artificial means or not, she
could never keep the pregnancy. She always lost the child within the first
week. This one’s held on longer than most.”