Hidden Embers (12 page)

While there were a few modern-looking buildings in the distance, which she assumed belonged to the University of New Mexico at Las Cruces, even those evoked a Native American Pueblo feeling.

At the same time, there was none of the high-society airs put on by Atlanta, or at least none that she could see. There was no historical society here preserving huge sections of the city, no business district that pretended to be more sophisticated and urbane than it really was. No huge medical complexes promising the most sophisticated version of anything…

Not that she was complaining. Quite the contrary. Besides, as long as there was running water, electricity, a decent hotel with air-conditioning and enough food, she was golden. Any way she cut it, it was a huge step up from the locations where she usually set up shop.

But standing here studying the city that was to be her temporary home wasn’t going to get things done. With a sigh, she climbed back into the car and pulled up her GPS, programming in the address to the lab that Phoebe had given her. It was in a small town a few miles on the other side of Las Cruces, and she was more than ready to get out of this car for a while.

More than ready to get to work on this mysterious virus, whatever it was.

More than ready to forget Quinn.

The drive was short—another thirty-five minutes or so—and then she was pulling up to an ultra-modern building that was as different from what she’d seen in Las Cruces as the New Mexico desert was from the lush greenery surrounding her apartment in Atlanta.

She pulled her Mustang into the nearest parking space, then took a minute to look at the place she would be calling home for the next few weeks. If the inside was anything like the outside, she was in for a treat.

Since she spent most of her time out in the field, it was rare she got to work in the CDC facilities for any length of time. This lab might be a nice change of pace while she finished recovering. She could probably even handle having her wings clipped for a while—as long as she told herself it wasn’t forever. As long as she knew the escape date was some time in the not-so-distant future.

For a second, Quinn’s face floated in front of her eyes, his head tossed back, his eyes glowing a lush, verdant green as she bent her head and took him in her mouth. He’d tasted incredible, like—

She grabbed her purse and slammed the car door with a firm snap. Then headed for the laboratory’s door at a fast clip in an effort to leave her memories—and Quinn—far behind.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“S
o, you’re really not going to tell me where you went?” Phoebe asked, as she settled herself next to him at the lab table.

“I’m really not.”

“I was worried about you. I don’t know what it is about you guys that makes you take off like that when you’re hurting. It’s really nerve-wracking for the people who care about you to be left behind.”

“I keep telling you not to care about me. It would solve a lot of your problems.”

“Sorry, but it’s too late for that. You’re my closest friend here, Quinn, and if anything happened to you, I’m not sure I would recover.”

Despite the fact that he was in the mother of all bad moods—losing a brother, finding a mate and losing that mate all within forty-eight hours could do that to a guy—Quinn felt the ice wall he’d built around his heart melt a little at Phoebe’s words.

He’d been suspicious as hell of her when she’d first shown up three months before, but working with her—getting to know her—had changed all that. She was an incredible doctor and a hell of a woman. Dylan was lucky to have her.

As was any dragon who found his mate. For some, it was pretty easy; they grew up within a few blocks of each other and figured things out before they were even out of high school.

But for many of the really powerful dragons, mating was a lot harder to work out. Maybe the universe figured if it gifted someone with all that power they didn’t deserve to have it easy when it came to finding a mate.

God knew, Dylan had spent almost four centuries looking before he’d found Phoebe completely by accident. And as for his sentries, to date, the only one to have actually found a mate was Gabe. He had fallen completely in love with Dylan’s younger sister, Marta, more than two centuries before, mated her and had a child with her.

Now Dylan’s sister and niece were dead, victims of the same damned virus Quinn couldn’t stop, and Gabe…Gabe was a complete and total disaster. When Marta died three months before—right before Phoebe had come to work on the virus—Gabe had gone completely insane. When their daughter, Lana, died a few weeks later, it was like the Gabe they knew disappeared.

He had eventually come back to the clan, but he was an automaton, completely devastated and barely able to get out of bed most mornings. He was an empty shell of a man, who lived only for the chance to avenge the deaths of his mate and daughter. Quinn was afraid—as was Dylan—that once they finally stopped the Wyvernmoons, Gabe would simply die of grief.

