There was only Jac and the firestorm. He kissed her, silencing the question she would have asked, then carried her into the shower. They washed each other slowly and thoroughly, coaxing their mutual desire to a fever-pitch, even as the firestorm made their blood boil. He caressed her with his fingertips, wanting her to find her pleasure, but she stopped him with a touch.
“All of you,” she demanded. “Right now and right here. I can’t possibly wait any longer.”
“We should make it last.”
“We can’t make it last any more, at least I can’t.” Jac smiled and brushed her lips across his, her eyes dancing. “And I think it can only be a good thing to conceive a Pyr while celebrating a victory. He’ll have triumph in his veins.”
Marco smiled down at her. “A good sign for the future.”
“The very best.” Jac trailed her hands over him, her touch making him catch his breath. “Now,” she whispered again. “Let’s see if a Pyr and his mate can spontaneously combust in satisfying their firestorm.”
* * *
Maeve had her driver leave her outside the construction site in Las Vegas. A sign proclaimed that this would be the location for the new spectacular of master illusionist, Lorenzo, Rising from the Grave. Maeve smiled, liking the title of the show a lot. Maybe she’d stop by in December to see Lorenzo in action.
Assuming his kind were the survivors of the Dragon’s Tail Wars. Jorge had told her a lot about the Pyr and the Slayers, but not nearly enough. Maeve liked to have as much information as possible. She’d wanted to hear the Pyr side.
Then Cassie Redmond had contacted her.
Kismet.
The interview had seemed too good to be true, but then Maeve realized this Pyr—whose identity she still didn’t know for certain—wanted something in return from her. He wasn’t offering an exclusive interview for nothing. It was a wager. An exchange.
With Maeve O’Neill, internationally famous reporter.
When Maeve saw the billboards, she guessed that Lorenzo himself was the Pyr who would interview her. She liked his audacity a lot. Scheduling the interview at the construction site of his new theater was bold, a taunt to her to draw the obvious conclusion, a dare for her to do something about it. He thought he was baiting the hook with a big story.
Unfortunately for Lorenzo, he didn’t realize he was negotiating with Maeve the Black Queen, who was far more influential in worlds both seen and unseen than any mere reporter could be. She’d take what she wanted from him, which was every morsel of information he knew about the Pyr, and give nothing in return.
Except maybe clemency, if she thought he was worth it.
She picked her way to the entrance, stepping carefully through the construction debris so she didn’t mar her new Christian Louboutin shoes. She knew she was being watched and she guessed who observed her. When a gorgeous Italian man stepped out of the building and called a greeting, Maeve felt a thrill at how perfectly tasty he was. She could smell the dragon on him and wondered how humans missed such obvious clues. Lorenzo’s dark eyes gleamed with intent and intelligence and a bit of mischief. He had a scheme of his own, and she knew he wouldn’t be easy to overwhelm.
Her heart skipped in anticipation as he kissed the back of her hand. He glanced up at her, and she saw the flames dancing in the depths of his eyes, a feat that should have been impossible.
Maybe it was an illusion.
Maybe it was a trap. Maeve held his gaze and realized what he was trying to do. Even she felt a tentative response to the spell he would cast, and she admired his skill.
It had been so long since she’d faced a truly worthy adversary.
But that would only make victory all the sweeter.
* * *
For the better part of two weeks, Sam battled the riddle.
Sloane had already isolated the antibody in Drake’s blood that had kept him from getting the virus. Sam had a variety of samples to compare and it took time, even with the equipment in Sloane’s lab. She had her own uninfected human blood, Veronica’s blood after infection and after the virus had been pushed back to its latent phase. She had Drake’s blood, which resisted the invasion of the virus, and she had Sloane’s blood, both before and after his exposure to the virus.
To her relief, he hadn’t become infected even though he didn’t share Drake’s antibodies. His white blood cells had staged the same kind of vigorous defense, and had eliminated the invading virus with impressive speed.
He insisted on being contaminated again, to see if it was repeatable, and it was. His body’s reaction wasn’t affected by the fact that it had recently defended itself.
But he began to make antibodies himself.
They were slightly different from the ones Drake carried and different again from the ones Veronica’s body had made after her exposure to Drake’s blood. Somewhere, there was a key as to why the virus was banished in the Pyr but returned to the latent phase in Veronica. Sam began a detailed comparison of each kind of cell in each situation, seeking the critical difference.
It could take years to isolate the differences and determine their importance, and Sam knew it. She barely slept, working around the clock, pausing only to eat when she felt a bit faint. It was when she awakened that morning two weeks after Sloane’s infection that she recalled Jac’s stone.
Why shouldn’t the Dracontias be able to heal?
Why shouldn’t this impossible thing be as true as all the other impossible things she’d come to believe were true?
Sam leapt out of the shower and dressed in haste. She found the stone in her purse and hurried downstairs to sterilize it again. She suited up, not even bothering with breakfast, and charged back into the lab.
Once there, she put a sample of Veronica’s blood in a slender glass beaker. Then she put the Dracontias into it.
To her astonishment, the blood turned very dark and began to swirl in the beaker. It had been perfectly still before, but the stone was creating some kind of vortex. The stone was obscured from view for a moment as the blood spun all around it. Sam watched, transfixed.
