Renegade (11 page)

As in, able to control himself? The question stung, but after his temper fit and almost punch, he deserved it. Trying for normal, he asked, “Any chance they’re red lace and skimpy?”

Her lips twitched, as though she bit back a smile. “Sorry. Yellow cotton shorts and T-shirt. With daisies.”

“Beats my black gym shorts.” He smiled, tried to make it teasing. Maybe that slight upward curve of her mouth was a good sign. “Valeria,” he said seriously, “you can trust me. I swear you can.”

Her smile faded. She gave him a level, warning look. “I hope so. We should call it a day. Everything will look better in the morning.”

Despite her upbeat tone, doubt shadowed her eyes as she turned away, and with good reason. The hunt for him would include her now. He’d gained her as an ally in a way he never would’ve chosen.
Damn it.

He fished the warding stones for the cabin out of his bag to set at the building’s corners. First thing tomorrow, he’d have to take a blood level. He should do it now, but digging the kit out, running the test, would lead to explanations he’d rather delay.

Maybe he should send Valeria away, no matter how she reacted when he told her. He’d nearly clocked her tonight. What if his control slipped again, when he was stronger? What about the pain in her eyes?

He cared about her, so he should think of her, not his need for an ally, his need for—

No. Not going there.

Morning
, he thought, as he set the first ward. In the morning, he would tell her everything.

Val awoke to faint morning light filtering through the curtains. Despite what she’d said to Griffin, their situation didn’t seem any better. And her eyes felt gritty. No surprise, considering that she’d slept like a horror movie heroine, starting at every creak of the run-down cabin, at the brush of tree branches over the window above the bed, at the strange dreams that haunted her sleep.

Griffin still slept. Breathing quietly, he lay on his back with his face turned toward her. On his chest rested the flat, golf ball–size Eye of Horus pendant.

She fingered it cautiously, and the high level of warding magic it contained zinged against her fingers. No wonder he’d eluded all searches. Even unwarded, that symbol was a protective charm, one sometimes invoked against hostile scrying.

In the dim light coming through the curtains, he looked less drawn and tired than he had last night. And no longer scary.

What had turned the ardent lover, the gentle, courteous man who’d treated her wounds, the brave one who’d risked his life for her and for a homeless child, into an arrogant, menacing bully? No matter what he said, fatigue alone didn’t explain it. Something was going on with him, and she had a right to know what it was.

Despite her concerns, the sight of him sleeping, defenseless, made her want to shelter him. Last night had been too tense for a good night kiss, but she’d wanted one. Still did, even though they’d both backed off from near kisses at the lake. Still, she wanted to run her fingers through the dusting of dark hair on his chest and trace the sculpted planes of muscle underneath.

Last night, she hadn’t noticed the scars below his left shoulder. Four parallel marks almost as long as her hand scored the tanned surface of his upper chest. Talon marks. He wouldn’t have scars if there had been anyone around to heal him. Instead, he’d had to fight the venom in his system, enduring the burning agony of those wounds, alone.

Gently, she brushed tumbled jet-black hair off his brow. He sighed but didn’t rouse. She let her fingers drift down, toward the shadowy stubble lining his jaw. He had such a strong face. A strong heart. A strong sense of right and wrong, which made his temper fit last night even more baffling.

Val sighed and scrubbed at her tired eyes. Maybe a shower would clear the cobwebs from her brain.

She padded into the bathroom and shut the door. The doctors had healed the serious damage from that disastrous raid but left the minor problems to resolve on their own. After her shower, she would need to reapply salve on her scraped hands. Most of the tub she’d brought from Dare’s was gone. She would finish that, then dip into the supply Stefan Harper had given her when she left the infirmary.

She turned the water on to let it heat. Giving it time, she dug the two tubs out of her toilet kit. They looked the same. Weird. She’d packed so quickly to leave the Collegium that she hadn’t noticed.

She unscrewed the top of one and found it nearly full, the surface smooth. This was the newer one, its lemon verbena scent refreshing. Finishing one before starting another was more efficient, so she opened the other tub.

