Damion let out an audible sigh of relief while palpable tension banded around Sterling.
“I know this sounds silly, but I have this sense of illusion. Like someone made one or both of you see something that wasn’t there.” She shook her head. “I have to think, to process, and see if I can make sense of it.”
“I’ll go,” Damion said. “Thank you, Becca.”
“Thank you for trying to save me,” she returned with sincerity.
Surprise flickered across his chiseled features, quickly masked. He inclined his head and turned to leave. Neither he, nor Sterling, acknowledged one another, the strife between them still too raw. Somewhere in the midst of what she’d experienced between these two, she’d felt friendship and trust—sadly, now torn apart.
As Damion made tracks for the door, Becca’s gaze collided with Sterling’s, his face guarded, impossible to read, but she didn’t need to read his expression. She felt the need in him, the sudden, possessive desire, the white-hot lust, and fear—fear he was losing her, like he somehow needed her before she was gone. It all rolled off of him, a part of the tidal wave she’d sensed in him before, crashed into her, and silently pulled her toward him, engulfing her with the force, demanding response.
Respond she did. Desire pooled low in her stomach as heat slid along her skin. Shaken by his ability to provoke such instant lust and how easily she could forget the danger of the blood on her hand, she cut her gaze.
“I have to wash up,” she said, rushed to the sink, and turned on the water, all the while trying to understand what was happening. How had she gone her entire life without ever finding this kind of passion? Sterling appeared by her side and offered her a bandage he’d unwrapped. He frowned as he looked at her hand. “You shouldn’t be bleeding that badly.”
“I’m fine,” she said, taking the bandage, but of course, she wasn’t fine. Her heart sputtered and threatened to stop. It was how she’d bled during cancer treatments, when her blood had stopped clotting properly. Right then she realized what she’d done, what she’d sworn she would not do. She’d found hope, and hope had once again stomped all over her.
She covered the cut without looking at Sterling, and then forced herself to turn to him. “I should get back to work.”
“We need to talk about what just happened.”
She desperately wanted to touch him, to tell him she’d seen nothing but a hero in those flashbacks, but if she did, they wouldn’t stop there. And she could feel the blood oozing through her bandage. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.” She tried to sidestep him. She needed to run tests, figure out what was happening, and keep Sterling away from her blood.
Before Becca could escape, she was in his arms. Warmth slid through her limbs, and she wondered why she had wanted to. But the minute her hand settled on his chest, another splintery piece of information pierced her mind, a memory both he and Damion had shared. “Caleb wants to use me to get to Dorian.”
Sterling’s expression darkened. “You’re not doing it.” He picked her up, set her on the desk, and stepped between her legs as if he belonged there.
“I have to do it,” she said, ignoring his order, shaking inside at the idea of contact with Dorian, but knowing this was the right thing. “I want to do it.”
He stared down, dark shadows swirling in his eyes. “No.” He pressed his hand to hers where it still rested on his chest.
Becca sucked in a breath, realizing her hand, her bandaged hand was on his chest, like she’d subconsciously put it there.
Sterling’s fingers slid to her face. “He almost killed you last night.”
A terrifying, familiar reality. “But he didn’t, and I’m learning to use my abilities. I’ll be okay.” She would be okay. She let those words fill her, convinced herself she believed them. And she did, until he lifted his hand, now covered in the blood seeping from her wound.
Sabrina delivered a drink to a forty-something, bald guy at the blackjack table. He grabbed the glass and did another long inspection of her cleavage as he dropped a chip on her tray. A flipping dollar. Her gaze slanted over the ring around his finger.
She leaned forward, next to his ear. “Let’s invite your wife for a little ménage, shall we? Should I go find her?”
He went completely still and then dropped a green chip on her tray. She caught a glimpse of his ruddy face a moment before he turned back to the cards, and she all but laughed. Wife threats worked every time.
Of course, the tips were just for fun. She kept this job as both a cover and a way to scout local marks that happened through the casino, flashing credit cards and addresses.
Not anymore though. Soon “Madame” was going to be on top with whoever could get her there. Iceman. Tad. Hell, she’d resort to the Renegades if she had to. She was, after all, about to get to know them up close and personal. Of course, if she worked herself into the Renegades’ inner circle and killed Rebecca Burns as Tad wanted, they wouldn’t like her much. She shrugged. There was only so much friendship to go around.
It was an hour later when she strutted through the kitchen to the back parking lot, ready to take on her Madame role. The hot Vegas night slammed into her with a force of a two-by-four, and she felt a bit weak in the knees. The way she felt when she needed a hit of ICE.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Becca jerked her hand from Sterling’s chest with a gasp and grabbed her lab coat, wiping his hand clean. “Are you nuts?” he asked. “Stop worrying about me. I’m worried about you.”
He pulled her to the sink and washed her hand. She squeezed her eyes shut and told herself he healed quickly. There would be no open wound for her blood to seep through. And with his macho protectiveness in high gear, it was clear she had no option but to cave and let him tend her hand.
