“Dorian isn’t a doctor.”
“Dorian knows things, Lara,” he said. “And he’s right too often for us to ignore him.”
She searched his face, emotion pouring into her eyes, before she jerked them to Kelly. “How can the blood exchange save me? I’m already GTECH.”
“This is new territory,” she said. “You’re the first GTECH-to-GTECH bonding I’ve ever experienced, perhaps the only one that exists. Hypothetically, based on the research I’ve done on Lifebonding, the blood exchange makes you both whole, and thus stronger. All I can tell you, without question, is that you can’t maintain this level of irregular brain activity without risking a stroke. With your GTECH metabolism, medications don’t work. If I had your medical records, if I knew what had been done to you, I might have a shot at reversing it. That seems more of a long shot at this point than the blood bond.”
Damion squeezed her hand, pulling her attention back to him. “We have to do the blood exchange.”
“No,” Lara said, her tone sharp. “I won’t do it.”
Damion felt immediate rejection like a punch in the gut, and it must have shown, because she squeezed his hand and lowered her voice. “You know why I won’t do this, not like this, not with so many unknowns. Please, I beg of you. Don’t read something into this that isn’t there.” Her voice caught. “It means so very much to me that you would be willing to do this, but it only makes me more certain I can’t let you.” She glanced at Kelly. “Instead of Damion healing me, how do we know that I won’t cause him to stroke right along with me?”
Damion cut his gaze to Kelly, who reluctantly nodded. “She has a point. If she were human, you’d give her GTECH immunity. But she is GTECH, and we don’t know what the blood bond means for the two of you, besides a connection in death. I know Caleb trusts what Dorian says, but I can’t say that I do.”
“I don’t give a damn about the risks,” Damion said, his attention fully on Lara. “Do you hear me? I don’t care, Lara. We have to do this.”
“No,” she said softly. “We don’t.” And then, unexpectedly, she turned to appeal to Cassandra, who’d up to this point been silent, staying out of the argument. “Would you do this if you thought there was even a small chance it would hurt Michael?”
“Cassandra,” Damion warned, willing her to look at him, but she didn’t. She stared at Lara, responded to Lara.
“I would never do anything that would risk Michael’s life to save my own,” Cassandra said. “But he’d want me to, and he’d try everything shy of forcing me to accept the blood bond to save my life. If I’m honest, he probably would force the bond. But Lara, I love Michael. I’d know he did it because he loves me too. And being honest again—I’m not sure I could say I wouldn’t do the same for him, if things were reversed.”
Lara pushed to her feet almost instantly, a clear reaction to Cassandra’s words, and Damion followed her to his feet.
“I won’t put you at risk,” she said. “End of story.” He opened his mouth to object, and she pressed her hand to his chest. “You aren’t going to die trying to save me. I won’t let you.” Her chin lifted. “And we had a deal. You promised me a computer and an Internet connection.”
He pressed his hand over hers, over his heart, and considered arguing. Hell, he considered grabbing a knife and slicing their palms right here and now. That caveman feeling from the bedroom returned. She was his Lifebond, and he would protect her. She was also brave and beautiful, and she challenged him in every possible way. He wasn’t a fool. He wasn’t in denial. She was everything he could ever want in a woman, everything he’d never wanted to find, because finding it, finding her, meant he could lose her. He damn sure wasn’t going to lose her when he’d just found her. “If you think I’m going to let you die, you can think again. This conversation is postponed, but it’s far from over.”
Lara studied him for several long seconds, and then turned to Kelly and Cassandra. “I want to have Becca try and read my memories.”
“What?” Damion demanded. “You said—”
She turned back to him. “Everything changed when I found out I might die. I don’t care about my past. I care about what happens in the future, and what I can do to impact it for the better.”
Damion ground his teeth, his heart in his throat. “You’re not going to die, damn it.”
“You don’t know that.” She turned to the women. “I want to see Becca. Please. I want to get answers, and I want to get them now, before something happens to me.”
