Hidden Embers (3 page)

Her words felt like fists plowing into him, but he was nowhere close to conceding defeat. “You don’t know that. More hands could just ruin everything.”

“I
do
know it. Because I’ve been in the lab with you every day since I got here. I know your strengths and weaknesses almost as well as I know my own. The way this thing changes in different people’s bloodstreams is amazing, and unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. We need someone who knows more about blood than we do if we want to stand a chance against it.”

Phoebe’s face revealed her bewilderment with the disease and her determination to beat it. Quinn stared at her for long seconds, tried to remember what it felt like to be so confident, so sure of one’s course of action. But Michael’s death had shattered him, left him reeling and without direction. Despite that—or maybe because of it—he just couldn’t see his way clear to bringing yet another scientist into his lab.

“But how do you know you can trust her?” he demanded. “I thought the CDC was bound by law and protocol to report infectious diseases?”

“Absolutely. But then, so was I, yet here we are.”

“You didn’t work for the Centers for Disease Control—in the infectious diseases department!” Quinn thrust a hand through his hair in frustration, felt his beast straining against the chains he bound it with. How could Phoebe—and Dylan—really be considering trusting a woman who spent her life conforming to regulations?

“You’re right. But so am I. Dr. Kane is different from most scientists. She has a truly open mind and a tendency to look at rules more as suggestions—especially when they pertain to her. She gets into trouble over it pretty often.”

“And yet the CDC keeps her?” Quinn had a hard time imagining that. He didn’t have a lot of experience with the Atlanta-based agency, but he knew enough about them to know that they took policies and procedures very seriously.

“I told you. She’s brilliant at what she does.” Phoebe glanced at him appealingly, but he refused to be swayed. Not when everything he’d worked for, everything his entire clan had worked for, was at risk. “The CDC puts up with her because they don’t have anyone else who can do what she can—in the most primitive conditions imaginable.”

“If she disregards their rules, she’s more than likely to disregard ours, as well. What’s to keep her from telling the world about us?” Quinn addressed his question to Dylan, who was looking as uncomfortable as Quinn about Phoebe’s defense of her friend.

“Because she’s incredibly steadfast when she believes in something, and will work herself into the ground to find a solution even when no one else can. She’s exactly who we need on this case, Quinn. Trust me. I promise you, she won’t betray us.”

Phoebe reached out a hand to touch him—to soothe him—but he shrugged her off. Arguing, he could handle. Sympathy would only make him lose control. Already he could feel the rage and pain eating away at his control. He struggled to keep it together for just a little bit longer. “It’s not you I don’t trust,” Quinn said in a voice that was way too close to a growl. “And you can’t possibly promise that. Besides, if she’s as brilliant as you say she is, how is she available to do this for us?”

“She was injured during her last assignment. Badly enough that she was flown back to the States and has had four operations in the last seven weeks. She’s better now—or so she says—but still on medical leave.”

Quinn absorbed what Phoebe was saying—and what she wasn’t—then glanced over at Michael’s body before he could stop himself. When Quinn looked at his baby brother, the last of his anger drained away, replaced by the devastation that was his constant companion these days.

It was hard to believe that his brother was gone, that
Michael
was gone. He would never crack another joke, never break another heart, never charge blindly into danger simply because he liked a good fight. He was dead—just like their parents, just like their other brothers. All killed in the fight against the Wyvernmoons. Though Michael was the only one who was a victim of the virus—all the others had died in combat, including his mother, who had been trying to heal Dylan’s brother when the Wyvernmoons got her—his death was no less the result of an attack.

The Wyvernmoons had finally succeeded in wiping out his entire family. There was no one left. Quinn was suddenly, completely, and absolutely alone in the world.

Sadness swamped him. He tried to throw it off, tried to get back to the wrath that was the only thing that had kept him going for far too long. Anger was so much easier to deal with than the despair that threatened to swallow him whole.

“Come on, Quinn.” Dylan’s hand fell on his shoulder, almost as if the other man could see the shift in his feelings. “Come back home with me and Phoebe tonight.”

