Immortal Flame (3 page)

He stared at her.

Her pulse pounded in her ears.

Finally, he complied, scowling at her until the hairs rose on her arms. His eyebrows quirked as if he wanted to ask a question. Tension radiated from bunched muscles as he lay stiffly, his substantial frame nearly covering the entire bed. While she unwrapped the bandages and examined his scalp, he stared at the ceiling. A nurse returned and held up the Xylocaine so Allison could draw it up into a syringe.

After she irrigated the wound, the flap wasn't bleeding as much as when he'd first entered the ER. Actually, most of the area that had been pouring out blood earlier had healed, leaving a simple laceration to repair.
Bizarre
. Scalp wounds often appeared worse than they actually were. Maybe that was the case here.

When she injected the Xylocaine, she had to double check that Peter was conscious, because he didn't flinch when she inserted the needle. She brought the skin edges together, the squeak and click of the skin stapler uncomfortably loud in the trauma bay. Heat poured off his skin, and that strange vibration traveled through her gloves. Although she surreptitiously shook her hand out and used instruments to manipulate his wound edges, the vibration continued, like her hand hovered a millimeter above a high-voltage power line.

Damn it. Not again.

She threw the gloves into the trash and rubbed her hands on her scrub pants, praying her fingertips would stop buzzing. She scooted the stool around to the side of the bed while a nurse removed the laceration repair tray.

“All done,” Allison said.

Peter sat on the side of the bed, the hospital gown covering most of his thighs. His large hands rested on his knees above long, muscular lower legs dusted with dark hair. His corded forearms flexed as he leaned forward.

Her heart skipped a beat when he locked those dark eyes onto her.

With the room now empty of staff, the silence crackled like someone had flipped a switch to that same high-voltage power line. She cleared her throat to talk, but he interrupted her.

“Can I leave now?”

She sputtered. “Excuse me? No, you have a head injury.”

He snorted.

“You need to stay overnight for observation.”

“Not going to happen.” He stood, towering over her.

She instinctively reached out to steady her patient.

Electric fire coursed through her hand where she touched Peter's naked forearm. Her hand ached, burned, and froze all at the same time. Terrible pain smothered her in an unending, red-hot haze.

Her gift—randomly seeing the death of the person she touched—went haywire. She'd never seen annihilation of human beings like this before. Too much, too quickly. She couldn't filter the images, couldn't control the rate of input into her mind.

Images jammed into her head. Blazing agony was the frame upon which this vision took shape. Blurs of activity and roars of sound coalesced into specific people and objects. Fields were littered with bodies … soldiers? But the uniforms weren't right. It looked like an army hospital, but the equipment seemed older, much older. In a blink, there was a flash of light and a scalding ache in her arm.

Then the image shifted to a woman's face … her sweet smile … then she shriveled into herself and became a living skeleton with eyes sunken deep into her face. The woman's pitiful sobs hit Allison like a punch to the abdomen. Then a man appeared, his features obscured in dark smoke except for a malicious smirk. Instinctively, Allison recoiled from the waves of evil emanating from the man. How did she know that he was evil? She mentally shrugged. In whatever manner she experienced this vision, she simply knew for a fact—could feel—that this man promised nothing but horror to anyone around him.

A familiar large, tanned hand reached out as if it came from within her body and shook the evil man's smoking hand. Relief washed over Allison, along with hope ...

Then a terrible realization.

Horror iced her veins and settled like a frozen fist clenched inside her chest. By some twist of her already warped powers, she had moved inside Peter's mind. The only question: did these visions represent his imagination or real experiences?

Unable to control the visions, her mind's eye was forced in a different direction. She saw the skeletal woman again, this time her round face full of life, with a doting young man by her side and a baby on her hip. Bittersweet happiness turned to pain as it lanced through Allison's chest and then the image disappeared, only to be replaced by more visions.

Piercing screams, hands reaching for her but only grasping air, bulging eyes staring at the end of their lives, painful gasps—her vision presented a parade of horror that had no end.

