Hunter by Night (27 page)

“I can have someone observe me at home. I’ll call if there’s a problem.”

“I’m afraid there’s already a problem.” He stepped closer. Something about this guy seemed wickedly familiar. Emphasis on wicked. “We’re seeing the beginning signs of an outbreak.”

“Outbreak?” Reflexively, she pulled her thin hospital blanket up higher.

He smiled politely, popping his dimples. “It’s the most amazing thing. Cases of bubonic plague started trickling in last week. Today they’re coming in right and left. So we have to observe you.”

“But I don’t have the symptoms.” Oh, hell no. She’d googled the hell out of that shit, shortly after Lee told her about his buddy Haig was suspected of coming back from beyond the grave.

“Can’t be too careful with these things.” He stepped closer. What was up with his eyes? For such a handsome man, his eyes conveyed a wild sort of… mania? “You know, the human race has stopped fearing the plagues. Hospitals no longer keep treatment on hand.”

Was that what he had in his pocket? Wait… Her heart almost tripped and fell. Mother-effing hell. She knew why he seemed familiar. Those dimples. Those damned dimples. The band around his arm. The crisp white shirt under his lab coat. Doctors didn’t wear white T-shirts to work, did they? Holy shit… That hadn’t been just a guy with a busted truck outside the estate’s entry gate.

Then she saw the bracelets around his wrists. She’d seen one of those on Isabel the day she’d passed out in the yard.

Alexia’s fingers clawed at the tape and tubing on her arms. Legs kicked at the blankets. “I really have to go.” Now.
Now
. The periphery of her vision grew dark, the walls closing in on her like the walls of that damned van all those years ago. The heart monitor announced her panic in rapidly escalating beeps. She yanked the clippy thing from her finger that tracked her pulse. She rose to sitting on the bed, curling her knees under her. Pushing down the acid in her throat, she looked for anything she could use to get leverage against him. A table stood between them. A chair. A—

“Doctor.” A nurse stuck her head in the room. “Mary left some syringes on a tray. For the patient next door. Have you by any chance seen them?”

Dr. Psycho grinned. He flashed a blinding smile, dimples and all. “I’m sorry. I didn’t notice.”

The ones he’d put in his pocket. For the patient who probably had the plague.

Alexia’s heart hammered as the nurse left. “You’re Haig,” she said. Alexia curled her toes under her body, ready to pounce. Grateful they’d let her put on the ridiculously oversized sweats Anton brought for her. At least she didn’t have on a freaking gown. Didn’t stop her stomach from churning.

“You know, humans have forgotten to fear me. To fear the Great Almighty. My plague once wiped out millions.” God, the man beamed with pride like a new father. He pulled one of the syringes from his pocket. “Now, without this? I can bring a swift death to hundreds, thousands, even millions.” He leaned close. Not close enough. “You’ve all forgotten what to value. Humanity’s numbers have swelled to epidemic levels.”

Jeez. “So it’s up to you to cull the herd?”

He grinned. “As the Lord has commanded.”

“It’s been awhile since I went to church, but I hear they teach things like loving each other and compassion these days. Helping others. Not, you know, passing infectious diseases intentionally. In fact, that sort of thing is against the law. Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

A quiet laugh from the psycho. “Yes. Lee. I smelled him on you. Special, is he not? Strong. He tried to burn me to the ground.” Closer. Hell yes. Closer. She now noticed a faint webbing of scars across his left cheek and wondered what he’d done to hide them so well. “I rose. I’m stronger. I have a duty to fulfill. Quite a shock waking up to find I’d been in stasis for six hundred years, but my guardians have kept me safe all this time and the Great One has a plan for me.”

He raised his empty hand and began to mutter something that Alexia suspected would only end badly.

Without further thought she jumped, throwing herself against the doctor. She interrupted his little spell. That was the important part.

As they went down to the floor, she managed to wiggle one syringe from his lab coat, hoping her hunch about it being an antidote for this plague thing was right. She needed it to be right.

His fingernails, surprisingly long, dug into her arm.

Her knees connected with his balls, and he curled reflexively. “Ha. Even evil psychos have squishy balls, asshole.” She stuck the syringe into his neck.

Face red, he shouted and pushed it away. The contents spurted all over. Shit, it always looked easy to do that kind of thing in the movies. There was another one, though. She made a fast grab for his pocket but came up with nothing but a pen.

Fuck. The floor.

She scrambled for the other syringe as it rolled under the edge of a cabinet. Every fiber of her screamed to just run for the door while this guy was down on the ground, but she needed to get that damned medicine. If that shot had been for the patient with the plague symptoms in the next room, and she was in the middle of wrestling with the ground-zero outbreak monkey, that shit was probably the antidote. She had every intention of shooting that Haig guy full of his own damned medicine.