The same scent of lemon verbena wafted across her nose. Val frowned, staring at the tub. Healers mixed their own salve. Lemon verbena was popular for its healing properties, but no one used the same proportion as anyone else.

Cautiously, focusing on the degree of scent, she sniffed the tub in her hand, then the other. The same scent touched her nostrils. The shades of pale yellow matched. The mixtures were exactly the same.

An expert tended you
, Dare had said, back at his place.

Not just any expert, either. The Collegium’s chief medical officer was in league with Griffin Dare. No wonder Dare knew so much about the Collegium operations, had such detailed intel.

How many other insiders had he co-opted? One was too many, a sign of poor attention to the Collegium’s own backyard by her, the Council, and the two shire reeves between her and Dare. The blasted place might be one big leak of information.

Val’s lips tightened. He believed his cause was just. She was beginning to think so, but there was still the little matter of his going scary-weird on her. That, too, they would settle this morning.

Griff forced his heavy eyelids open. Valeria was already up, and the shower was running.

He plucked his watch from the bedside table. Six fifty. Seven hours of sleep should’ve brought his blood venom level down a good bit.

Still, morning had arrived. He had no right to delay the reckoning any longer, not with Valeria’s fate also at stake.

Yet he couldn’t resist brushing his fingers over the dent in her pillow. Her light, honeysuckle scent caught in his nose, banishing the residue of ammonia that lingered there. He closed his eyes and could, for a heart-stuttering instant, feel her body in his arms, her lips on his.

She deserved to know what she was dealing with, including his venom problem. He rolled out of bed and scrounged in his bag for the kit.

Seated on the couch, he set the toximeter and a cotton pad on the rickety coffee table. With the lancet poised over his finger, he hesitated. If this was as bad as he feared it might be…He triggered the blade. It snapped against his finger, and a drop of blood welled from the tiny cut.

The shower stopped. A moment later, the bathroom door opened. Still in her pajamas, with dry hair, Valeria marched toward him. “What are you doing?”

“You didn’t want a shower? Or is something wrong with it?”

The cotton shorts bared most of her legs while the T-shirt draped the firm curves of her breasts. Those tanned, toned arms would feel smooth against his mouth. Under his hands.

In his dreams, maybe. Once he told her the truth, his chances of touching or tasting her were gone forever.

“Griffin, are you diabetic?”

“I wish it were something that ordinary.” He turned on the toximeter and let the droplet of blood fall onto its gray central screen. The blood disappeared. Green rippled outward from the point of impact, then black, and he held his breath.

“Then I repeat, what are you doing?”

Praying.
“Hang on a sec.”

Above the screen, the readout started to blink. A number formed, ten, but the readout was climbing. Thirteen, twenty-four, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-eight—oh shit, never that high before—forty-one, and his heart hammered in his chest. At forty-four, the numbers stopped blinking. Forty-four, a scant handful shy of the fifty-six marking the point of no return. The fifty-five he’d privately sworn was his limit.

It must’ve been in the fifties last night. He and Valeria were both lucky he hadn’t tried to kill her.

“Griffin.” She sat next to him, laying her hand on his forearm. Her touch ripped through him. It felt so sweet. He couldn’t bear to think that in moments she would withdraw it forever. “What’s wrong? You seem so…rocked.”

More like doomed.
Steeling himself, he looked into her worried hazel eyes. “I’m not diabetic, but I do have to check my blood levels daily. For venom.”

She recoiled, her eyes wide. She snatched her hand away from him, and his soul ached with the loss. “Venom,” she choked, “but only ghouls—”

“Yes. Only ghouls have venom in their blood, and I’m teetering on the edge of becoming one.”

V
al stared at Griffin’s grim face. She must’ve misunderstood. He couldn’t have said—

“Could you repeat that?” Her voice sounded tight, achy, like her chest suddenly felt.

“You heard me.”

“But that’s impossible. If you were about to—you were so rational last night, so gentle and strong. If you were a ghoul, you’d be…” Then she remembered, and the protest died.

