The Dark Side (25 page)

We reached a junction in the corridor and the doctor I’d picked as in-charge held up his hand. Everyone came to a halt.

The doctor gestured to his right. “This is where we part company.” The team started wheeling Rhi away from us.

“Wait, where are you taking her?” I protested.

The doctor gave me a quick nod. “We’re going to do some more tests and see what we’re dealing with. If, uh, Lord Marco could come with us, someone will be along to see to the rest of you.”

“What are we supposed to do? Just twiddle our thumbs?” I snapped.

His expression suggested he really didn’t care. “Rest. Get some sleep. Our tests will take most of the day. There’s nothing more you can do right now.”

I felt a growl rise in my throat, suppressed it as Dan’s hand tightened on my arm. “How are you going to control her if she resists?”

“We have our ways.”

I didn’t see what they could be. As far as I knew the government actively discouraged weres from joining up and vampires were excluded on the basis of their inability to function in daylight. Though there were rumors about elite covert ops teams involving supernaturals, none of the soldiers with us were shifters. No human would be able to subdue a maddened vampire short of doing something that would probably kill her. I hoped that wasn’t their plan.

Maybe they did have drugs that worked on vamps. Or maybe the rumors were true and there was a squad of supernaturals somewhere in the building waiting to take charge.

“The Taskforce needs to be kept informed of your progress, Major.” Apparently Dan had no trouble with military insignia.

“Someone will update you regularly. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to attend the patient.” The steely shuttered look on the major’s face suggested he wouldn’t be answering any more questions. He turned on his heel and marched after the team.

“Can’t you do something?” I asked Dan. “You’re Taskforce.”

“The doctors need to do their thing, Ash. You can see her after that.”

“I just want to see where they’re taking her.”

He put a hand on my shoulder, rubbing it gently. “I know. But right now, you have to let them work. I’m sure she’s getting excellent care.”

I wasn’t. I didn’t trust anyone in this place as far as I could throw them. Probably even less than that. If I made myself think like a human—which wasn’t that hard since I hadn’t really gotten used to the fact I wasn’t anymore—then Rhianna not surviving this was the best possible outcome for the human population.

If she was dead, they could study the virus without risk to themselves. And come up with an antidote. I gritted my teeth. Fighting with Dan at this point wasn’t going to help. Luckily, a nervous-looking private came around the corner of the corridor before I had time to change my mind around that and told us he’d been sent to show us to our quarters.

* * *

The room they showed me to wasn’t any more inviting than the rest of the hospital. Obviously the army wasn’t in the business of lifting the spirits of anyone who stayed here. The walls were a dull shade of cream and the sole chair was gray-painted metal with black vinyl padding on the seats and arms. The blankets on the narrow single bed were gray too.

The only good thing about the room was that it didn’t smell like a hospital.

It let me pretend I was just in a really cheap and nasty hotel on a backpacking tour of some backwater European ex-communist country, maybe, and that just outside was rolling scenery and good beer. It was a nice fantasy for the thirty seconds or so it lasted. Then reality came back with a vengeance, rolling me in a wave of guilt and exhaustion.

It was an effort to stay on my feet. Thankfully the room had a small bathroom. I stumbled into the shower and tried not to fall asleep while I stripped, tossed my clothes out of the cubicle without looking where they fell and wrenched the taps on full. The pounding water—at least the place had decent water pressure—eased some of the tension from my body. Just enough to let me realize how truly awful I felt.

I dried myself off in a half-daze. I just wanted to sleep. Maybe even never wake up again.

I shucked off my towel and climbed into the sweats that had been left in a neat pile on the bed for me. Gray, of course.

Gray seemed appropriate. The color of bureaucracy. Of hopelessness.

A fitting end to this endless day and night that had started off in color but ended in pain.

I sat on the edge of the bed, drawing my knees up and wrapping my arms around them, the mattress barely dipping under my weight. Even though every part of me was crying for sleep, I couldn’t quite bring myself to lie down. Not when Rhianna’s face still danced in front of my eyes even when I pressed my face into my knees. Not when much worse than that might visit me in my dreams.

