Marius (3 page)

“And what are you trying to save her with?” he asked.

She glanced to the door and knew they were listening in the hall. It didn’t matter who. They were always listening.

Rachel turned back to the table. “I’m saving her with the only thing I can.”

She breathed steadily out her nose as she made the last few alterations to the liquid. The color changed to the expected clear blue, and she smiled.

“I hope that’s not what I think it is,” Marius hissed in her ear. She was surprised he had been able to get so close to her without her even noticing.

She turned her head to let him have it but stopped. The mistake of the movement wasn’t obvious until her nose brushed across his soft lips. Rachel jerked her head back quickly and stared up at him. Pure shock stretched across his face as they stared at one another.

Her nipples tightened when he continued to stare. There was something in that look that she’d never seen before in a man. It made her ache deep inside and called to her. The feeling unsettled her. His expression suggested he felt the same.

“You know what Titus wants,” he said quietly. His gaze fell on the clear blue liquid, and she gripped it a little tighter.

“I know he can’t have it,” she said. She met his stare and held it. A flash of gold she’d seen before flickered in his eyes as he spoke.

“Why do you have to be so defiant all the time?” His lips curled, and she knew how much it annoyed him that she broke the rules from time to time.

“Why do you have to be so obedient all the time?” she fired back.

His face turned red at her comment, and before she could even register the offense, he was storming to the door.

“Marius,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean it like—”

“You know,” he said, his back to her. She could see it was tense and hard beneath the white button-up he always wore. A lump worked its way into her throat when he turned to look at her. “Just once, you might want to consider others’ needs and wants over your own wants.”

She watched in stunned silence as he opened the door and slammed it behind him.

* * *

Marius sat in the front waiting room near the door, fuming. How one woman could piss him off so much was just beyond him. All she had to do was give one good poke as to their pseudo-canine heritage, and he was livid.

He sucked in slow breaths as he waited for her to emerge from her cave. He’d had enough of her shit today. There was no way he was going back in there.

His ears perked up at the quiet click of the door and her muffled footsteps.

She glanced his way as she passed by but hurried toward the patient rooms down the other end of the hall. Marius sighed and stood. If she was going to go injecting people with random substances, he needed to be there to make sure this wasn’t going to come back and bite them in the ass. Mainly bite him in the ass. Not to mention how eager Titus was to get his hands on Rachel’s discovery. Personally, Marius thought the whole thing was a bad idea, but it wasn’t like anyone was going to ask his opinion.

Slowly, Marius made his way down the hall. Rachel had already turned into one of the rooms, and he could hear her moving quietly around. He stopped at the door and watched through the window as she approached the bed. Even through the thick glass, he could hear Hannah’s labored breathing. It was hard knowing she was suffering like that. Everyone there really liked the sweet little party planner. Even if he wasn’t a big fan of the activities himself, they were good for them as a group.

Not that he would let any of them know that. Give them an inch, and they would be having parties every week, something they could hardly afford now.

Rachel sat on the bed. She lovingly placed a hand on Hannah’s forehead. He could see the little beads of sweat that had formed there and wondered just how bad her condition had become. He was no doctor, but it seemed to him that she was getting worse by the second.

“How are you feeling?” Rachel asked.

Hannah struggled to swallow and gave a weak smile.

“Tired,” she said, almost so faint that he couldn’t hear her. Her eyes fluttered for a moment and then shut. He watched in horror as her body stiffened, and she started to convulse.

Marius pushed open the door and stopped just inside. He could see Lucius, who had been pacing the floor, race to Hannah’s side.

Rachel pulled out the vial containing the blue liquid but was pushed back hard by Lucius. Marius rushed forward to brace her fall with his body. Her head slammed hard into his chest, but she held on firmly to the vial. Not even bothering to stop, Rachel turned, still in his arms and walked back toward the bed.

Lucius growled loudly when she stepped closer.

“Rachel,” Marius said calmly. “You need to back away from him. He’s protecting her.”