“I can’t approve this,” Kelly said. “When Becca reads someone, it tends to be a major event, especially when she’s trying to help them recover information. You’re too unstable. We don’t know how you’ll react. It could send you into a stroke.”
“I’m willing to take the risk,” she insisted.
“I’m not,” Damion, Kelly, and Cassandra all said at once.
“Let me speak to Caleb,” Lara said, and then cut her attention to Cassandra. “No. Make that Michael. I’ve met him. He’ll do what’s best for the big picture, not what’s right for me. And he’ll convince Caleb of the same.”
“You’re wrong,” Cassandra said softly. “He won’t risk your life.”
“Damn it, Lara,” Damion said, his gut clenching, his hand claiming Lara’s as he pulled her close. “You talk to me before you talk to anyone.” He motioned to Kelly and Cassandra, who headed for the door. He wasn’t going to lose Lara when he’d just found her, and she was about to find out just how stubborn he could be when something mattered to him. And she did.
The instant the hospital room door shut, leaving Lara alone with Damion, she was ready for a fight, something the two of them had excelled at since the moment they’d met. This wasn’t a battle she was fighting with her fists though. It was one she was fighting with her heart. She pushed to her toes, and she kissed him, her fingers resting on his jaw. “Thank you for wanting to save me.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “I’m not letting you die.”
Her heart hurt. She cared so much about this man. She didn’t know how it had happened, how in such a short while he’d become so much to her, but he had. “And I’m not letting you die.”
His fingers twined in her hair. “Damn it, Lara—”
“Damn it, Damion,” she hissed back at him. “You don’t know me well enough to die for me. And I’m not selfish enough to let you either. I… I care too much about you to let you risk that.” He kissed her. She didn’t resist. She couldn’t have if she’d wanted to, and she didn’t. She kissed him back, wishing she could drag him back to bed and play that game of escape they’d been involved in for just a little longer. But they couldn’t, and she was pretty sure he knew that too. This was real life and death they were dealing with, not a game, not an adventure.
He leaned back to stare at her, his fingers skimming over her hair, over her face. “I know you,” he said softly. “I know you better than you seem to know yourself.”
“Maybe that’s true,” she whispered, and then swallowed back emotion, willing her words through her dry throat. “But I’m not going to pretend my time may not be limited, and I’m not wasting what time I have by hiding from whatever is in my past. I want to help the Renegades find Powell. I want to go out with a bang and make a difference. I want…” Her damn voice hitched, her memory of that moment with Skywalker in the karate studio still in her mind. “I want to go out a butterfly, not a caterpillar.”
“Sweetheart,” he said after a long pause. “You are no caterpillar. If you’re a butterfly, you’re a butterfly with teeth. You want to fight then we’ll fight. You and me—together. And for the record, you aren’t dying. I enjoy fighting with you myself way too much to let that happen. We’ll find Powell, and we’ll get your medical records, right before we drag his ass back here and into a jail cell for the rest of his life.”
Lara knew he was dreaming, fighting the wrong battle, the lost battle. It was the battle that all
owed him to fight by her side, while she fought a different one—a battle to bring down Powell if it was the last thing she did, and it probably would be. The battle that convinced Damion there was an answer other than the blood bond, which she wouldn’t allow. Not only did she love him for the vow he’d made to save her, to fight with her, but she was pretty sure she just plain loved him.
“Okay then,” she agreed. “So we fight. How do you suggest we start?”
He took her hand. “We go to Caleb, and we talk through a plan.”
Turned out, they didn’t have to go far to find Caleb. He and Michael were waiting in the hallway, along with Kelly and Cassandra.
“You do know you should listen to your doctor?” Caleb asked, fixing Lara in a steely stare.
“I am,” Lara said. “And the doctor said that she can’t guarantee Damion’s safety if we do the blood exchange. That means, I’m not doing the blood exchange. I won’t let Damion be a fatality I create. Nor am I sitting back and waiting to die either. I want Powell, and I plan to get him. I’m hoping you Renegades want to come along for the ride.”