A soft knock made me lift my head just in time to see Dan slipping through the door.

“I wanted to see how you were.” He shut the door behind him. He wore sweat pants that matched mine and a white T-shirt with “ARMY” stenciled across the chest in more gray. His damp hair smelled like soap and water and Dan.

“I’m—” I stopped. Actually I had no idea how I was. Except that suddenly I didn’t want to be alone. “Better now that you’re here,” I finished with a half-smile that was the best I could summon right now. “You?”

He rubbed at the stubble scruffing his jaw. “Not my favorite day ever.”

“I’m not sure I even know what day means right now.” I closed my eyes, trying to ease the gritty, what’s-sleep-again feeling.

Somewhere along the line I’d passed through fatigue to that weird over-adrenalized but near collapse twilight zone that feels half-foggy, half-surreal. The state where you know you won’t sleep if you try, even when you’d kill to be unconscious. The state where your mouth tastes sour and tension lights your nerves to fever pitch even when you can’t move another inch.

The state where only someone’s arms around you can make any difference to how you feel.

I patted the bed. “Come over here.”

His eyes were cautious. “Is that such a good idea?”

“Right now, it’s the only one I’ve got. And, no, I don’t want to hear anything you might come up with.”

One side of his mouth quirked. “Ah.”

I closed my eyes again to wait, heard the click as he locked the door.

Another click and I knew he’d turned off the light. Then I heard him walk across the room, smelled him coming closer.

“Can you do me a favor?” I said as he lowered himself to sit beside me.

“Of course.” His voice was quiet and low, floating on the air like a drift of velvet.

I opened my eyes. There was enough light coming under the door for me to be able to just see his outline. I reached a hand out and ran my own fingers down the line of his jaw, feeling the prickle of his stubble against my fingertips. “Help me stop thinking.”

He sucked in a breath. “What did you have in mind?” That voice had dropped lower now, deeper. It curled through the air, sank through my skin and lit a spark low in my belly. The first good thing I’d felt for hours. Days, maybe.

“You,” I said softly. “Just you.”

“Ah,” he said again, bending his head into my palm. I pushed my fingers into his hair, feeling the heat of his skin under the cool of damp hair, slid them around the back of his head and pulled him toward me.

I wanted to taste him. Wanted the flash-fire I knew he could evoke. Wanted the flood of desire to drive away the rational thinking. Wanted hot and fast and NOW.

Dan, it seemed, had other ideas.

His kiss was slow. Gentle. Like he wanted to sink his lips through mine one fraction of an inch at a time until we melted into each other.

Every time I tried to answer him with more speed, more heat, he pulled back a little, until I decided to let him take the lead and surrender to the slow burn.

He eased me backward, covering my body with his, sending warmth floating through me, easing the small twinges and hurts in my body even as he started a whole new set of aches. Each kiss was slow and deep and true; an offering of pleasure to chase away the pain. The taste of him and the touch of his mouth and tongue as he kissed me sent me floating until I stretched from sheer pleasure, lifting my arms above my head in surrender.

Somehow my sweatshirt drifted off above my head.

Dan’s hands skimmed my bare skin softly like warm air caressing me. I sighed and settled into being stroked, letting him coax my muscles into relaxing one inch at a time with fingertips and mouth.

I let myself float in the bubble of sensation. Felt the need build in me. When Dan’s mouth finally closed over a nipple, I arched off the bed, pulling his head closer.

His answering chuckle shivered against my flesh, sending all sorts of wicked vibrations along my nerve endings.

My hands slipped from his hair to his shoulders, stopping when they hit thin cotton.

“Too many clothes,” I muttered, tugging at the T-shirt.

Dan laughed again but lifted his head and yanked it off.

That set us both off and slow and easy became a mad rush to divest ourselves of the barriers of cloth between us. In about a minute flat we were both naked and pressed face to face, breathing rapidly, his weight pressing me into the mattress in that way that made me shiver with pleasure. I couldn’t see the color of his eyes in the darkness but I knew they’d be hot silver if I could. The color they always were when the heat rose between us.

“Darn,” Dan muttered softly, skimming a hand over my shoulder and down my arm. “I’d just gotten you all relaxed.

