sunfall (10 page)

“How soon will you know the results of the tests you want to run?”

“Days. But I don’t want to waste any time on the front end. We could get called away at any second, and God only knows what will happen then. And who knows—maybe the blood work will reveal something we can use to counteract whatever Brenner’s planning.”

She looked over my shoulder and I turned to follow her gaze, reluctantly breaking her gentle hold. Solana was conferring with Malcolm as the others filed out the door.

“I’m going to call Tonya,” she said quietly. “I don’t think the regular Consortium staff can be trusted.”

My skin prickled. Tonya had been a physician’s assistant of sorts at Consortium Headquarters until a few months ago when Valentine, in a fit of thirst and pique, had turned her. I hated the thought of Val’s lips pressed to Tonya’s skin, of her cries of abandon as Val stroked and sucked her into oblivion, of Val moving above and inside her.

“Baby, hush, it’s okay.”

Her words shattered the images cascading before my mind’s eye. Only then did I become aware that I was trembling. A nearly subvocal growl vibrated in the back of my throat, and I forced my panther to subside into the depths of my consciousness.

Val rubbed my lower back in slow circles, and I took a few deep breaths as I scanned the room to see if anyone had noticed my lapse. Fortunately, they were all caught up in their own affairs. When Val cupped my face and drew my gaze to hers, I began to apologize.

“No. You have nothing to be sorry for. The only thing I need to know is that you’re sure of me now. That you trust me to be true to you. To us.”

I rose onto my toes to nip at her chin, then soothed the spot with my lips. “I do.”

She searched my eyes, then smiled. “I like the sound of those two words.” But before I could reply, she stepped back and raised her phone. “I’ll make the call. Will you tell Solana the plan?”

I waited a respectful distance behind Malcolm and caught Solana’s attention when he turned for the door. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and her face was drawn and pale, but the anxiety that had seemed to crackle around her mere hours before had subsided. Our world was in chaos, but deep inside, she was at peace. I could empathize.

“Do you have a few minutes? Val would like to run some blood tests. They shouldn’t take long. She’s hoping this is the first step in pinning down the biological mechanism of the flower.”

Helen opened her eyes briefly, but for once her scrutiny didn’t leave me cold. I wondered whether the hell she’d just endured would temper her aggression, or at least her methods. Or perhaps Solana’s presence was responsible for the nascent change I felt in her.

“Go,” she said to Solana. “You need answers.” Her voice was barely audible, even to me. “Please ask Constantine to stay.”

Solana brushed the lightest of kisses on Helen’s shoulder before joining me. We met Val at the door and headed for the stairwell.

“Thanks for taking the time,” Val said as we ascended. The slight note of deference in her voice surprised and gladdened me. I would forever be in debt to Solana, and apparently, Val felt the same.

“What kinds of tests will you run?” asked Solana.

“I want to do a full workup, but that will take a while.” Val held the door for us both, and my shoulders tightened at the memory of having been shot in this very hallway only a few hours ago. Battling down both the flashback and my defensive panther, I retraced our earlier steps toward the laboratory.

We rounded the corner to find two pairs of guards flanking the door. All the blood had been cleaned from the floor and walls, and the antiseptic scent burned my nostrils. As we approached, the guards closed ranks, blocking the threshold.

Val halted and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Are we going to have a problem, gentlemen?”

One of the vampires, a tall, dark-haired man with a hooked nose, was the one to answer. “We can let you in, Missionary, but two of us must come with you.”

A chill ran over me at the sound of Valentine’s official title. I still thought of the Missionary as the brute who had turned her and in so doing dramatically changed the course of both our lives.

“Fine. We have one more joining us.”

I took the opportunity to check my phone while we waited. I’d missed a call from my mother. Her voice mail message was a rambling monologue about how she missed me and how many feet of snow had fallen in the latest blizzard and was I studying too hard. We were living in two separate worlds, and the disconnect between her questions and my life made me feel a sudden sense of vertigo.

But then Val brushed a light caress across my shoulders, the barest hint of a smile curving her lips when I met her gaze. Even now, acting in an official capacity before perfect strangers, she took the time to make me feel cherished. We had claimed each other in this brave new world, and I could miss my biological family without having to feel utterly adrift.

When Tonya appeared a few minutes later, I was careful to control my voice and expression even as I loosened my hold on my panther ever so slightly. Tonya flinched as she shook my hand, and I knew my nonverbal warning had worked.

“Let’s go.”

Instead of turning toward the records vault, Val led us down the intersecting corridor in the opposite direction. She paused at a door on the right to enter a code on the security pad attached to the knob. When the guards would have followed her inside, she shook her head.

“This is the only entrance and exit. Stay outside.”

The room was a laboratory, complete with workbenches and stainless steel shelves populated by all kinds of equipment. Val went to a drawer and withdrew two syringes, several vials, and a tourniquet.

“I want to run a full battery of tests on these samples,” she said as she rolled up her sleeves. “And for what it’s worth, I want to take a look right now as well.”

“What will you be able to see?” asked Solana.

“The parasite is visible through most microscopes,” said Val. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to tell anything about the effects of the flower, but I do remember what my blood looked like when the parasite was consuming it, so I can make some comparisons.” She looked to Tonya. “I’d like you to do a finger stick also, as a control.”

Once Tonya had moved on to Solana, I followed Val to the back of the room, where she turned on the largest of the microscopes arranged on the bench. After preparing a slide of her own blood, she bent over the device. I couldn’t help but hold my breath, and I had to force myself to think rationally. Even if the flower’s effects were already wearing off, that didn’t mean I was going to lose Valentine. The Tear of Isis bloomed in thirteen places across the world each month. In the short term, we could harvest it from another location. In the long term, we could try to synthesize it.