“Also as I was last night.” Wearily, he ran a hand through his hair. “I would give a year of my life for that not to have happened. When I’m tired, the venom in my blood goes up. The more I overexert, the faster it spikes.”

“‘Overexert,’ as in flinging a loaded car six miles. Blowing yourself out.” Damn it, he’d gotten worse saving her.

“Or when I draw power faster than I should. But yeah, looks like I did have a blowout.” He reached for her hand, but stopped, balling his fist on his knee instead. She couldn’t bring herself to wrap her fingers around his.

“I meant to tell you this at the lake, then they came and—hell, it’s the story of our dealings, my meaning to tell you something and an emergency interrupting. I swear, if not for that, I would’ve told you before I let you throw in with me.”

The man she’d had dinner with last night would’ve told her. The one who’d almost hit her, maybe not. “What brings the level back down?”

“Rest. Frequent recharges.” He rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “That’s why I was living near the swamp. In that kind of atmosphere, with so much life around me, the recharge became unconscious, almost constant and without hurting anything. That’s the healthiest I’ve been in a couple of years. Venom-wise, anyway.”

“Except you’re tired a lot, aren’t you? Tired and discouraged.” She had no idea where that insight had come from, but it rang true. And made her heart ache for him. “Lonely, too. Why else would you kidnap the shire reeve to talk to?”

Griffin shifted to face her, and his drawn expression confirmed her guess. “I hoped you could quietly help unmask the traitor, but the attack on my place screwed up my plans. I’m sorry I dragged you into this unholy mess.”

“If you’re right about there being a traitor on the Council, the more people we can ‘drag in,’ the better.”

She hesitated, hating this topic as he must, but she had to ask. “How close are you to turning? I didn’t realize the process could be tracked.”

“I didn’t either, not until it happened to me. It started with battle wounds I had no one to heal.”

Venom wounds were an occupational hazard of fighting ghouls, but there was always a medical team on hand to take care of the venom as well as the actual wounds.

Unless you were a renegade.

He must’ve suffered horribly, and she hated that. “So the venom was too much for your system to handle, and you had no one to purge it.”

“Right.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Barring battle damage, I thought mages got venom in their blood from repeatedly working dark magic.” His frustrated gaze fell to the floor. “Hell of a way to find out you’re wrong.”

“Yeah.” He had venom in his blood but was now, again, the man who’d kissed her so passionately and touched her so gently. The man who’d been willing to die for her. If he were more ghoul than mage, he would’ve abandoned Val to her fate last night. For that tender, thoughtful man, she bit back her revulsion about the venom and took his hand.

He inhaled sharply, the muscle working in his jaw for a long moment. Then he raised her hand to his mouth and, still not looking at her, kissed it.

The gesture stabbed into her soul. There was too much good in him for her to write him off.

At least this morning Griffin’s hand, like his lips, felt warm, not cold and clammy. She laced her fingers through his, a silent offer of support. “You said you were teetering. What does that mean?”

He turned the little gadget in front of him so she could read the green forty-four on the gauge. “The level has never been that high,” he said in a grim voice, “and after the way I treated you last night, and considering that sleep brings it down and I’ve slept several hours since, I was probably on the edge of tipping over, of being done.”

“Define ‘the edge.’” Odd, how steady her voice sounded when her breath wasn’t working quite right.

If he turned ghoul, she could probably handle him. But losing him, seeing the ruin of all that strength, that courage and kindness…She couldn’t allow that to happen.

“Fifty-six is the lowest blood venom level measured in any ghoul, so that’s probably the point of no return. At least as far as my doctor, who’s something of an expert, knows.”

“Yes.” Val watched him closely. “Stefan Harper is the world’s foremost expert.”

Griffin’s fingers tensed, but his blank expression didn’t change. Casually, he said, “Can’t argue with that, but it’s not as if I can consult him again.”

Though she had expected him to stonewall, his evasion still hurt. Of course, her refusal to trust him fully until last night had to be rankling him.