Michael ran his hand over a strong, square jaw and arched a brow at Damion. “Got your hands full I see?”
“And then some,” Damion agreed, wrapping his arm around Lara, his eyes touching hers.
“You’re no walk in the park,” she promised him.
“Not sure I ever aspired to be a walk in anyone’s park.”
“Maybe you should,” she countered.
“She really does fit right in, doesn’t she?” Michael asked, laughing at their exchange.
Cassandra hooked her arm with Michael’s. “A chip off the old block, if I do say so myself.”
“If that block is called ‘stubborn,’ then yeah,” Michael concluded, staring down at his Lifebond. “I say so too.”
Caleb crossed his arms in front of his chest, cool eyes touching Damion’s, then sliding back to Lara. “I have an alternative to Becca. It’s not a fast solution, or a miracle answer, but it’s better than nothing.”
Damion stiffened, tension crackling off him. “Not Dorian.”
Lara studied Damion. “What would Dorian do to help? What do I still not know?”
“Not Dorian,” Caleb agreed, as if Lara hadn’t asked the question. “Me.” He spoke the word directly to Damion, and then shifted his attention to Lara. “I can’t read your mind, or even your memories for that matter, but I can read what emotion is real and what’s not, even when you might not be able to. In other words, when you remember something, as we go through facts and dates, I can help you weed through the fiction. You’ll have to tell me the details—good, bad, and ugly—for me to help. The best way to do that is for a group of us to sit down and weed through data, what we can find, what you can remember, and see where it leads.”
“And I’m damn good at digging up information,” Sterling said, as he and Chale walked up to join the group. “I’ll work around the clock to help Damion find the information, so you and Caleb can do your thing.”
Chale walked to Damion and clamped him on the shoulder. “I’ll keep my boy, Damion, here in line. If he gives you trouble, Lara, I’m your man.”
“Well then,” Lara said. “I say, let’s get started now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A week after Damion had convinced Lara to take the brain wave test, he was still trying to convince her to take another one, and she was refusing. It was late afternoon, and he sat next to her at the conference table of the Renegade’s War Room. Cassandra and Houston, who’d once been an FBI sketch artist, were present, and Houston was working on composites of the various members of Serenity, to be searched in the various government databases.
“Amazing,” Lara said, as Houston slid the picture of Opal across the wooden surface for her review, and then turned the University of Texas baseball cap he’d had on backward, forward again. Lara studied the drawing. “Yes. That’s Opal for sure.” There were five other drawings already on the table, and she added Opal’s to the mix. “Amazing. I don’t know her full name. Looking back I can’t imagine never asking, but I didn’t. We were like machines as members of Serenity, all driven by some façade of a personal agenda and purpose.” She shoved a lock of hair behind her ear. “I guess I should be glad I remember what they look like at this point.”
Damion squeezed her leg beneath the table, the pastel floral dress she wore a contrast to the soldier he’d first met—a delicate part of her that he hungered to discover, that she’d told him she wanted to discover with him. “If we can identify even one of these women, we’re that much closer to any information about you and to finding Powell.” For weeks now he’d watched her struggle to regain memories that simply weren’t returning, and in the past few days, she’d stopped having flashbacks. Which would have been comforting, if the flashbacks hadn’t become blackouts. “I’ll feed these into the database,” Cassandra said, collecting the sketches. “And wow, Houston, Lara is right. You’re amazing. I can think of several ways the Wardens could put this skill to use, if you’ll let us?”
“I aim to please, ma’am,” he assured her. “Your wish is my command, but don’t tell Michael I said that. I think he might hurt me.”
She grimaced. “I hate when you make Michael sound so scary. He’s not.” She glanced at her watch and pushed to her feet. “Oh no. We’re supposed to meet the gang at Moe’s for Sterling’s birthday in fifteen minutes, and I really want to get these composites in the database before I leave.” The rest of the gang were Michael, Chale, Jesse, Sterling, Becca, and Caleb.