I giggled and hooked a leg over his thigh. “I’ll be relaxed again in a few minutes.”

“Minutes?” He sounded insulted and I giggled again.

“I’ll give you minutes.” His head drifted down to mine and his lips feathered my ear, making me shiver again as the nerves sighed under his touch. “Lots of long, slow minutes. So slow you’ll want to scream.”

“I’m counting on it,” I said and drew his mouth to mine.

* * *

Great sex is meant to mean you wake up feeling on top of the world. I woke up feeling like I’d descended to the underworld. The hard way. Possibly hitting every rock on the way down. My ribs throbbed, my eyes burned as I peeled them open and every inch of me seemed to have a protest to register.

My mouth was drier than Death Valley. I sculled water from the glass on the bedside table and squinted through the darkness, trying to orient myself.

All too soon it all came back to me. Military base. Vampires. Rhianna. No wonder I felt terrible.

Sleep beckoned me back into oblivion. I fought the urge, yawning until my jaw cracked. I had no idea how long we’d been out already. I wanted to see Rhianna.

Dan’s warmth stirred sleepily behind me as I reached for the lamp. He muttered a squawk of protest as the yellowish light filled the room, his arm tightening around my waist to pull me back down to him.

I resisted. “Dan, wake up.”

“Ugh. Why?” He sounded like he wasn’t feeling any better than me but he let me go when I pushed against his arm.

His watch sat on top of the bedside table, next to a jug of water. I poured myself another glass, swirling the water around in my mouth in an attempt to wash away the gunk coating every surface before swallowing. I downed two glasses then reached for the watch.

Five p.m.

We’d slept for quite some time.

Exactly how long, I wasn’t sure. I’d lost track of exactly what time it had been when we’d reached the base but it had been barely midmorning.

Apparently even great sex and six or seven hours sleep wasn’t enough to make me feel better after the events of yesterday.

Which was slightly worrying. The full moon was just over a day away. I should be buzzing with energy. The fact I felt like a wet dishrag meant I’d pushed myself almost beyond even werewolf tolerances.

“C’m back here,” Dan mumbled.

I shook my head, poured another glass of water and twisted around to pass it to him. “Drink this. I’m going to have a shower. I want to see Rhi.”

“The doctors would come and get us if there was anything happening.” He cracked one eye open and held out a hand to beckon me back to bed.

I pushed the water into it. “No offense, but I don’t trust the doctors here. Their loyalty is to the government.”

“They take the same oath as every other doctor.”

“Yeah, and they can be ordered to break it.”

“You’re being paranoid.”

I shrugged. “Well, you know what they say about paranoia.”

He blinked at me, looking sleepy and scruffy. And pretty darn good. “It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you?”

“Exactly.” I slid from the bed, pausing when all my aches flared back to life as I straightened. I sucked in a deep breath, waited for the sensations to settle back to a dull roar. The sensible thing would be to change and see if that helped but I wasn’t sure I’d have enough energy to change back again and I didn’t think having to come up with twenty or thirty pounds of steak to refuel an overtaxed werewolf would endear me to the base staff.

“Rhianna’s here for her own protection,” Dan said. “We just want to help her.”

It was a little more complicated than that but I didn’t want to get into it until I’d showered, had some coffee and hopefully some food. Lots of food. For the first time in several days I was feeling hungry. Ravenous even. Maybe that was the pull of the moon kicking in. If so, I was grateful. I needed fuel. I got the feeling it might just be another very long night.

* * *

The female soldier on duty at the first office we found didn’t look particularly happy to see us. I couldn’t blame her. I looked like something Esme might have dragged in after one of her jaunts in jaguar form. Or, more likely, Andy; Esme was way too fastidious to bother with something as bedraggled looking as me.

But Dan looked and sounded commanding even in borrowed gray sweats. We were promptly escorted to another, larger office where we found Esme. She looked perfectly composed as usual, blond hair smooth, black suit unwrinkled, shoes gleaming black patent leather. Of course she hadn’t been through what I’d been through. She raised an eyebrow toward me as she took in my outfit.