For what felt like an eternity, she simply watched people die. Asian men in green uniforms, then dark-haired, olive-skinned men. People died from the hands that seemed to be a part of her. Blood spurted from knife wounds coming from one specific weapon, a blade about a foot long and glowing green. People collapsed as the tanned hands released from around reddened necks. In her vision, she heard reports of gunfire, but always the vision returned to the eerie knife.

Another jolt of power and hope washed over her, followed by crushing, deep despair. After the hands let go of a neck, the knife plunged into a body. Again, she felt a burst of hope and then despair.

This connection with the visions had never happened before. She had no idea why, but the texture of her usual visions had changed in such a way that she was actually experiencing killing people. Never before had she been the cause of the pain. Never had she felt her own hand push a weapon and rend bone and flesh.

So much death, so much suffering—like a superheated vase in a kiln, Allison's soul began to crack. Trapped in the vision, she couldn't breathe, couldn't call for help. The pressure in her mind threatened to tear her apart. She'd seen death before, but never in this vicious way. Never this real, this immediate. Never was she the killer.

Suddenly, she was lying on the hospital bed. Peter's black stare filled her sight.

• • •

Peter's life seemed to stop and start the instant the gentle doctor touched his arm. The emotions reflected in her lovely emerald eyes shifted from concern to unrelenting agony as her pale lips pressed together and blood drained from her face. Physically connected as they were, he caused her suffering, and he hated himself for it. But, oh, he did love that rush of raw power that flowed from her hand into his body. He'd never felt anything like that electric power before. Did the voltage surge have to do with this woman, or had his inhuman state suddenly changed? The flow of power had to be from the woman now curled on the floor.

According to his blasted, ever ticking watch, the experience had lasted mere seconds in real time, but to him it was an eternity of blissful freedom.

Somehow, her contact had lifted the weight from his long-suffering soul. Everything was gone: the guilt after each kill, the disappointment that he would have to continue killing, the pain from his ultimate sacrifice too many years ago. The succor was like sunlight and fresh air in his stale lungs. Standing this close, she even smelled of a bright, sunny day or a clear mountain stream. And he craved more. He craved her.

They'd connected in a way he'd never known with another person, human or otherwise. He thought he'd left the balm of human touch behind many decades ago.

He had been wrong.

Maybe there was some humanity left. Then again, maybe not, since he also wanted to feel this way forever, despite what it would do to this woman. A shocking, delectable mixture of raw power and protectiveness washed over him.

He no longer wanted to leave the hospital.

Peter wanted more.

More of this energy, this control.

More of her.

But now, with their connection broken, his soul grew dark and empty, as though his loss from years ago had happened once again.

Careful not to touch her skin, he slid his hands below her shoulders and knees. When he brushed his lips over the strands of silky hair that had come loose from the clip, he inhaled her scent of fresh air and flowers. Her delicate frame fit next to him like a puzzle piece.

A puzzle piece he didn't want to let go.

When she moaned, he willed himself to relax his tight grip.

He could kill any human with his bare hands, and on one level, that ability had served him well. On the other hand, that power reminded him of the creature he had become and the terror he'd been forced to deliver. His unnatural strength was a side effect of the price he had paid to save someone he loved.

He gently laid her on the hospital bed.

When her eyes fluttered open, her brows furrowed until she focused on him. The intensity of her green gaze hit him like a sucker punch to the jaw. Unable to look away, he was entranced by flecks of gold, like bits of glitter, swirling in her irises.

She gasped, trying to sit up. “Oh my God, what did I just see?”

When he pressed her back onto the bed, another protective urge swamped him. Unfortunately, a competing desire to touch her skin again so she'd lift away his darkness nearly won out. He crouched over her, muscles clenching as he fought to keep his hands off of her. He'd never been so close to losing control.

Peter wanted to smooth the worry lines from her forehead. The thought rattled him.

Terror etched upon her fine features as she pressed her soft lips together. “What are you?”