He came down on top of her as her hand reached the second vial. A large, hot, unwelcome body. His hands scraped for purchase, tugging at her clothes. For a moment Alexia froze. She fought the urge to recoil, reliving that stifling moment in the van when she was a teenager. The man with the scraggly hair who tried to get her naked. Who tried…

No.

This was not that moment. Alexia was no longer that girl. And she was going to fuck up this guy’s game.

She managed to pull a knee underneath her. It gave her leverage. When his hands came around her throat, she had room to make hooks from her fingers to yank them apart. She spun. “Oh my…” God. His neck had gone red, starting from the injection site and spreading across his face.

“I… have… important work to do.” His voice had deepened. It sounded labored. And really damn angry. Good.

Pain echoed through Alexia. Lee. Haig lunged forward and she kicked fast, following with the syringe in her hand. Right in the stomach this time.

He doubled over, retching. She didn’t have another, but she was pretty sure she’d gotten the job done. She had to go.

She had to get to Lee.

Sneaking out of the hospital hadn’t quite been a one-shot deal. There’d been a commotion in the hall that prevented her from getting far. She’d wound up hiding down the hall in the bathroom, wondering if she’d just killed a guy.

Hoping she had.

Sure, the shakes that wouldn’t go away, those were worrisome. For now, she’d chalk it up to the intensity of what she’d come to think of as “extreme sympathy pain.” God, wherever Lee was, he needed her. She just
knew
.

She’d tried to call Tyra and Anton. No answer. Siddoh’s phone had gone straight to voice mail, which troubled her even more. For all she knew, the estate had crumbled to ash. It killed her not to be there. Were they all safe? Hiding? She was human. It was daytime. She could help, if she could only get the hell out of the hospital unnoticed.

With her stomach still queasy and her skin on fire and the sheer holy-fucking-spitballs panic over the idea of being trapped inside this hospital with that back-from-the-dead psycho while God only knew what was happening to Lee, Alexia crept out of her hiding place in the bathroom stall and stuck her head into the hallway.

“Okay, guys, just let me leave peacefully, huh?” Her visual sweep of the hall turned up nobody familiar. There had been a lot of bustle outside her room a few moments ago. God, was there any chance she could just get out of here without being seen? She’d totally screwed herself, hadn’t she?

“Alexia?”

Alexia jumped back. A woman stopped just in front of her. She didn’t recognize the voice at all. Female. Southern-ish. Boots, ball cap, denim shorts and jacket, and flaming red hair. Definitely not a hospital employee, unless they’d done something wildly new with the scrubs at shift change.

“Lexi?” The redhead smiled broadly. “Alexia?”

Alexia crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes?”

“Oh my God. I’m Sarah.” She tugged on Alexia’s arm, immediately heading toward the exit sign at the end of the hall. “Man, I’m glad I found you. We’ve got to get you the hell out of here.”

“We?”

Redheaded Sarah, who had nearly a foot of height on Alexia, jerked her thumb. “We’ve got Lee. He’s hurt.” She looked around. “And security was buzzing about something when I tried to go check in your room.”

Alexia went cold. “I think they’re looking for me. I fought an attacker in my room. Pretty sure I killed him. He wasn’t hum…” She hesitated, looking the redhead up and down. Alexia had never met another human with whom it was safe to be open before. Now that she could, the words seemed strange. “He was—”

“One of those plague guys, right? Yeesh.” Sarah pulled a face, grabbing Alexia by the hand. “Come on. Lee’s in the parking garage.” She handed Alexia her hat and jacket. “Put these on.”

Somehow they made it to the parking garage without being stopped. The battered maroon van sat in a rear corner of the garage’s ground level, conspicuous in its creepiness. Unlike the sleek vehicles from Thad’s fleet, this one had rust holes and Bondo-filled dents. Lee was in there?

She paused, panic rising again. This sort of thing had “trap” written all over it. Sarah’s arm jerked when Alexia was no longer following behind. “What’s wrong?” She looked to Alexia and the van and back. “My boyfriend and I pulled him out of a fight in the woods. He was outmanned.”

“Lee’s never outmanned.”

“Trust me, everyone is sometimes. There were at least a dozen of them.” She shook Alexia’s arm impatiently. “My boyfriend got kicked out of their training program, right?”

That rang a bell somewhere in the deep fog of Alexia’s brain. Sarah shook her arm again. “Would you just come on? He’s in really bad shape.”

But not dead? Alexia held back tears. She would have given anything then for hope.

The door to the van opened, and a young male appeared with a battery-powered lantern. He squinted into the dim light of the garage. He definitely had fangs. She recognized him… from the night at the hospital. Lee had taken him to see Thad. Hallefuckinlujah. The redhead spoke the truth.