Then the motion stopped and the blood returned to its lighter color. The stone floated to the surface. Sam followed her impulse and removed it from the sample, placing it in another beaker to be cleaned. She had a whole suite of tests to perform but she had a feeling already of what the results would be.
She was going to have to eat some crow if she had to tell Jac that she’d been right about the Dracontias, but Sam didn’t mind that in the least.
In fact, she was looking forward to it.
* * *
Lorenzo awakened suddenly, as if a cold hand had given him a shake.
It was dark, wherever he was, only an Exit sign glowing red in the distance. He was chilled and stiff, and had a crick in his neck as a reward for sleeping in a straight chair. He scanned his surroundings, then stood up warily, feeling relief as he recognized his location.
But what on earth was he doing in his partly constructed theater? Why was it so dark? Where were all the work crews? He glanced at his watch and was shocked to discover that it was after three in the morning.
It was incredible that he’d dozed off and lost track of the time, but that seemed to be what had happened. Lorenzo frowned. He had been working all out and hadn’t slept much lately, but that didn’t usually trouble him. He checked the date on his watch, recalling that he had come to the construction site to do an interview with Maeve O’Neill. That had been first thing the previous morning.
He remembered arriving at the site.
He remembered clearing the crews from the site, giving them a paid day off so he and Maeve could chat in private. So he could show her what he was and beguile her to report what he desired, and do so without witnesses.
Had she even arrived?
Lorenzo couldn’t recall.
He knew he had waited at the door, watching for her. He had a vague memory of a limousine pulling to a halt outside, but even as he thought of it, the scen
e faded from his mind.
As if it had never happened.
When had he come back into the theater? Why? And why had he chosen to fall asleep here, instead of returning home? Why hadn’t anyone called him? Lorenzo pulled out his cell phone, only to discover that it was turned off.
He frowned. He never turned it off.
He turned it on and the display was instantly flooded with messages from Cassie, as well as some from the foreman. There was one from Maeve, forwarded from Cassie, regretting that she had to cancel their interview.
Had she really not arrived? Lorenzo was sure he could smell a strangely troubling perfume, one that hadn’t been in the building when he arrived in the morning. He had an odd sense, too, that he was forgetting something, although he couldn’t have said what it was.
Was this what it felt like to be beguiled?
The idea was chilling.
But how could a human have beguiled him? And why? It was ridiculous, even though Lorenzo couldn’t entirely shake his unease. His phone rang then, the sudden sound making him jump, and he answered it immediately.
“Where are you?” Cassie demanded, her concern clear. “Are you all right? Where did you go after Maeve canceled?”
“I stayed here, at the theater,” Lorenzo admitted, the truth sounding more plausible as he gave it voice. “I fell asleep.”
“And lost track of time,” Cassie said. “While I’ve been losing my mind with worry.” He heard Bart give a bellow in the background, and Cassie audibly soothed the boy. “I guess I would have been awake anyway with this tooth coming in,” she said. The sound of her exhaustion filled him with guilt, and a determination to make it up to her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it. “I don’t know what happened.”
“You’re probably just worn out.”
“I’ll be home in a few minutes,” Lorenzo said. “And you can sleep all day tomorrow. I’ll take the boys so you can have a break.”
“But you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” he insisted and almost believed it. “I’ll be home as quickly as I can.”
Lorenzo strode through the construction site, that perfume making him see things he knew weren’t there.
Black shoes with stiletto heels and red soles.
An unexpected kiss chilling him to his marrow.
Secrets spilling forth, secrets he had no right to share.
He shook his head. It must have been a bad dream. A nightmare. Nerves, due to the pending re-launch of his career and the final battle of the Pyr. Erik sending him disapproving looks.
Maeve, after all, hadn’t shown up.
* * *
Sloane looked through the microscope at the blood sample as Sam practically bounced with anticipation beside him. He was careful and confirmed the results in multiple samples, even as relief nearly took him to his knees. “You’re right. It’s gone,” he said to Sam, and she let out a whoop of joy.
She threw herself at him and he hugged her tightly, more than ready for her HazMat suit to be unnecessary. Her eyes were shining with triumph, and he smiled down at her. “You did it.”
“We did it.” Sam exhaled happily. “I could never have solved the riddle without the Pyr and without the Dracontias.”
“So, you have your cure.”
“And a lot of work to do.” She stepped out of his embrace, and he could practically see her thoughts flying. “There will have to be clinical tests, of course, and I’ll have to go back to Atlanta to manage them. We could start with volunteers…”
“The nurse who tended Ronnie on her admission to the hospital might volunteer.”
“You’re right. She was still in the latent phase when I left, and they’d moved her to Atlanta. And there will be others, I’m sure. Once word gets out, we’ll have people clamoring at the door. The challenge will lie in manufacturing enough antidote quickly enough, if it does succeed in the trials.”
Sloane smiled at her omission, which he thought was telling. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned on the bench. “Not in convincing the CDC to use an antidote concocted from Pyr blood and the Dracontias?”