She couldn’t control what he saw in her eyes, but she kept her voice and gaze level. “The time for you to lie to me, Griffin, is over. If I’m going to help you, I need the truth. Always. In return, I’ll be honest with you. I’ll trust you completely.”

The appraising look between them held until her neck felt tight. At last, he raised his eyebrows. “If you had any sense, you’d bolt out of here, turn me in, and try groveling as a path back into the Collegium. Valeria, if I tip without warning, I could kill you.”

“If,” she repeated, shrugging. That clutch in her chest, that lift at the sudden, amazed light in his eyes, didn’t bode well for the state of her heart, but she couldn’t abandon him. “Besides, since this mostly happens when you’re tired, I’m pretty sure I can take you.”

His expression turned grim. “You have to promise me something. If you ever look at me and you know I’m not myself anymore, that you’re looking at a ghoul, you won’t question me, won’t test me, won’t stall to consult anyone. You’ll take a kill shot without hesitating.”

“I can’t just—”

“You have to. Or else, I swear, I’ll leave you here.” When she shook her head, he added, “If that moment comes, you won’t be wrong, Valeria. You’ve seen enough ghouls. You’ll know. Hesitate, and I might kill you. Or worse.”

“You wouldn’t.” Last night, he’d stopped himself.

“I’d like to think not, but the numbers don’t lie.” He nodded down at the gauge. “Last night came way too close to violence to ignore. Promise me, Valeria.”

“After you saved my life, risked your own to come tell me that a catastrophe was not my fault? You were willing to die to protect me if I refused to run with you last night. And don’t think I didn’t notice you set us up so only you fired at the Collegium mages. I can’t kill you. I owe you too much.”

The mere thought of taking his life made her breath hitch, her soul flinch. Val swallowed hard. “There has to be another way.”

“If there were, don’t you think I would’ve found some hint of it?” He shook his head. “Ghouls are a perversion of magic, an unnatural bane inflicted on us and on Mundanes. I’ve spent my adult life battling them. If you were in my shoes, would you want to live as that?”

“No, but—”

“There are no ‘buts.’ As the saying goes, you’d be doing me a favor.”

Heart aching, she looked into his dark, agonized eyes. Behind his unhappiness lay resolve. He truly wanted this.

“All right,” she said. “I promise.” But if that moment arrived and she had any other choice, she would not sacrifice him.

“Okay, then.” His solemn stare seemed to pierce her soul, to see beyond the brave front she’d put on. “One way or another,” he said, “I’ll make things right for you with the Collegium. You’ll go home again.”

“We will. Right now, though, you’ll call Stefan Harper about the fastest way to bring your blood levels down.”

“Valeria—”

“The truth, remember.” She explained about the identical salves from her stint in the infirmary and her stay at his place. “Before you point out that Harper could’ve shared what he mixed, recall how you always told reeve cadets not to trust coincidence.”

His jaw tightened. He looked away, and she could almost hear the cursing going through his brain.

Tapping his chin with one finger recaptured his attention. “I can keep secrets,” she said. “You brought me into this, so why can’t you trust me?”

He threw her a frustrated look. “I told you not all my secrets are my own. I can’t reveal anyone else to you unless that person consents. I’ll call my doctor. My friends.”

“Fair enough. I’ll even take a shower and give you privacy for that. Then, unless Dr. Harper says otherwise, we’re going in search of food—the refuel part of blowout recovery.”

“Sounds good.” He stood with her and remained standing as she walked toward the bathroom.

“Valeria,” he said as she reached the door, “there’s something that might make you feel better about your promise, something you have a right to know anyway.”

His face was set in grim, purposeful lines. “I check my blood level faithfully, and I won’t let it reach fifty-six. If it ever hits fifty-five, I’ll commit suicide.”

Hard to believe, Val thought, as she watched Griffin drive down the winding road an hour later, that he’d so calmly said,
I’ll commit suicide.
How unfair that he had to face this venom problem along with everything else.