He rubbed his jaw, focusing on her. “What are
you
?”

“I'm an ER doctor.”

She eased into a sitting position and brushed away tears. When he stepped away from her, she swayed on the bed, and he caught himself reaching for her again. He dropped his useless, cursed hand.

She pinned him with a heart-stopping stare. “I saw horrible things. What are
you
?”

Blind to everything around him except the woman sitting on the bed, his desperate anger radiated outward in waves.

He gripped her upper arms covered by her lab coat. “Tell me what you saw. Please.”

She winced when he didn't let go.

“What. Did. You. See?” He shook her slightly. “What?”

Her lip trembled as tears pooled in her green and gold eyes. Peter froze. Frustration threatened to overpower him as he stood a hair's breadth away from her. He was close enough that a delicate floral scent filled his nostrils, almost enough to distract him.

“I … ” She licked her soft lips, commanding his attention. “I saw death.”

Peter shoved her away as though she'd burst into flames. Not possible. All these years, all the hiding. Did she know who he was?
What
he was?

Her lower lip quivered. He stared at her mouth, wanting the touch, wanting her. He leaned forward, pulled as if by an invisible thread. Where did that desire come from?

I have no feelings
.

He had to get out of here. His presence meant this woman and the people of this town were in grave danger. Usually he didn't care, but something had changed. He needed to figure out this mess and fast.

“Ahem, excuse me.”

He whirled toward the voice behind him.

An older woman stood at the door, eyebrows raised.

He pointed to the bed. “She fainted.”

The woman rushed over, putting her hands on the doctor's shoulders. “Dr. Al, are you all right?”

She touched her own cheek with a shaking hand. “Of course. I got a little lightheaded. All fine now, Marcie.”

Al
.
That's an odd name. Allie suits her better, has a bright ring to it. A name full of life, just like Allie.

“And you?” Marcie pinned him with a narrowed glare.

He turned his rarely used charm on the woman. “I feel great.”

Smoothing her hair into place, Marcie batted her eyes. “Ahem. Well, there's someone here to see you.”

Peter broadened his smile, working hard to distract her from a too-pale Allie, who swayed while sitting on the bed. “Who?” He didn't know anyone in La Grande.
Oh no
,
not
—

“Your brother, Dante. He's given me all the information for insurance purposes, too. Very helpful, your brother.”

Peter groaned. What bogus information had his friend fed the receptionist?

Marcie blinked and then focused on Allie. “Doctor Al, can I bring him in?”

Allie nodded, getting off the bed, but she kept her palm on the edge of the mattress. The pallor of her face nearly matched her white lab coat. What exactly had she seen?

With a doe-eyed expression, Marcie ushered in Dante and exited the room, letting the door swing shut behind her.

His friend pounded Peter on the back. “Peter! You're okay.” Dante still spoke with a trace of his Swedish accent, even after all the centuries.

The doctor's eyes widened.

Peter's heart felt like it had dropped to his feet.

Dante could have passed for a blond god straight out of the Scandinavian pantheon. Put a hammer in his hand and he was Thor reincarnated. And, in Peter's opinion, he was also a colossal, swaggering mess of a Don Juan.

Beneath the tailored silk dress shirts and slacks he favored, Dante was a predator, and beautiful women were his preferred prey. Not to kill but to seduce. One of his favorite pastimes was racking up conquests. Peter had to keep Allie away from him.

Too late
.

Dante's eerie blue eyes locked onto her. Peter stepped in front of her, but Dante easily shouldered him aside.

“Well, hello, madam.” He produced a thousand-kilowatt smile that any Hollywood actor would be proud to own. “Dante Blackstone. You must be the beautiful doctor who saved my brother's life.” He offered his massive hand.

Allie stepped back and thrust her hands into her coat pockets. One light brown eyebrow raised, she studied Dante. No two men appeared more
unlike
than the Blackstone “brothers.” Was she immune to Dante's charms? Peter had never seen the big man fail. Ever.