Sam winced. “You’re right, of course. I’ll have to think of a better story.” There was a glimmer of humor in her eyes. “No one will believe the truth.”
“I’m surprised you do,” Sloane noted.
Sam sighed and blushed a little bit. She looked younger and unexpectedly uncertain, so her words surprised him. “Well, sometimes you have to abandon pre-conceptions in order to move forward. Sometimes you have to admit you’re wrong to even be able to see the truth.” She lifted her gaze to his and her voice turned husky. “Sometimes you’re lucky enough to have help with that, maybe even help you don’t deserve.”
Their gazes clung for a hot moment. “No regrets,” Sloane murmured.
“None,” Sam agreed. “Except for what comes next.” She sighed. “I’ll be leaving. Again.”
Sloane didn’t want to dwell on her departure. “And your name will go down in the history books as the doctor who cured the Seattle virus. Maybe they’ll name the antidote after you.” He was sure this was what she wanted, a kind of immortality based on her medical achievements, but Sam didn’t seem very excited.
“I guess it will,” she mused. “I’ll probably get a chair at a university, or a research position for the duration, and my career will be secure. My job will be less demanding.”
Sloane was confused by her temperate reaction. “Isn’t this the fulfillment of the dream?”
Sam frowned. “A year ago, I would have said that it was, but now it feels lacking.” She considered him. “Empty, because I won’t have anyone to share it with.”
This was the conversation Sloane had been dreading ever since Sam had learned about the firestorm.
“You’ll find someone. Another scientist probably.”
“I’ve tried that before. I’m thinking that differences add spice. I like how you’ve challenged my assumptions and shown me that more is possible than I’d believed.” She swallowed. “I haven’t just found pleasure with you, Sloane, or even just healing. I’ve learned a lot from you.” She fell silent, then continued. “That must be why I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Sloane had to avert his gaze from temptation. He knew he could lie to Sam about the future by making promises he might not be able to keep. Honesty was in his nature, though, and he had discovered that he was as romantic as his father. “I know what you want me to say,” he said. “But I won’t make a promise I can’t keep. I think it’s for the best if we part now.”
Sam’s lips tightened, but she wasn’t surprised. “Because you don’t know when you’ll have a firestorm.”
“No. But when I do, it will be more important than anything else in my life from that point onward. I don’t want to ever hurt you, Sam.” He cleared his throat. “And I also think that having another child might be part of your healing process. I can’t give you that child.”
“People adopt.”
“It’s the same thing, though. I could have to leave, suddenly.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed as she watched him and her voice was husky when she continued. “What makes you think you’ll have your firestorm before I die?”
Sloane surveyed the bench, not really seeing the samples and syringes there, then gave voice to his deepest fear. “Something is going to change for us when the node of the moon changes in September, after the end of the Dragon’s Tail Wars. There might not be any more Pyr, because the prophecy declares that only Pyr or Slayers will survive.”
“But don’t the other Pyr have children? Children are the future.”
“If we lose, they’ll either die with us or be hunted to extinction.”
Sam shuddered and he knew she was thinking of Jorge. “Aren’t the Slayers diminished in number?”
Sloane nodded. “Although they seem to have figured out how to create more. It’s not obvious that we’ll win.”
“And if you do, you’ll still
wait for your firestorm.” Sam didn’t even question his speculation, much less challenge his belief in a prophecy. Sloane knew that showed the change in her perspective and her trust in him. She considered what he’d told her, then looked him in the eye, as decisive as ever. “I have to say that I don’t like the idea of you being killed in September.”
“Thanks. It doesn’t work for me either.”
“I also don’t like that you as the Apothecary are always surrendering yourself for the greater good.”
“It’s my role,” he said with some weariness.
“I hope you Pyr have a plan for the fall.”
“We’re working on it.”
“I hope you win.”
“Me, too,” Sloane admitted.
Sam bit her lip. “Walking away from you to administer this clinical test, knowing that it might be the last time I ever see you, will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
Sloane couldn’t resist her then. He pulled her into his embrace and she came readily. She felt so good in his arms that he didn’t want to let her go.
Sam rested her hood against him. “How about this: you go and tell Drake and Ronnie the good news. I’ll clean up and meet you upstairs.” She tipped back her head to meet his gaze. “I’ve heard how you Pyr like to celebrate and I’m thinking this is a victory worth a celebration. Let’s say goodbye with style.”
“I’ll bring wine,” Sloane promised.
“No, I have to get to work right afterward.” Sam’s smile turned mischievous. “Just be naked and don’t be late.”
* * *
Sam was feeling both serene and excited. She and Sloane had made love slowly and thoroughly, and it had been wonderful. She didn’t want to leave him, but she did want to get this antidote into production. She knew what she had to do.
The CDC was sending a helicopter to pick her up at the airport, a condition she’d made to keep Sloane’s location hidden. She didn’t think her cover story about finding the cure was very compelling, because she was a lousy liar, but Isaac was so relieved to have progress that he wasn’t asking many questions. They’d almost certainly come later. She was packing antidote, samples and serums with care in HazMat containers in Sloane’s lab. She’d have to make a case and her results would have to be replicated before the testing could begin, but she was optimistic.