“Why?” Quinn reached out a hand, ran it over Michael’s hair. Part of him expected his brother to wake up, to pop off some irreverent yet accurate remark. Twenty-four hours before, they’d been having dinner together, swigging down beer while Quinn teased Michael about his sudden interest in Caitlyn, one of Dylan’s female sentries.

Now he was dead—because Quinn hadn’t been smart enough or fast enough to save him.

“Because you look like hell,” Dylan said with his trademark bluntness. Phoebe gasped and tried to elbow her mate, but he pulled her into his arms before she could do any real damage—not that she was trying to.

“What Dylan means, Quinn, is that we’re worried about you.”

“Don’t be. I’m fine.” He pulled the sheet over Michael’s head and tried not to remember all the games of peekaboo they’d played when his brother was a toddler. His brother had been nearly thirty years younger than Quinn and the responsibility for taking care of him had often fallen on Quinn’s shoulders.

Those shoulders slumped abruptly, the weight of everything that had happened in the past year too much for him to handle. But he couldn’t lose it yet, he told himself. Not here, in front of Dylan and Phoebe, who were already looking at him as if he would blow a gasket at any moment—or rip a helpless bystander to pieces with his talons.

“I appreciate the offer, but I think I’m going to head home. I’m tired and I want to be alone.”

“That’s a crappy idea and you know it,” Dylan said. “Come back with us. A bunch of the others will be there, and you’ll be safe.”

“No one’s safe, Dylan. Haven’t you figured that out yet? This fucking disease is everywhere, and until we figure out how the hell to get at it, no one is ever going to be safe.”

His best friend’s face grew more alarmed, but Quinn just didn’t have it in him anymore to care. He shrugged Dylan off and headed for the door at close to a run. “Thanks for your help, Phoebe. Tell the nurses I’ll make arrangements for Michael’s body tomorrow.”

“I can—”

“I’ll do it. He’s my brother.”

And then he was out of there, his long legs eating up the winding stretch of hallway that led to the front door of the clinic.
His
clinic. He’d built it from the ground up fifty years before, after spending centuries working to heal the sick and injured members of his clan. Lately, it seemed that the only time he spent there was with someone in the last stages of this damn disease—most of his time was spent at the lab sorting through notes and blood samples and journal articles, searching for a way to end this thing.

Too bad he didn’t have anything to show for all that time away.

Slamming through the clinic doors as if the hounds of hell were after him, Quinn turned himself over to the night.

To the desert.

To the change that had already begun.

The streets of the sleepy little New Mexico town they inhabited were empty, but it wouldn’t have mattered if they weren’t. Nearly everyone in the town was a member of the Dragonstar clan and shifting was as natural as breathing to them.

As the cool night air brushed against his overheated skin, he stripped out of his clothes, then shoved them into the small pouch he was never without just as his talons burst through the ends of his fingers. He tied it clumsily around his neck, nicking himself with his claws as he did so.

He secured the knot moments before his human side lost the last vestiges of control.

His bones cracked, rearranging themselves, and his wings ripped through the muscles of his back. His skin cooled rapidly, slicked over, as fire burned along his nerve endings. It kindled a flame deep inside of him and for long moments, the agony—and ecstasy—of the change ruled him.

When it was done—when he was dragon—he launched himself straight into the air. And then he flew.

Cloaked in the invisibility every member of his race was gifted with, Quinn spun and whirled through the air. He climbed high, then shot straight down toward the ground, pulling up only at the last possible second. Did it again and again as he flew through hundreds, thousands of miles of darkness, his speed rivaling a fighter jet’s. His only thoughts were of escape and freedom and fire.

The headlong rush away—from death, from failure, from himself—went on for hours. Through night, into day and back again. He soared over the beautifully barren deserts of New Mexico and West Texas, cruised over the cement jungles of Dallas and Houston before heading toward the verdant lushness of Louisiana’s bayous. From there, he flew high above the wide, muddy banks of the swollen Mississippi River, following it for hours before circling back toward the Southwestern deserts that echoed with the same loneliness he felt inside himself.

