Hidden Embers (25 page)

“I don’t think—”

“Oh, come on, enlighten us.” Quinn’s tone was even more mocking. “You’re the world-famous hematologist and infectious disease doctor. Surely you have an opinion on what you’re seeing.”

Jasmine’s eyes narrowed even as she told herself not to rise to the bait. Quinn was in a mood, and was clearly happy to play games with her. She very definitely was not joining in.

“My opinion is inconclusive at this point.”

“Screw inconclusive!” he snarled. Before she could so much as blink, Quinn was across the room and in her face. “You think I give a shit about your policies and procedures when my people are dying? Tell me what the hell you think is going on. I promise, we won’t hold you to it.”

“Quinn, she’s only been looking at the evidence for twenty-four hours. Cut her a little slack,” Phoebe cut in, putting a restraining hand on his arm.

For a second, he was about to shake her off, but then he relented. With a grimace, he took two large steps back from Jasmine.

“Sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m a little punchier than I thought. I was up most of the night.”

“It’s okay. You’ve been through a lot. No one expects—” Phoebe broke off at the searing look Quinn sent Jasmine’s way. Jasmine’s eyes widened. She suddenly remembered what he’d told her in the hotel room that first night. She hadn’t actually forgotten it, but with all the work on the virus and all the commotion over her feelings for Quinn, she hadn’t given it much thought. He was alone. Sad and suffering and desperate to connect to another person.

God, she really was a bitch.

She suddenly realized that Michael—the brother he’d said he’d lost—had been one of the dragons to die from this virus. She looked at Quinn and understood the desperation behind his kisses, the way he had tried to bury himself in her, in their pleasure, so he didn’t have to think about or feel anything else.

He blamed himself for his brother’s death. God knew, he shouldn’t—his research showed just how long and hard he’d fought to find a cure—but Quinn was the kind of man who believed he was responsible for everyone around him. She already knew that his belief that he was failing his clan was killing him, but believing he failed Michael must be the last straw. For a man who kept such tight control over himself and his world, this had to be a nightmare.

She wanted to say something to him, wanted to help ease his pain somehow. Before she could, Quinn crossed to his desk and started fiddling with his computer. Within seconds, he gave every appearance of being completely absorbed in work, but she knew he was as attuned to her as she was to him. She wondered if she’d been wrong the night before. Maybe he’d had some reason, besides wanting to be Mr. Macho, to insist on taking her to Phoebe’s house. Maybe she shouldn’t have fought him so hard. Maybe he had just been trying to protect her—and protect himself from losing someone else.

The thought freaked her out, and her self-preservation instincts kicked into overdrive. She wasn’t that woman, she reminded herself frantically, the one who worried about why her man did what he did or how her words and actions affected him. She didn’t pull punches, didn’t try to fit into the boxes men tried to put her into.

And yet, as she glanced over at Quinn, he looked so alone. So desperately, completely alone, despite the fact that Phoebe was perched beside him on the desk, filling him in on the discussion they’d had before he’d shown up.

Suddenly, she felt churlish, even though she knew she’d been right not to give her opinion on the virus. He didn’t look like he could take another disappointment, yet disappointment was all she had to offer. Because her gut opinion was that, in terms of this damn virus, the entire Dragonstar clan was completely screwed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

S
he’d been having little pangs of guilt all day, and she really didn’t like the feeling. He wasn’t the first dragon she’d infected by a long shot, but he was bothering her the most. Maybe it was the pictures of his children that were causing her all this grief.

What choice did she have? She was doing what she had to do to survive, she told herself firmly, ignoring the fact that she’d been surviving just fine before she met Brock.

Surviving, she thought, but not thriving. Here, she had to work for a living. She had to fight, if the need arose. She had to be ordinary.

But with Brock she wouldn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to, and ordinary wouldn’t even enter her vocabulary. He’d promised to marry her, to make her the next queen of the Wyvernmoons when this whole thing was all over. She’d seen how the last queen lived and couldn’t wait to get started.