“Lee? Let me in there.” Alexis pulled at the door.

God, he looked awful. Burnt. Bleeding. His head appeared to weigh too much for his neck, the way it rested haphazardly on his arm. Oh God, but his eyes. Bright and blue-green like always. Gorgeous. Staring right at her.

“You’re alive,” she murmured. Stating the obvious, but oh well. The relief made her all floaty. “Thank heaven.”

He hardly moved from his slump against the side wall of the carpeted van. “Funny, I feel like hell.”

The van doors closed and the lantern went out, cloaking them in darkness. She was afraid to touch Lee, unused to him looking fragile, but the burns and sores… She didn’t want to hurt him. “I’m so sorry. God, I’ve been worried about you.”

His arms came around her. The needle-sharp point of one fang grazed her collarbone. “It’s okay. I can handle anything, now. You’re here.”

***

Lee had lost consciousness in the van and woke to find Alexia gone.

His vision blurred, but he was immediately, acutely aware that somebody moved nearby. His hand brushed the rough blanket under him. He tensed and struggled to sit, hot all over.

“Hang tight if you would, please. I’m still checking you over.”

“Doctor?”

Lee shifted again. Where the hell were they? The place smelled completely foreign.

“Really. Holding still would be excellent right now,” Dr. Brayden said dryly.

Lee exhaled in an attempt to relax and let the salty physician do his thing. “So how’s it look, Doctor?”

“Like you tried to hold off a band of enemies at daybreak all by your lonesome.” The doctor’s eyes narrowed sharply. “But I think you’ll survive.”

Lee craned his neck to see if the door was open into the hall. Where was Alexia?

“If you can hold still, that is,” Brayden grumbled. Clearly, the day had been long for everybody.

“I just want to know that Alexia’s okay.”

Anton stuck his head in the door. “She’s okay. She’s down the hall in the bathroom. Guess she ate something that didn’t agree with her.” He looked around nervously and then pulled the door shut behind him. “I don’t blame her. It was nice of that human lady to cook for us and everything, but I can’t really stomach venison, either. Whatever she put on it tasted funny.” Anton gestured up and down at Lee. “You look a hell of a lot better.”

Pain stabbed the back of Lee’s brain when the doctor pried his lids up to flash a light inside. “Jesus, really? I don’t even want to know what I looked like before.”

Other eye. Fuck.

“I’ll tell you, getting you back here in one piece took a group effort,” Anton said. “My healing power, Lexi’s blood, and some from that washed-out fighter of yours.”

What? “I got blood from that guy?”

“Not ingested. He just slathered some on your burns like ointment or something.”

Lee glanced down. Brushed at flecks of dried blood on his arm. “Huh. Newbie paid attention.”

Brayden peeled apart the packing for a large bandage. “A human, a vampire, and a wizard…” He slapped the bandage against a still-oozing gash on Lee’s arm and paused. “Almost sounds like the beginning of a joke.”

Lee frowned. “Everything okay, Doc?” This darker side of Brayden was one not seen too often.

Brayden pressed his lips together. “Anton, check on Alexia, would you?”

Anton stood with the door half closed. A poster for some football player Lee didn’t recognize hung on the back. “I can try. Last time I did, she sort of… growled at me.”

In spite of his pain Lee suppressed a laugh.

The doctor nodded again, still grim-faced and focused on bandaging Lee’s arm. “Check again.”

When Anton rounded the corner into the hall, Brayden held up a “just a minute” finger and pushed the door shut. Something unsaid on Brayden’s part hung in the air, and Lee waited patiently for an explanation. If one called nearly tearing out his own hair “patient.”

“You know…” Brayden drew the words out slowly, his eyes focused on his task of bandaging Lee’s wounds. “I loved a human once.”

“No.” Lee frowned. “I didn’t know.” Hell, as far as Lee had known, the doctor lived a strictly monk-like existence, leaving his room in the king’s mansion only to care for the other vampires at the estate. Sure, the male had been absent from the property over the years on occasion. Not that anybody had given such a thing any thought. He had surgery rights at St. Anne’s vampire hospital. Maybe the guy had to go shopping for clothes or personal items once in a while. Or hell, maybe the guy… maybe the guy actually had a personal life of some kind. What a thought.

Brayden didn’t stop him this time, busy packing the bag at his feet as he crouched by the side of the bed. “It’s not well-documented, given the insular nature of our society and its regard toward blood purity, but I also know firsthand that a human in optimum health can survive a good many centuries on vampire blood.” He placed two fingers over Lee’s pulse point, pausing to count, probably.

Dr. Brayden. And a human. As Alexia would say,
Holy
shitballs
.