Val raised her head, confusion written plainly on her face. “I don’t know how to interpret what I’m seeing.”

My anxiety spiked and I worked to keep my voice even. “Describe it to me.”

“I can make out the parasite floating around in my blood, but it’s not all that prevalent. Mostly, I’m seeing something that looks like an altered version of the parasite, but I can’t tell what—if anything—it’s doing.”

“Compare it with mine,” Solana said from behind me.

As she examined Solana’s sample, Val frowned. “I see more of the free-floating parasite, than in mine, but also those other structures.”

“Try mine.” Tonya held out a slide.

“Normal,” Val said after a moment. She glanced at Solana. “Whatever the flower does, it’s expressing differently in each of us.”

“That may be related to how we consumed it,” said Solana. “It came to you in the blood of a Were whose soul is mated with yours. I can think of no more powerful combination.”

Val labeled each of the vials and handed them to Tonya. “Don’t take your eyes off these, and run them both through a comprehensive battery of tests, twice. I want to know everything we possibly can about what the flower is doing to our blood cells. When you have the results, call me.”

She turned to Solana. “As far as I can see, we don’t need to worry about what will happen in the short term. As soon as I know anything more, so will you.”

As we left the room and rejoined the guards, I wondered how Solana’s conceptualization of her own future had changed over the past few days. Did she want to remain at Helen’s side? If so, had she considered willingly making the transition to full vampire so as to join Helen in the darkness? Or did she worry that in losing the light, she would also lose her ability to love? Before hearing their story, I’d believed that an individual needed a soul in order to feel and express that kind of devotion. Now, I wasn’t so sure. Even during our separation, Valentine had fixated on me obsessively. Could she have learned a measure of compassion over time?

In my musings, I had fallen behind Val and Solana. Shaking my head, I picked up my pace and forced myself not to dwell on the repercussions of whatever complex processes were going on in Valentine’s circulatory system. Until she received the test results, we all needed to focus instead on the very real possibility that any minute, we would learn news of Brenner’s location. We had to prepare for every contingency and be ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.

*

An hour later, I threw open the doors to Valentine’s wardrobe, wondering where to start. While she returned to the bank to act on Malcolm’s orders, I had gone to the apartment to pack. Two large duffle bags stood near the door: one filled with cold weather gear and the other with lighter clothing. Now I surveyed Val’s gun collection. Doubtless, she would want to make her own choices about weaponry, but on the off chance that we received word before she returned home, I wanted to be ready.

I was just reaching for the largest of her sniper rifles when the door opened. As soon as I saw her face, I knew she hadn’t heard any good news. She pulled me into the living room and sat heavily on the couch. I curled into her and slipped one hand beneath her shirt to rub her taut abdominal muscles.

“What’s happened, sweetheart?”

“Not any one thing. More like a confluence of events.” She leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling. “Blaine is escalating quickly, and Caleb has yet to find any vulnerabilities that we can easily capitalize on. Though his people did uncover a possible connection to the drug trade.”

“Blaine might be the one managing it?”

“Yes. Though it’s still unclear whether he’s always had that role, or if this is something new.”

The fatigue in her voice made my heart ache. I straddled her thighs and combed my fingers through her hair, hoping to help her relax. “I take it his political connections are throwing up all kinds of road blocks?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” When my massaging touch reached the back of her neck, she sighed in pleasure. “To top it off, there’s still no word from Tian, and Summers’s people haven’t found any reliable leads as to Brenner’s whereabouts.”

I made my touch firmer in the hopes of distracting her. A breathy moan escaped her lips as I found a knot above her left shoulder, and the sound galvanized my desire. The urgency of the moment crystallized: we might have only minutes before we were called to action, and it might be days or weeks before we could be close again.

I needed her. Now. Pulling back, I whipped off my shirt, gratified to see her instinctively raise her hands to cup my breasts.

“No.” I slapped her hands away, and before she could protest, I pressed my right nipple into her mouth. She groaned against my skin, the hot swipes of her tongue electrifying me. The short, sharp thrusts of her hips were proof of her own arousal and I returned my grip to her hair, pulling her even closer.

The world disappeared as we moved together. When the ache between my thighs intensified, I unbuttoned my pants and guided her hand inside. My head snapped back in unbearable pleasure as she filled me, and I moaned her name between gritted teeth. Yanking her head away from my breast, I braced myself against the couch and rode her fingers slowly. She kept her hand still and let me set the pace. When I looked down into her eyes, she licked her lips.

“So hot, baby. I love you, and you are so, so fucking hot.”

I leaned in, exposing my neck. “Drink.”

She lunged for me, thrusting deep with her fingers as her teeth broke my skin. Ecstasy burst through my veins, dimming my vision as my body flowed for her, around her. Distantly, I felt her shudder against me and rejoiced that she too had found release.

Minutes passed before I could move. Finally, I pushed myself up, allowing Val to ease her fingers from my body. She stared at me in awe.

“What
was
that?”

I stroked the damp hair back from her forehead. “Us, my love. That was us.”

“We are awesome.”

My laughter caught me by surprise, and it felt so good. That was exactly the kind of sentiment I’d fallen in love with Valentine over. Despite her strained relationship with her family, despite having been turned into a vampire, Val had never lost her childlike exuberance until she had lost her soul. To see that radiant enthusiasm reappear in the wake of all she had been through over the past few months felt like a miracle.

“I love you so much.” I kissed her slowly, gently, enjoying the gradual build of heat between us.