She still had a few more things to do, one of which included dealing with the problem she was staring at on the closed-circuit television—as soon as possible. How to do it was the million-dollar question.

It was a shame the original plan hadn’t worked. After all, working as closely as he had with Michael, Quinn should have contracted the virus. The fact that he hadn’t astounded her and Brock, who wanted to step up the campaign. But she needed to get Quinn’s DNA before they could move forward—as well as come up with a plan to infect Quinn. He was entirely too strong, too suspicious. This was not exactly helpful.

She studied the television, looking for a weakness. Looking for anything she might be able to use against him. Brock was getting worried about the medical team Dylan had assembled.

It was only a matter of time, the Wyvernmoon had said, until they hit on a way to neutralize the virus. She didn’t agree. They looked like bumbling idiots to her.

Still, it was interesting to watch them, the three people Dylan had placed all his hopes in.
The moron
. As if two human doctors—Phoebe would always be human in her mind—and a healer who was so burnt out he practically sizzled when he walked could make a dent in the problem.

It would make her laugh if it wasn’t so pathetic. Especially considering how angry Quinn looked right now. What she wouldn’t give to hear what they were saying. It must be a huge deal because Phoebe looked pretty panicked.
What a wimp
. It galled her, bitterly, that after almost half a millennium, Dylan had chosen that milquetoast to be their queen.

She leaned forward, watched the screen intently, trying to read their lips. But Quinn had his back to her now, and neither of the females were talking.
Damn it
. She’d blown it when she’d installed the camera earlier that week; she hadn’t had time to hide the bug as well before Quinn had come in.

If she’d stuck around a few minutes more, she could have slipped it somewhere discreet, but he’d surprised her. She’d had to cut and run and hope to slip in some other time and finish the job. But after Michael got sick, security tightened, and her plan had gone to hell. It was almost impossible to be in the lab alone. Too much work was going on right now.

She enjoyed watching them scramble around like insects—or would, if it wasn’t for the new woman. She looked like a real hard-ass, completely different from cream puff Phoebe, and so she stayed in front of the screen, watching, long after she should have.

The new doctor probably wouldn’t find a cure for the disease—what did she know of dragons, after all—but she looked like she wouldn’t go down without a fight, either. Plus, everyone said she was some bigwig from the CDC, as if that made her their salvation or something.

As if.

Then again, it would really suck if she were wrong and that woman
could
figure something out. Though it pained her to admit it, Dr. Jasmine Kane looked absolutely competent.

Her phone rang, and she ignored it. It wasn’t the Dragonstar clan phone, but the one Brock had given her months ago. For the first few weeks, she’d jumped every time it rang, but then she’d figured out that was exactly what Brock wanted. It made him feel powerful, and the more powerful he felt, the more powerless he tried to make her. This was completely unacceptable—especially for a future queen. If she didn’t hold her own now, she never would.

She glanced at the clock. She knew why he was calling. She was late for their meeting. She didn’t want to go empty-handed, especially as the risks had tripled since Dylan and the other sentries had changed the safeguards. Of course, no one was supposed to know that, but she had her ways. Still, they hadn’t given anyone the incantation to dissipate them, which meant that while she could get through them—all of the Dragonstars could—she would leave a record.

By itself it was no big deal. After all, they weren’t prisoners. At the same time, she didn’t want anyone knowing her comings and goings. It was a risk, and an unnecessary one if she didn’t have anything to give Brock. This was a problem in and of itself. His goodwill—and interest in her body—only went so far. If she ceased being useful to him, she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to find someone else to help him. This would leave her with nothing.

She shook her head. There was no help for it. She’d just have to find a way to get back in the lab and place the bug. The camera wasn’t good enough, not at this juncture of the game. She needed to hear what they said, too.

She looked back at the camera just in time to see Quinn stare at the good Dr. Kane as if she were a banana split and he was a starving man. Kane didn’t notice, but she didn’t have the camera’s bird’s-eye view.