Houston pushed to his feet and patted his stomach. “Oh yeah. Time to feed the beast with some birthday cake. I’ll head over and tell them you’re on the way.”
“Thank you, Houston,” Cassandra said, as he headed for the door.
“You know, Cassandra,” Lara said, as she and Damion stood up. “I’ve spent every day for a week looking through computer files for answers I never find. I was thinking maybe tomorrow I could join the Wardens and try to do something more productive.” She glanced at Damion. “And you can get back to your regular duty and stop babysitting me. You can’t stay by my side forever.”
His gaze met hers, the silent message one he knew she’d read—forever, or until she agreed to the blood bond. “You could black out.”
“Cassandra will be with me,” she said. “And Kelly will be close.”
“I’d love to have you help with the Wardens, Lara,” Cassandra offered, glancing at Damion. “And we’re not unfamiliar with hovering, overprotective Lifebonds.” She held up the sketches. “Let’s scan these into our government database, and see if we get a fast hit. Sometimes that happens when I enter a missing person’s info.” She headed for the door.
Lara glanced at Damion. “Stop acting like a papa bear. I’m fine.” She started walking and swayed. Damion cursed, catching her against his body and the wall a moment before she fell, his heart frozen until she started to move.
She sucked in a breath and grabbed his arms. “How long this time?”
His ears were ringing. “A few seconds, and that was too long. I’m getting Cassandra to run a brain wave test now. Sit down while I get her.” He didn’t want to risk her falling and hurting herself.
“No,” she said quickly, her feet planted, showing no willingness to sit. “We’ve discussed this. The test solves nothing, and besides, it’s Sterling’s birthday. A few seconds isn’t a bad blackout. It was ten minutes this morning. It’s probably because I’m hungry. I need to eat.”
He slid his hand into her hair. “Damn it, Lara.”
“Damn it, Damion.”
“You’re hiding from the test because you know you won’t like the results.”
“Because I know the results change nothing.”
“Let’s do the blood exchange.”
Her eyes clouded. “Let’s go eat hamburgers and birthday cake and drink beer. Isn’t that what Sterling wished for?”
/> “Lara,” he whispered.
She kissed him and then traced his lips with her finger. “I bet I can drink more beer than you without getting drunk.”
GTECHs didn’t get drunk. “I’m already drunk—on fear for you.”
“I can think of much better things for you to be drunk on,” she said, sliding her arms under his, her chest pressed to his. “I’ll show you later.”
“Maybe I should take you back to bed and tie you there,” he said. “Then call Cassandra to do the damn test.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah I would, on both counts, with varying degrees of pleasure.”
She studied him, the humor fading from her beautiful, still too-pale features. “I would really like to go have a great evening and pretend to be a normal couple out with friends. I know, like so much else, it’s a façade, but it would be a really, really wonderful way to spend the night.”
Damn, this woman twisted him in all kinds of knots he’d never wanted to be twisted in. She thought she didn’t belong here, that if she dared believe she did, it would be taken from her like everything else in her life had been. Worst of all was that she was right in some ways to feel such things. Time wasn’t on her side, or his. He had to act, and he was going to. He knew what he had to do. He could only hope a night with friends, a night out together, would help her understand when he did what he had to do.
He drew her hand in his and kissed her knuckles. “I keep telling you, we’re as real as it gets, and so are the friends we’re about to spend the evening with.”
Bittersweet. That’s what a night out with Damion and his friends was to Lara. Moe’s was hopping with Renegade standard black fatigues. It appeared Friday night in Sunrise City was like Friday night everywhere else—busy and fun-filled.
Sterling’s party was, in fact, overflowing beyond the four square tables their group had turned into one long one, with regular toasts and shouts to Sterling from various locals. The immediate party, though, was Damion and Lara, along with Michael, Cassandra, Jesse, Chale, Houston, Emma, Caleb, Kelly, and of course, Sterling and Becca. There were pitchers of beer everywhere, and a Spider-Man cake in honor of Sterling in the center.