Hidden Embers (37 page)

He didn’t have to worry. Ty bowed his head and slumped his shoulders, as if ready to offer an apology, but Jasmine spoke first.

“I’m sorry, Ty. I wish there was something else I could have done—anything else.”

Ty shook his head. “I’ve known something wasn’t right with her for a long time. It’s my fault that I never saw how far wrong things had gone. I’m glad you’re okay, Jasmine.”

Her smile was pained. “I’m glad we’re all okay.”

Ty nodded, then headed for the front door, as if just being in the same room with the other dragons hurt. Maybe it did. Quinn tried to imagine what it would feel like if one of his brothers had betrayed the clan, and he blanched. Yeah, it would be too painful.

Then Jasmine looked up at him and smiled, a small, painful twisting of her lips that twisted Quinn’s insides as well. “Come on over here, sweetheart,” he murmured, grabbing her hand and hoping she wouldn’t reject him. “Dylan has food prepared.”

She followed him quietly, which itself surprised him. He half expected her to hit him with the nearest blunt object—after all, he hadn’t been exactly courteous to her since the fight. The sight of her taking on a fully grown, raging dragon with nothing but a plastic pipe was going to stay with him for a long time, and not in a good way. He blamed himself for letting her get in that situation, but that didn’t make her close call any easier for him—or his beast—to deal with emotionally.

About halfway across the room, Jasmine’s knees gave out and she stumbled. She would have gone down hard if Quinn hadn’t caught her and swept her into his arms. He carried her over to his spot in one of the wingback chairs near the window and cuddled her on his lap. Fight or no fight, she could damn well let him take care of her when she needed it.

“Are you okay, Jazz?” He spoke softly, not wanting to spook her. “I can take you back upstairs to rest. Or to my place.” His gaze swept over her body, which was clad in the ubiquitous yoga pants and tank top, this time with a jacket thrown over them.

She didn’t answer, just buried her face in his chest and breathed him in. He knew exactly how she felt. He wanted nothing more than to suck in great gulps of air himself, to absorb the sweet, wild scent of her so deeply into himself that he would never get it out.

After a minute, she raised her head and looked straight at him, as if she were bracing herself. Then she said, “I want nothing more than to go back upstairs and sleep. But—” She held up a hand to stop him as he started to get to his feet. “I think you should probably take me to the clinic.”

“The clinic? Why?” He glanced over her, looking for a wound he’d missed on his first inspection of her after the fight. “Do your ribs hurt?”

“It’s not my ribs I’m worried about.”

“Then what?”

She took a deep breath and slid her sweat suit jacket off her shoulder. “I’m pretty sure that Brock or Callie got me at some time during the fight.”

“Got you?” he demanded, his brain absolutely unwilling to comprehend what she was saying. “What does that mean?”

She pointed at her shoulder, where a large, red welt had formed. “Someone injected me with something, Quinn. And judging from the way I’m feeling, I think we both know exactly what it is.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

T
here was a roaring in his ears, a flame in his belly, a rage deep inside that grew with each second Quinn stared at Jasmine in the goddamned hospital bed. He felt on fire, like his skin was too tight and his body too fragile. He felt ready to explode, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

She was sleeping, her face pale and wan, her body trembling under the thick blankets, despite the fact that her temperature was dangerously high. Phoebe had already given her a mixture of Tylenol and Advil—human medicines—to bring her fever down, but they had barely touched it. They were waiting on a nurse to bring the cooling packs, but Quinn didn’t hold out much hope.

Phoebe didn’t either. Jasmine was dying, and there was nothing they could do about it. He’d spent the last few hours frantically reviewing his notes from the day before, as had Phoebe, both of them searching for a way to cure this. But it would take weeks, months to grow a vaccine based on their ideas—and that wouldn’t help Jasmine. She was already infected.

His beast raged at his inability to do anything, clawed at him in an effort to get out. In an effort to help its mate. But there was nothing he could do but stand and watch as Jasmine’s temperature spiked, as her legs and hands went numb.

All they could do was wait for the worst to happen. Wait for her to die the same terrible death the others had.