She’d thought the thing between them had just been two people blowing off a little steam, but now she wondered if she’d misread the situation. She’d known Quinn for a lot of years and had never seen him look like that.

Interesting. Maybe she wouldn’t be going to the meeting empty-handed after all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“C
ome on, I’ll buy you dinner.”

Quinn started at the sound of Jasmine’s husky voice right behind him. She’d done it again—snuck up on him when the dragon usually issued a warning when anyone got so close. Stupid beast. It was as infatuated with Jasmine as Quinn was, and in the end it would probably be to their detriment.

“You want to buy me dinner?” He sounded like a damn parrot, but she was flip-flopping so much it was a miracle he didn’t have whiplash.

“I do. Surely there’s someplace to eat around here that stays open until ten at night?”

“Yeah, of course.” He rubbed a hand over his tired eyes and tried his damnedest not to notice how good she smelled. Already, the dragon was scratching at him, wanting a repeat of the night before. But he was hyperaware of how gingerly Jasmine had been moving all evening. The fact that he’d done that to her, leaving her aching and angry, tore him up inside in a way the dragon couldn’t hope to match.

“There’s a twenty-four-hour diner a couple of blocks up. They make great pie.”

She widened her eyes in fake surprise. “You want pie for dinner? I thought doctors were supposed to know better than that.”

“And I suppose you plan on eating healthy?”

“Absolutely. I’ll add ice cream to my apple pie. That covers three of the four food groups.”

He laughed, then quickly straightened up his workstation. He was putting a couple of pens back in their spot in his top drawer when he realized Jasmine was watching him with a big grin. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. I’m just surprised at the fact that you’re a little OCD.”

“A little?” He snorted. “When I was a kid, my oldest brother used to sneak into my room and move things around while I was out with my friends, then hang around and see if I noticed.”

“Did you?”

“Always. I got my revenge though.”

“Oh yeah?” She grabbed her keys from her workstation and headed for the door. “And what was that?”

“I filed his arrow blades down right before a big archery competition, then replaced them with hollow tipped ones I’d spent weeks working on. Every arrow he shot that day went spinning straight into the dust and he couldn’t figure out why.”

“That’s ingenious!”

“I thought so. It was even worth the beating he gave me when he finally figured out what I’d done.”

“I bet.”

They let themselves out of the lab, and slowly worked their way down the hallway. He noticed that Jasmine smiled at both of the security guards they ran into, calling each by name as she said good night. He wasn’t sure what it meant or even why he noticed, but he found it interesting.

“So, how far away is this diner?” she asked, as they walked into the night.

“A couple blocks east of here. Why?”

“Do you mind walking? I’ve been cooped up all day and would love a chance to stretch my legs.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me. I’ve been inside all day as well.” Not to mention the fact that a walk would give him more time to talk to Jasmine, to get to know her.

He put his hand on the small of her back and guided her through the parking lot and onto the sidewalk. She stiffened at the first touch of his hand, but didn’t say anything. He hoped that meant he was making a little progress, even as he reminded himself that he wasn’t going to do this anymore.

One slice of pie never hurt anyone, a little voice inside of him whispered, and he decided to listen to it, even as his better judgment told him not to.

“I do have one question,” she said, as they strolled down the street. “I thought the arrows used in archery competitions had plastic tips. How did you manage to file that down?”

He stopped for a second, staring down at her. “Phoebe didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” She looked wary, and a little intrigued.

“I’m four hundred and seventy-one years old, Jasmine. When I was a child, the only kind of arrows we had were tipped in iron.”

“Yeah, right.” She laughed and shoved at his shoulder.

“I’m serious.”

She looked completely incredulous. “That’s not possible.”

“Why? Because humans have a much more finite lifespan? You took biology. You should know that different species have different life spans.”

“But you’re talking about living nearly half a millennium!”

“I am. Surely you read in my notes about our longevity.”

“Yeah, but I was thinking more along the lines of a hundred years, not…I don’t even know how long.” She looked him over from head to toe. “It’s not like you look like you’re on death’s door or anything.”