“We discussed this earlier, though,” she replied. “He agreed.”

Marius shook his head. “He’s not entirely rational at the moment.”

She turned to look at him. Marius could see that the impact from her fall had busted open her lip. Something in him flickered in irritation at the sight.

“She’s having a seizure,” she said. “I need to give her this.”

Rachel held up the vial. Her hands shook, and he wondered if she was really as tough as she acted.

“Will it work?”

Rachel stared at him and then lowered the vial to her side. Her shoulders slumped forward, and for the first time, she looked almost defeated. It wasn’t a look that he liked seeing on her.

“It’s the best we’ve got,” she said quietly.

Marius looked over to Lucius and sighed.

“Okay,” he said. “Just be ready to give her that stuff.”

Rachel pulled out a needle and sucked up the liquid into a syringe she had capped in her pocket.

“If I can inject it into her, it should start working faster,” she said to him as he watched.

She held up the full needle and nodded. Marius took in a deep breath and sized up Lucius. Although the other hybrid was bigger, Marius figured he should be able to hold him off long enough, at least until she had finished her job. Granted, fighting hadn’t been his prime concern, but it wasn’t like he was without his skill. They had all been trained under the same guidelines.

Not giving himself or Lucius much time to think, he raced forward and grabbed the large hybrid around the middle. With far less effort than he expected, Marius yanked him back from the bed and swung him around so he faced the opposite direction. Lucius let a roar loose that shook the walls.

“Now!” Marius shouted over to Rachel.

She watched briefly as the two men wrestled on the side of the room, surprised Marius was able to hold off the massive hybrid. She’d never really thought of Marius as a fighter, but he wasn’t really any smaller than the other hybrids. Maybe it was the job he had. Being the accountant didn’t really bring to mind those kinds of things. Not that she really cared either way.

Rachel tore her eyes from the threat to her right and looked to her friend. Luckily, Hannah’s seizures seemed to have passed for now, and she rested with her eyes closed, but she had a growing concern that something else was at play that she just couldn’t see. Syringe in hand, she dropped hard on the bed and tried to ignore the sounds of flesh hitting flesh. She could only hope at this point that she would be able to do her job, and Marius wouldn’t be too badly hurt.

Hannah’s fingers were like ice when Rachel lifted them to find a vein on the inside of her arm. Just another thing to note in her charts.

Heart hammering in her chest, Rachel swallowed when she found the vein she would use. There weren’t going to be a lot of chances with this. If the enhancement didn’t work, it was likely Hannah wouldn’t make it. Tears burned her eyes, and she tried to blink them away. This was no time to be sentimental.

Rachel took a deep breath and pulled the cap off the needle. A few swipes of her swab, and she had the needle lined up with the vein. It slipped in with ease, and she let out the breath she had been holding. She pulled a little blood inside the syringe.

The door burst open.

“What the fuck is going on?”

She turned to see Varius and Cato standing angrily in the door, glaring directly at her. Not bothering to stop, she pressed firmly on the syringe, emptying the entire amount into Hannah.

Chapter Three

“I’m trying to treat my patient,” Rachel said calmly to the large hybrids and slipped the cap back on the needle. She hoped they had no idea what she had just done. Maybe the effects wouldn’t make Hannah smell any different. At least not initially.

“By having your boyfriend make a new patient?” Cato spat out.

Rachel frowned and turned to look at Marius and Lucius. Both were badly bloodied. She could see that Marius was going to have a bruise on his cheek bone under his eye and had blood running freely into his eye from a cut in his eyebrow. Lucius didn’t seem much better off. He sat panting on the floor, blood dripping from his nose. He kept rubbing his jaw, and she wondered if Marius had punched him there.

“You were just supposed to hold him back,” she said to Marius.

He gave a hollow laugh from the floor. “Yeah, and he seemed willing to stand to the side so easily.”

A blush crept onto her cheeks. He was right.

“It’s my fault,” Lucius said finally. He looked down at the ground and shook his head.

Cato and Varius looked at him with shock. She watched him stand, shame washing over his face.