Quinn fell to his knees, hitting the floor by her bed hard. Tremors ripped through him as he buried his face in her bed sheets, trying to absorb her scent. Trying to hold her inside him. It didn’t work. All he could smell was the hospital disinfectant, the sickness, the pain that surrounded her.

He wanted to rage, wanted to scream, but doing so would only wake her up. Only make her pain more intense. So he kneeled, tears streaming down his face for the first time in hundreds of years, and prayed like he had never prayed before.

He needed an idea, needed a cure, needed something to help her. He’d give himself up, take her place, do anything, he bargained—if only she would get better. It should be him lying on that bed, him shaking and suffering from this damn disease. Not Jasmine. Never Jasmine.

Phoebe came closer, rested a hand against his shoulder, and he nearly bit it off, though he knew she was only trying to comfort him. But he was beyond comforting.

He was nearly rabid with pain, nearly blind with it.

He couldn’t lose her.

He couldn’t lose his mate.

Not Jasmine.

Not Jasmine.

Not Jasmine.

The words were his mantra, a refrain in his mind that played over and over as he fought for control.

It was a long time coming, and the only way he managed to achieve even a semblance of calm was to remind himself that this wasn’t about him. It was about Jasmine, and she deserved more than to wake up to a wild, rampaging dragon who was more problem than comfort.

There would be time for his fury later. Right now, he needed to take care of her.

The nurse came in with the ice packs, and he placed them around her body. Phoebe tried to help and the dragon snarled at her. Jasmine was his mate—he would take care of her.

She woke up when the ice packs touched her, her body shivering so violently that her teeth knocked together. “Qu-Qu-Quinn,” she gasped, reaching for him.

“I’m here, sweetheart. I’m right here, Jasmine.”

She grabbed on to his hand with her trembling one, and he was horrified at how weak she was. The disease was progressing faster now—faster even than it had with Brian and his family. Was it because she was human, the doctor in him wondered, or just because that was the new nature of this beast?

Not that it mattered. Either way, she was dying and there was nothing he could do about it, nothing.

“I’m c-c-cold,” she choked out. “So cold.”

“I know, sweetheart. But we have to get your fever down.”

“Please. Please.” The words came out on a small sob, the best that Jasmine could do in her weakened state, and they nearly killed him as he finished putting the ice packs around her.

“Baby, I have to. We have to get your fever down.”

She moved her head back and forth on the pillow, softly, carefully, but even that movement hurt. He could see it in her eyes, in the way she clenched her teeth to keep from crying out.

Goddamnit! The beast grabbed hold of him by the throat, frustration and fury riding him hard as his talons punched through the tips of his fingers. He fought it back, tried to stay focused, tried to stay centered, but it was almost impossible. His mate was dying and he was causing her more pain.

He could barely breathe with the agony ripping apart his insides.

“Quinn.” Dylan’s voice came from the doorway—cool, concerned. “Maybe you should go for a little while. Take a walk, get some fresh air.”

He turned on his king, had him up against the wall in a heartbeat, his hand around his best friend’s throat. “How dare you?” His voice was barely human. “That’s my mate. My
mate
. You want me to leave her? Just walk away from her while she suffers?”

Dylan didn’t move, didn’t try to defend himself. He just met Quinn’s eyes, reflecting his own hell right back at him.

“Fuck.” Quinn pulled away, thrust a hand through his hair. “Sorry, Dylan. I didn’t mean—”

Dylan shook his head, then draped an arm around Quinn’s shoulders. “My fault. It was a stupid thing to say. I would never leave Phoebe.”

“Quinn!” Jasmine called his name, and he was back at her bed in a heartbeat.

“What, sweetheart?” It was his turn to take her hand. He lifted it to his lips, kissed the center of her palm.

“Stop it! You’re acting—” Her breathing was labored. “You’re acting like a Neanderthal.”

“I am a Neanderthal, Jazz. I thought you knew that.”

She smiled through the pain. “There’s a lot I never got to learn about you.” She stifled a sob. “I’m sorry I was such a bitch yesterday.”