She knew as well as anyone, of course, that
fair
wasn’t a standard the universe particularly noticed. Yet he seemed to cope amazingly well.

To his credit, he’d always been resolute. Focused. He couldn’t have survived this long on the run if either of those traits had changed.

Everyone had a breaking point, though.

He glanced at her. “What’re you thinking?”

“Considering various problems. What you said last night about the ghouls and dark magic is scary as hell. If I’d known, I would’ve put deputies on it. You’ve found nothing?”

“Nothing specific. If you’d put people on it, depending on where their true loyalties lay, they might’ve covered it up.”

“Or killed any witnesses. God, I hope that isn’t what happened to Tina and this latest man, Jim Barcan. His tip led to my raid two weeks ago, but now he’s vanished.”

“After we eat and recharge, I’ll see if I can track them.” He turned onto a side road and glanced at her. “In his message last night, Stefan confirmed that your moonstone pendant let the Council scry us. It’s good you didn’t bring it.”

For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Gene trusted her even less than she’d thought. “It was a gift,” she managed at last. “From Gene. I swear I didn’t mean to lead them to you.”

“Easier ways to do that if you’d wanted to.” Shaking his head, he added, “I’m sorry, Valeria. I know he and his wife are important to you.”

More important than she was to Gene, apparently, and the knowledge burned deep in her soul. “If his trust is so easily lost, I never truly had it.”

They drove another mile or so in silence. At last, she turned in the seat to look at him. “I hate to say this, I really, really do, but I think someone on the High Council, not just one of the department heads, must be involved. They subverted my department. That points to someone doing it who outranks me as department head. Only the High Council members hold that power.”

“Could be someone else, but my gut says you’re right.” Griffin nodded to a green highway sign. “Carson, Georgia, population three hundred. It’s a little after eight. Probably not much open besides breakfast places.”

Around the curve lay a typical little Southern town. One-story shops with large front windows lined the highway—mostly brick, a few wood, many with aluminum awnings in front.

At the far end of the street, the road forked. A small patch of parched, brown grass in the fork held a statue of a Confederate soldier with the Stars and Bars on the pedestal. Above him hung the only traffic light in sight. As Griffin had predicted, the shops weren’t open, but a few cars sat by the curb a couple of blocks down.

“This place looks familiar,” he said, staring down the street. “I think I came through here a couple of years ago.” He pulled up to the curb behind the other cars.

LOU’S
, read the sign hanging under the flat aluminum awning two doors down. A painting of a BLT on white bread sitting by a glass of iced tea brightened the blue-on-white sign. That had to be the diner the motel clerk had recommended.

Here and there, straggly tufts of grass grew in the sidewalk cracks. Some of the shop windows bore smudges and streaks, as though no one had washed them lately.

“It looks like the kind of place people go mostly through, not to,” she said.

“Yeah, it does.”

Val let her fingertips brush the screened hunting knife she’d strapped to her belt. His dagger lay at the small of his back, also screened. They probably wouldn’t need weapons for breakfast among Mundanes, but you never knew when you might encounter a supernatural menace.

She climbed out of the car and waited for him. Looking at his tall, strong frame and his confident stance, she never would’ve guessed he carried potentially fatal venom in his veins.

He smiled at her, giving her pulse a giddy hop, as she fell into step beside him. Their shoulders bumped, and her face warmed.

He inhaled sharply. The glance he flicked her was hot, and Val’s mouth went dry. Good thing they were about to be among people.

When Griffin pushed the two-panel, glass door open, a bell jangled above it. The smells of bacon, toast, and coffee tickled her nose, and her stomach growled.

He held the door for her but edged inside in front of her. Val resisted the urge to poke him. She didn’t need him to protect her. When she stepped around him, she noticed what he must’ve already caught, a vague, disquieting sense of something not quite right.

His raised eyebrows offered her the choice, retreat or stay and investigate. She hesitated, but they needed food, had no other options nearby. Once they’d finished recharging, they could pin down the problem here. She walked farther inside, and the bell jangled again as he closed the door behind her.