“I’m sorry I stopped you, Rachel,” he said quietly to her. “Instincts just kicked in.” She closed her mouth and turned back to Hannah, not really certain what she should say.

“She’s fine, so it’s okay,” she said and pulled off her stethoscope.

Rachel listened to the steady beat of Hannah’s heart and her breathing. It wasn’t perfect, but it was already vastly improved, and that was the best she could hope for at the moment. As long as Rachel could keep it that way until she figured out what was going on, things would be just fine. She still had a chance to save Hannah.

A phone rang, and she glanced behind her at Marius, who was now standing quietly by the wall. His cut hadn’t stopped bleeding judging by the amount of blood on the towel he was holding, and his cheek was starting to swell. She winced at the damage. It was going to be very painful soon.

He locked eyes with her, and she quickly looked away.

“Yes, sir,” Varius said into his phone. “I’ll let them know.”

He slipped the phone back into his pocket and turned to Marius.

“Titus wants to see you,” he said and then turned to Rachel. “Both of you.”

She cocked an eyebrow and crossed her arms. They hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Not until I treat Hannah and Marius,” she said firmly.

Marius’s head shot up, and he frowned. “I don’t need to be treated.”

She shook her head and went back to taking all of Hannah’s vitals. If he wanted to be an idiot, she’d just deal with him later.

* * *

Marius sat in Rachel’s office chair and picked at the dried blood on the front of his partially open white button-up shirt. There was no way he’d be able to get the stains out. At least he wasn’t the only one nursing some wounds. He had given as good as he got. Marius frowned. So why was he the one waiting in her office? He didn’t need anything, and he was more than a little annoyed she’d made him come into her office to wait while she finished. It smelled like her and was too intimate. It was bad enough they were having to live in the same house.

Something niggled at him deep inside that maybe she thought he was weak. That, in the end, he’d never compare to the rest of the men. The other men seemed to think it at times. They were always making sure to assign him the mental tasks but kept him away from anything that might be physically challenging. To say it didn’t piss him off would be a lie. He was good with numbers and got forced into his current position because of that. They seemed to have all forgotten that. The longer he worked his position, the more he felt his position and respect within the group shift, and he knew he would have to prove to them that he was just as much a warrior as they were.

The door opened, and she breezed in with an arm full of supplies.

“Sorry about that,” she said and sat the items on the desk. “I think Lucius might be overtired. I just wanted to make sure he was actually sleeping, so I had them move in another bed.”

Marius glared at her. “Are you saying I wouldn’t have had a chance otherwise?”

Rachel froze. Her long brown hair slipped over her shoulders. “Wait. What?” She raised a brow and pressed her lips together.

He hated when she did that. It made him feel like an idiot.

“Or maybe I just thought that he was tired?” Rachel stooped down to her knees in front of him.

“Whatever,” he mumbled. When she reached to pull the cloth off his eye, he leaned back. “I’m fine.”

She snorted. “All right, big man,” she said and placed her hands on his knees to get to her feet.

As much as he didn’t want to, his body hummed at her contact. Marius took in a deep breath and forced himself not to groan at her delicious floral scent drifting to him.

Faster than he even thought was possible for someone who wasn’t a hybrid, she had her hand on his face. Rachel pulled off the cloth he had taped there, and he hissed as she pulled it away.

“Uh huh,” she said, nearer to his face than he ever wanted her to be. “I can tell that it doesn’t hurt at all.”

He breathed heavily out his nose, trying not to suck in her exotic flavors again. If they stayed in this position for too long, he wasn’t sure if he could keep himself from brushing his nose along her long creamy neck.

She pinched his brow.

“What the fuck?” he said and glanced up at her face.

Her eyes were firmly fixed on his wound and, despite the pain she was causing him, she seemed worried over it. She chewed her bottom lip lightly, and Marius gripped the seat in desperation.

He froze when she glanced down.

“It’s going to need stitches,” she said.

He frowned. That hadn’t been what he was expecting at all.