He brought her hand to his chest, held it tightly against his heart. “Don’t be.”

“Maybe this sick thing isn’t so bad after all,” she said with a weak laugh. “It gets you out of all kinds of shit.”

She started to cough, turning her head away from him and fumbling for the basin sitting on the table next to her bed. He watched in horror as she spit up blood, again and again. Copious amounts. His heart squeezed so tightly in his chest that he feared it might explode.

He rubbed the back of her head while she coughed, then handed her a small cup of water to rinse out her mouth. The disease was shifting, progressing, moving to the next stage as the virus ravaged her lungs and started in on her other organs.

He couldn’t stand it any longer.

Closing his eyes, Quinn tried to center himself, but it was hard. Jasmine’s pain dragged at him, nearly took him under, but he forced himself to step back. To pull inside himself.

He placed his hands on her stomach, and the familiar warmth that came when he healed someone flowed through him.

“Quinn, no!” She grabbed his hand, tried to push it away. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

He opened his eyes, pinned her with a look that brooked no argument. “Relax, Jasmine.”

“I’ve seen you after you do this. It won’t help. I’m going to die anyway. Please don’t do this.” Her voice cracked, then broke altogether. “I don’t want to think that I hurt you, too,” she whispered. “I don’t want your last memories of me to be of the pain I caused you.”

“It’s not you that’s hurting me,” he hissed, bending close to her so that she could see the sincerity in his eyes, feel it in the way he touched her face. “If I don’t at least try to ease your pain, it will kill me. Can’t you see that?”

“Quinn!”

“Sssh.” He rested his forehead against hers and used every ounce of strength he had to will her to calm down. “I love you, Jasmine. Let me do this for you.”

She sobbed, shaking her head back and forth against the bed pillow. But she made no other move to stop him, and Quinn quickly took advantage of her compliance.

Placing his hands over her belly once more, he centered himself, opened himself. And let all of her pain come into him.

The first wave nearly brought him to his knees. It was more intense, more powerful than anything he had ever felt before. Was it because she was his mate, he wondered, or was her pain just that powerful? That intense? For her sake, he prayed it was the former.

As he worked his way through her body, shoring up her internal organs, trying to lower her fever, working to reduce the paralysis in her legs, the agony was excruciating. She was fully human, without the dragon’s strength and power, and the disease was ravaging her much faster than normal—at least at this stage. It was as if everything had been accelerated by a good six to eight hours.

Fuck!
The realization slammed him out of her body and back into his own. He tried to get back to her, to heal her a little more, but she shut him out before he could go back in, locking barriers in place that he didn’t think she knew existed.

“That’s enough, Quinn.” Her voice was steadier, stronger than it had been in hours. “You did too much.” She reached out a hand to him, and he took it, sinking gratefully into the chair Phoebe shoved next to the bed.

“Look at you. You look like hell again.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” She sighed, burrowed against him. “But thank you for what you did. I wasn’t ready to leave you yet.”

Her words had him choking on his own emotions, and he looked away, not wanting her to see him tear up. But she only laughed and said, “Come on, Quinn. If this is the last time I have to spend with you, I don’t want it to be miserable. We deserve better than that, don’t you think?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Of course.” Neither noticed as Dylan and Phoebe slipped quietly from the room.

“Okay, then.” She cuddled even closer. “Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

He laughed. “What do you know about me? We’ve known each other only five days.”

“And yet it feels a whole lot longer, doesn’t it?”

He nodded again, not trusting his voice.

“All right. I know that you’re brilliant and talented and an incredible healer. You’re generous, you work too hard, you give too much. You also have a terrible temper and a jealous streak a mile wide—which is a little surprising in a man of your intellect, I must admit.”

“I was never jealous before you came along.”

She grinned. “I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not.”

“Oh, it’s definitely a compliment. Before you, I never felt for a woman enough to care whether another man wanted her, would try to take her from me. But with you, I can’t even think about you with someone else.”

“It doesn’t look like you have to worry about that now, does it? Interesting little side benefit of this damn virus, don’t you think?”

“Shut up,” he growled. “Don’t joke about this.”