That kind of bonding and dependence was just one of the many reasons Quinn hadn’t been in a hurry to find his own mate. His job hollowed him out enough without also having to worry about a mate. He’d seen his father—who had been a great healer—suffer for years, caught between his powers and his mate. Quinn’s mother, Veronica, had never understood her husband’s compulsion to heal, had never been able to deal with the consequences of using his gift. She’d been a warrior, a sentry for Dylan’s father, and had no patience for weakness of any kind—especially her mate’s.

In a lot of ways Jazz reminded him of his mother, one more reason the rug had been pulled out from beneath him when he’d realized what had happened that morning.

Not that he was going to have to worry about ending up beaten down and bitter like his father—his mate would have to actually stick around for that to happen. As it was, he had no clue how to find Jazz now that she had disappeared. He didn’t know where she was from, didn’t know where she was headed. Hell, he hadn’t even caught her last name before she’d run out on him. He’d even wasted his time checking out every tow truck service in town before he’d left, but he’d had no luck finding her in Fort Stockton.

This was really bad news, considering he was already itchy and uncomfortable, though he’d only been away from her for a few hours. Or maybe it was the miles separating them. Either way, both the dragon and the man were out of sorts. They wanted their mate, and he had a feeling there was going to be hell to pay—for everyone—if he didn’t figure out a way to find Jazz soon.

“Well, I’m glad you’re back,” Phoebe said, slipping a new slide under the microscope. “And not just because I found something new.”

“Oh, yeah? What’d you find?” He shoved Jazz out of his mind and went to see what Phoebe had discovered.

“You’re not going to like it.” She pulled her eyes away from the microscope, gestured for him to look. “I can barely believe it myself—the stupid thing has mutated again.”

“Of course it has,” he said facetiously. “But come on, you don’t want it to be too easy, do you? I thought you were the one who liked a challenge.”

“Oh, I’m plenty challenged, thank you very much.” She clicked a few buttons on the computer keyboard, and the slide popped up on the huge state-of-the-art monitor he was sitting in front of. “Here, take a look. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Quinn barely bit back the vilest curse he knew. While the base characteristics identified the blood sample as being infected by the same disease they’d been fighting, the outer markers had definitely changed. Phoebe was right—the thing was mutating faster than they could get a handle on it.

Goddamnit.
The beast gnashed its teeth and Quinn wanted to do the same. They were fucked, totally and completely fucked, and there was nothing he could do. His failure hung heavy around his throat. He’d never failed at anything, after all, and it destroyed him that the first thing he couldn’t think or fight his way around was the very thing that was threatening to totally annihilate his people.

He’d been working on finding a cure to the disease that ravaged his people for what felt like forever, and while he and Phoebe had made some huge leaps in understanding in these past few months—the least of which was the understanding that this virus was biological warfare, created by their enemies to destroy their clan—they still weren’t moving nearly fast enough. For every discovery they made, the virus mutated two or three times, forcing them to constantly play catch up.

“So, what do you think?”

“You don’t want to know what I think.”

Phoebe blew out a gusty breath. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I figured. I don’t think I had a clue what I was doing when I let Dylan talk me out of my nice, safe Harvard lab.”

“Do you miss it?”

She looked at him askance. “What? Harvard?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s clear.”

“Sorry.” He paused, tried to formulate his thoughts. “Do you miss living in a world where every decision you made wasn’t the difference between life and death? Where you felt safe when you went to bed at night? Where you never had to worry about shifters or blood enemies or solving impossible, deadly puzzles?”

“How could I not miss my old life when you describe my new one so eloquently?”

“I—”

She held up a hand, cut him off. “I know what you mean. And honestly, yeah, I miss some things. I miss my apartment and the great little bakery right down the street where I’d stop every morning for a cup of coffee and a pastry. I miss my friends and my students.