When he finally returned to his senses, Quinn forced himself to land—he needed food and sleep—and the pain began all over again.

The shift from dragon to man happened much more quickly than the reverse, but it was just as painful. His talons retracted at the same time his wings did, and then he was shrinking, his bones cracking, re-forming, knitting seamlessly together. His skin was the last to change, going from green and scaly to smooth and tanned, and within a couple minutes Quinn was dressed and walking down an almost deserted street in search of distraction. He found it in the guise of a large, dilapidated bar standing in the middle of a large parking lot at the end of the street. The half-lit sign above the door proclaimed that he was entering the Lone Star, which meant he was somewhere in Texas and almost home after a flight that had taken him more than halfway across the country.

But where in Texas was anyone’s guess. Navigation had been the last thing on his mind when he was flying, and now that he’d landed, the truth was he really didn’t give a damn. He liked the anonymity of not knowing where he was or when he would leave, liked that there were no rules, no responsibilities, no regrets. At least not here. Not now.

Slipping silently into the bar, Quinn did something he hadn’t done in at least three hundred years.

He very deliberately went looking for trouble.

CHAPTER TWO

S
he stood in the shadows of the clinic corridor, quietly watching. Waiting. It was far from the most glamorous place she’d ever hung out, but these days it was one of the best, especially with its easy access to the king’s mate and the clan’s best, most important healer.

Not that she didn’t have access to them in other places—she did. But in those other places she also had responsibilities. Duties that often took her far away from where the action was. Duties that were important enough that people would notice if she wasn’t performing them.

Not like here, where she could just step into the background when she wasn’t working and observe the illness and pain, the desperate struggle for survival that so often gave way to resignation and death. Especially these days, when disease lingered in every hall. Murder in every examining room.

And if anyone spotted her—which was unlikely—at least she always had a valid reason for being here at this hour. A few tears for a lost clan member or a complaint about her current medication. A grumble about working overtime. All three were easily believable—and might even be true, if she bothered with her medication anymore. But she didn’t, and hadn’t for nearly a year now. Not since she’d met Brock.

Two orderlies came down the hallway, rolling what she could only assume was Michael’s body, as it was covered with a sheet from head to toe. She watched as the men moved toward the long elevators at the end of the hall that would take them underground to the morgue.

The place used to be as dead as the people it housed, as her species had a tendency to live—if not forever, then long enough to make the distinction negligible. But lately, it had been the hottest ticket in town, thanks partly to her.

She often wondered if she should feel regret. Sadness. Horror that her clan was just one outbreak away from extinction. Guilt that by the end her role in the spread of the sickness would be completely indisputable.

Maybe she should feel that way, but the truth was she didn’t. She couldn’t—how could anyone really expect her to care when no one had ever cared for her? Not really. Not as she’d needed to be cared for. Not as she’d needed to be loved.

Oh, to this day they patted her on the head like a favored pet, let her close to the king. But she wasn’t trusted with his most important secrets, wasn’t trusted with his most complicated plans.

Not like her brother, who was one of Dylan’s most faithful lapdogs. Not like her parents, who had both died in service to the Crown like the faithful subjects they were. No, she was nothing but an amusing little distraction—fun to watch but never taken seriously.

But that was their problem—and their mistake. Because these days she was no one’s amusement…and no one’s lapdog.

She felt in her pocket, a nervous gesture meant to reassure herself that the syringes were still there. Though they weren’t meant for her—had in fact been very precisely calibrated for clan members living much more public lives than she—it still made her nervous to carry them around.

She’d seen Michael die; she had even been there when the king’s sister had succumbed to the disease a few months before. After witnessing those deaths, she was only sure of two things—one, that she didn’t ever want to piss the Wyvernmoons off enough that she made it to their hit list. And two, that when the time finally came for Brock to spring his trap, Dylan and his precious council wouldn’t know what hit them.