A phone call to Kelly, and then they drew her blood and rushed it to Sunrise City via one of the wind-walkers. Then the waiting began. She wanted Kelly to run these results, to see what was there, to assure her the Lifebond connection had not put Sterling at risk. Becca sank into the desk chair and tried to work while her testing was evaluated, but she was silently panicking. She hadn’t had time to talk to Kelly about the changes in her blood since the mark appeared, and she couldn’t bring it up in front of Sterling. An hour passed, and Becca read through the GTECH research Kelly had emailed.
Sterling hovered and paced, then hovered and paced some more.
With a frustrated grumble, she shoved the doughnut box shut and rotated in her chair to bring him into view, resting her arm on the back. “That’s it,” she said. “No more sugar for you. Don’t you have an ICE dealer to go hunt down?”
“We should go to Sunrise City,” he said. “Right now—wind-walk there and let Kelly run proper testing on you.”
That he worried about her touched Becca deeply, but it also told a story. He’d insist on saving her if he knew he could, and that was even less an option now. Dorian could kill her and Sterling with her, if they were bonded. “Far too much time has been spent on me and my health issues,” Becca insisted. “We need to focus on an immunization and a cure for ICE addictions.” She left off the part about capturing Dorian, because she didn’t want to argue about why she should or should not be involved. She was going to be involved whether he liked it or not.
“Once you’re there, you can work more closely with the medical team,” he argued.
So much for not delving into Dorian territory. “We both know why I can’t go hide in Sunrise City. And anything medically wrong with me makes what I have to do here more urgent.”
“You’re not going to be bait for that freak son of Adam’s,” he said, his voice as hard as his stubborn head.
“Macho bossiness doesn’t work on me,” she assured him. “My father and my brother were both macho and bossy, and it got them nowhere. The entire reason you came in search of me in the first place was to stop Adam. And if I can help do that, I am going to do it.”
“You’
re not,” he ordered.
“Stop being unreasonable,” she ordered right back. “You’ve taken on protecting me like it’s your duty.” She pointed at him, his mouth already open to argue. “And don’t say it is. Protecting this country—at this point, all of humanity—is your duty. Not one woman.” And damn it, she didn’t want to be his or anyone’s duty.
She drew a determined breath. He needed to leave before Kelly called with her test results in case something about their Lifebonding showed up. “If you can’t remember that fact, then you and I…well, we can’t…then I need to stay in another apartment.”
His expression darkened, and he took a step toward her. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” she said, choking on the words. “I…it’s for the best. So we both remain objective about our decisions.”
“I’ve been in your head too, sweetheart,” he said, the distance gone between them. He towered over her, his fingers teasing a strand of her hair, his stare heavy as it rested on her face. “You’re trying to protect me like you’ve been protecting your mother. I don’t need protection.” He paused, his eyes boring into her with dark emotion pouring from him into her. “I protect you. You don’t protect me.”
People who loved each other protected each other, but she didn’t say that. She didn’t say anything.
“You can’t push me away,” he said softly. “I won’t let you.
Becca squeezed her eyes shut against an unexpected sensation—the heaviness in her chest. Damn it. She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t. She couldn’t. She was past crying.
Sterling’s hand cupped her face, and she leaned into the touch, unable to stop herself, all her good intentions at pushing him away lost.
The computer buzzed, and Becca’s stomach twisted in a knot. Trying to hide her apprehension, Becca forced her eyes open. “I need to do this alone.”
“No,” he said, his hardheaded stubbornness roaring to life yet again.
“Please,” she said desperately. “I want to talk to her by myself. I need to deal with whatever is wrong alone first.”
“You aren’t alone,” he said, and leaned over her and punched the computer key.
Resigned to defeat, Becca turned to the monitor as Kelly’s image came into focus. “Okay, Becca,” Kelly said wearily, her blonde hair piled haphazardly on her head with what looked like a pencil. “Here’s where we are. Your blood count is all over the place, but we have no conclusive cause for the bleeding. I’m working on more detail.”
“I had clotting issues during cancer treatments,” she said.
“This doesn’t mean your cancer is back,” Kelly said sternly. “Stop thinking like that. I don’t see any proof of any such thing.”
Becca filled in the unspoken blank. “Please don’t coddle me, Kelly.”
Kelly pursed her lips. “I’m not. Stop trying to make this something it isn’t.” Sterling’s hands settled on Becca’s shoulders. Strong. It would have been comforting if Becca didn’t so desperately need to talk to Kelly alone.
“Bottom line is this, Doc,” he said. “What does all of this mean for Becca?”
“We want her to dose again and draw her blood immediately after.”
“Can she do that?” he asked. “Dose again safely? I mean, I know she takes two a day now. But three?”
“Leaving her blood panel readings as they are now isn’t safe either.”
“So that was a no,” Sterling said. “It’s not safe.”
“Excess ICE is disposed of by the body,” Kelly explained. “That’s why she doesn’t overdose when she takes two vials a day and why we don’t see people dying from excessive use.”
What Kelly didn’t say and Becca silently supplied was that they had no idea if there were other effects from larger doses.
“I’ll do it,” Becca said. “Thank you, Kelly.” Trying to focus on something other than herself for her sanity, she added, “I was thinking about the vitamin C deficiency the GTECHs suffer. The reports you sent me say their bodies repel the absorption like oil and water. So what would happen if we injected someone with high levels of vitamin C? Would it repel the ICE absorption?”