“And some days—like today—I really miss the surety of my research on lupus. I miss the fact that while it’s a terrible disease, it’s predictable. Understandable. And it wasn’t designed as a constantly changing, constantly evolving weapon. When I made a breakthrough on my lupus research, it meant something. Now I feel like I’m starting all over again every couple of days.”

She shook her head. “But would I go back to that life? Would I give up Dylan? Or you? Or this high-tech lab that has everything I could ever want—including a freaking supercomputer—just so I could sleep better at night?” She laughed. “I wouldn’t give up any of it. I love my life with you dragons—love my life
as
a dragon. How could I possibly have imagined three months ago that I would be able to fly? And if thoughts of the Wyvernmoons keep me up some nights, well then, I’ll take it. Besides,” she said with a sly grin, “Dylan knows just how to help me sleep.”

It was Quinn’s turn to laugh. “I bet he does.”

“That’s not to say I won’t be damn glad when Jazz gets here. I really want her perspective—”

“Who?” Quinn demanded, cutting Phoebe off, as the dragon stirred to life within him.

“Dr. Jasmine Kane, the woman I was telling you about the other day. I know you don’t want her to be involved, but I need you to give her a chance. She’s the absolute best at viral-borne blood diseases—and a damn whiz when it comes to mutations. If there’s anyone on earth who can help us nail this thing down, she’s the one I would put my money on.”

Though he’d heard everything Phoebe had said, Quinn remained stuck on the only thing that mattered. “What’s her name again?” he demanded.

Phoebe gave him a strange look. “Dr. Jasmine Kane?”

“No. You called her something else. You called her—”

“Jazz?”

“That’s her name?”

“Yes. That’s her name. She called me from Atlanta yesterday morning before she left and told me she was hoping to make it here by tonight.”

He stopped listening when the side door of the lab swung silently inward. Phoebe hadn’t heard it—she hadn’t been dragon long enough for her senses to be as developed as his.

He didn’t turn around to see who had entered his sanctuary, but then he didn’t have to. Just like at the bar, his beast smelled her before Quinn saw her. That blackberry jasmine scent of hers wound its way through the harsh antiseptic cleaners they used in the lab and wrapped itself around him.

As it did, his mind—and his beast—went nuts.

Had she known all along who he was?

But if that was the case, why had she snuck out of that stupid motel room without so much as a wham-bam-thank-you-man?

Or had she been as clueless as he about the professional relationship that was about to be thrust upon them?

Did it matter? his dragon side asked, as it strained and pulled against his control. The beast didn’t care what she knew or why she had left—it only cared that she was here now. The man was much more cautious. He had to be. For better or worse, she was who fate had decreed as his mate—and it wasn’t like he’d get a second shot, at least not while she was alive. He couldn’t fuck things up now—no matter how angry he was.

And he was angry, he realized suddenly. Underneath the shock and bewilderment and oh-my-God-I-have-a-mate-and-she’s-disappeared drama he’d been through, anger had been lurking all along.

And it was directed—almost exclusively—at Jazz. She was the one who had set this whole thing in motion, after all.

She was the one who had walked up to him at that bar.

She was the one who had given herself to him so completely that he knew no other woman would ever satisfy him the same way—even before he realized she was his mate.

And she was the one who had walked out on him without so much as a screw you, even after they’d held each other all night.

Fuck, yeah, he was angry. So angry that he didn’t trust himself to turn around and greet her. He wasn’t sure he could be civil.

Which was why he did his best to ignore her, when every instinct demanded that he go to her, that he confront her and get her the hell out of his lab and into his bed. The dragon growled at the thought, low and deep. For the first time in a long while, Quinn wanted to join it.

Jazz stepped into the lab, trying to get her bearings—and their attention. When neither he nor Phoebe turned around, she finally said, “Phoebe?” Her loud, clear voice rang with authority.

Phoebe whipped around at the sound of her name—and so did Quinn, positioning himself slightly in front of her. Jazz might be the mate destined for him, but he wasn’t sure he trusted her. Phoebe was his king’s mate. It was his duty to protect her.