The doctor met Lee’s gaze briefly and smiled as he stood. “Not as long as a vampire of course, but as it is, you’ve lived a long life. Chances are excellent that you could have a very good run together. Maybe five, six hundred years. Better than if you were younger, actually. I doubt you’d have to worry about her dying early.”

Hope swelled in Lee’s chest. The oldest living vampire had made it over a millennium and a half, but twelve hundred or so was more common. If Lee’s blood would keep Alexia alive for a handful of centuries, they could live out their lives together. Assuming he didn’t die in battle.

His throat tightened. “What of your mate, doctor?”

“Snorkeling accident in Mexico. Not quite twenty years ago.” He glanced away then, placing his hand on the bag he’d just packed. “He kept asking for me to take a vacation, and I kept insisting my place was here. Some things no amount of blood can fix.”

“I’m sorry.” Inexplicably, Lee’s throat squeezed shut. Nobody had known that the doctor had been grieving a lost love. Would the outcome have been different for Dr. Brayden and his mate if he’d thought it was okay to tell everyone that he loved a human?

All this time, Lee had been so wrong.

A heavy, grief-filled thump in Lee’s chest reminded him of his diagnosis from the hospital. Lee cleared his throat. “Brayden, I saw a doctor over at St. Anne’s…”

Brayden nodded. “They faxed your test results. Continue to check in with me. Cut back on feedings unless you’re having difficulty healing. Stick to human blood for the time being. You should be fine.”

Stick to human blood. The washed-out trainee stepping up and saving his ass. Lee’s mind had been well and thoroughly blown. “Thank you, Doctor.”

Brayden paused with his hand on the doorknob. “You know… Alexia isn’t really my patient. Aside from a few stitches I’ve only treated her once really, so I don’t wish to talk out of turn.” His forehead wrinkled pensively. “But I noticed she drinks quite a bit of alcohol. And there’s the scent of clove cigarettes on her once in awhile. She really ought to quit those things.”

Lee’s head tipped to the side. “I’ll… talk to her?”

“Degrades the quality of her blood. Not good for her life span, or yours.” The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “Won’t be good for the child, either.”

Lee stood, grabbing the peeling wall for support. “Doctor?”

Brayden’s smile widened. “Three times while you slept she complained of sudden nausea.” His head bent as he checked his watch. “If she were a vampire, she’d have been crying out for your blood by now.”

“Lee!” Alexia’s voice rang out from down the hall.

Lee’s adrenaline spike nearly blew off the top of his head. He pushed past Brayden and took off down the hall toward Alexia’s voice.

***

Alexia closed her eyes and prayed for peace in the cool bathroom, hating the chill since the sun had gone down. In the daylight she’d been able to push open a window and breathe in the fresh country air, the sunshine. Something she didn’t get much of these days since living among the creatures of the flipping night.

It didn’t sound as romantic when she could hardly hold up her head.

She sat on the edge of the tub, grateful the queasies had passed. With hope or luck or
something,
for fuck’s sake, the knot in her gut that called out for Lee’s blood would also tell its story on its way out the goddamned door.

Her head dropped to her chest. All the calming yoga breathing in the world wasn’t working. Her muttered “Damn you, Lee” was one part pissed-off and one part defeated, just as his boots came into view at her feet.

She hated that her heart sped up. With hope, dammit, her heart fucking leaped at the sight of him.

“I thought…” She brushed another tear from her cheek.
Relax. There’s a logical explanation. Deep breaths—don’t let your voice shake.
“I thought you couldn’t turn me. Vampires can’t turn humans. Years ago when Isabel and I first became friends, I asked her, andshesaidandyousaid—” Deep breath. “You
said
…” Dammit, she wanted to wrap around him like a koala.

Lee’s hands landed on her shoulders. He’d fallen to his knees on the floor, his warm gaze level with hers. “I can’t. We can’t. You’re no more a vampire than you were this morning. Last night. Last year.” He brushed a tear from her cheek and kissed her gently. “How are you feeling? Is your stomach still sick?”

His lips had only barely left hers, but that fat vein in his neck was just visible, and hell that looked juicy. Ew. Ewww. “No, I’m better for now.” Fear tightened her chest again. “But I swear, I can’t eat anything. Like, I mean, anything. I tried mint tea. I tried crackers.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. It was just them in the room, and that other human had said her grandmother was hard of hearing, but saying it aloud felt a little insane.

“I keep craving blood. I can’t hold down human food anymore, and I’m craving blood. Doesn’t that sound like something out of a bad horror movie?” She sucked in a breath. “And Anton’s half brother, Petros, he found a way to turn humans into wizards. And then Agnessa passed me that energy you got so mad about—”