“Interesting,” Kelly said, her brows pulled together in thought. “You might just be onto something.” She refocused. “But you need to go dose now. We can discuss this later.”
“I agree,” Sterling chimed in a moment before his cell rang. He grabbed it from his belt and cursed. “I have to take this. It’s Riker.” He frowned. “And Eddie.”
Something was going on, and it must be big, but Becca stayed on point. “Later” was a word she’d once taken for granted—not anymore. “Can you have a team start working the vitamin C theory?” she asked Kelly.
“I already planned on it,” Kelly assured her. “Now you go dose.”
Becca hesitated, relieved as Sterling stepped outside the lab, still on the phone. “I read through the basic Lifebond process you included with the GTECH material, but can you send me the more detailed version?”
Kelly tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, intelligence glistening in their depths. “Are there certain tests I should be running on you, Becca? Tests you’d rather were kept confidential?”
“Yes,” she said, relieved at Kelly’s ability to be both candid and discreet in the same instant. “That would be a good idea.”
“I suspected as much, and I’ve already ordered the testing. The results aren’t fully in yet, which is why I didn’t mention them. My concern here is that you’ve started the Lifebond process and that your body might be trying to complete it without blood by perhaps replacing it with ICE.”
Becca went cold. “How is that even possible?”
“This is the world of unknowns, but Cassandra had a similar situation. She and Michael didn’t immediately complete their bond, and her body took over. She had a variety of health issues until they finished the blood bond. I’m of the opinion that completing the blood exchange immediately is critical to your safety.”
“That means if I die, Sterling dies.”
“Yes, but—”
“No. That can’t happen. It can’t happen, Kelly. What if ICE caused something to happen to Sterling? Like turn him Zodius or kill him. And then there is the Dorian thing. If he attacks me, he attacks Sterling.”
“What does Sterling say?”
“He doesn’t know, and he can’t know.”
“We’re talking your life here.”
“Even if I didn’t have these fears for his safety, I wouldn’t tell him. I won’t be some obligation he’s stuck with.”
Kelly tapped her pencil on the desk she sat behind and then thoughtfully rested her chin on her hand. “You want this to be a choice, not a forced bond that translates to a medical treatment to save your life.” It wasn’t a question. “I get that.”
“I’m not sure you do,” she said. Becca did want Lifebonding to be about choice. But Sterling was right too, when he said she was trying to protect him.
“No,” Kelly insisted. “I do. So you should know that we have every reason to believe the couples who Lifebond would have fallen in love anyway. We think that’s why Adam can’t recreate it by throwing people together to have sex. In fact, he almost ensures he won’t. And I know ‘think’ is a bad word in science, but when you read my reports you’ll see why I say this. I really believe Lifebonding is an evolution of falling in love. Whatever you feel for Sterling isn’t some scientific creation, Becca. It has real emotional substance.”
Becca warmed with those words, with the hope that what they felt was real, but it didn’t change things. “I won’t risk Sterling’s life.”
Kelly studied her a moment. “If what you just said doesn’t prove the love equation of Lifebonding,” she said softly, “I don’t know what does. I have to consult Caleb, but for now you have my silence.”
“Thank you,” Becca said, relief washing over her.
Kelly considered Becca a long moment. ??
?You’re taking his choice from him,” she said. “You know that, right?”
Becca inhaled sharply at that observation. The door to the lab opened, and Sterling walked in. Becca turned and looked at him and saw his eyes reaching for hers, the look on his face warm with worry.
Heart fluttering, Becca recognized that what was between her and Sterling had started before the marks on her neck. It had started in that library years ago, when she’d had a crush that was the beginning of falling in love. She was still falling now. Becca turned back to the computer. “I might be taking his choice,” she said softly, for Kelly’s ears only. “But I’m also protecting him.”
Sterling didn’t miss the fact that Becca ended her teleconference with Kelly the minute he entered the lab. She rolled the chair around to face him, the splotch of bright red blood on her bleached white lab coat taunting him with the certainty of her fate. She was dying, and no matter what risk he took, no matter what mountain he climbed, no matter what building he jumped off—he could do nothing to stop it from happening. He couldn’t even Lifebond with her, and he didn’t understand it. If there was any woman in this lifetime he’d been connected to, it was Becca.
“What did Riker and Eddie want?” she asked, walking to a shelf and removing supplies to draw blood.
He closed the distance between them. “They both wanted to remind me I owe them. And considering I pay Eddie—that takes big cojones. I guess that’s why I really like that guy.” He stopped in front of her and reached for the syringe.
“I can do it,” she said, resisting weakly.
“You hate drawing your own blood,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
She hesitated and then nodded, shrugging out of the lab coat and then claiming a seat. “Kelly wants blood before and after I dose.”
“I was there, remember?”
“Oh yeah. Right.”
He kneeled down beside her, resting his hand on her leg. “Becca—”
“I told you. Don’t be the person who coddles me and says it’s going to be okay.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “But only if I can be the person who tells you I’m crazy about you. I am.”