Fuse Page 18

  But never did I think I’d witness what I did three hours ago. The man willingly giving up. Telling me he was sorry. Right before surrendering to darkness.

  What kind of darkness?

  What the hell has happened to him?

  Like fate tossing salt into my wound, everyone reenters the room. But I can’t let my exhaustion and fury get in the way of my compassion. They’re just as tired and mad as me, but they’re all determined to help. So despite every pore of my skin aching from the effort, I push up and face the semicircle of friends who now comprise Team Bolt. Wade, his dark-ginger brows hunched over his deep-set eyes. Fershan, with his black hair disheveled and his fingernails bitten to their beds. Sawyer, just as tumbled, looking ready to go out and raid a Caribbean village in his brigantine. And then Lydia, saved for last because she’s worried more than all of the guys combined—though my walking planner notebook of a big sister does not do worry well. That just means I can’t look at her for very long.

  I will not lose my shit again.

  I will not lose my shit again.

  For the time being, that needs to be my new theme song. Just to get me to where it’s even possible to form some cohesive thoughts and understandable words.

  “A virus.” I’m stunned the syllables actually sound the way I want them to. Composed but furious. Grasping the concept but still refusing to believe it. Still thinking some director beyond the walls is going to yell “cut!” before telling everyone to go take a break while the scene is reset. Still hoping Reece will rise up with a laugh while a cute babe in hot pants flits in, cooing and brandishing makeup brushes while I decide which of her lip piercings to rip out first.

  Because even hot-pants girl is a better reality than the one the guys are still pushing on me.

  “A virus.” Repeating it doesn’t help the issue. “You’re really telling me that Faline remote-controlled Kane into shoving some kind of electric virus into him? Something that’s letting that bitch prowl through his bloodstream now too?”

  Yeah. Definitely the opposite.

  After exchanging a brief nod with Wade, Fershan rolls his shoulders back—geek shorthand for girding his loins—and steps forward. “It is the closest we have to a theory, based on Angelique’s testimony of what happened at the Source. Based on Sawyer’s recap of Reece’s final words—”

  I brake his analysis with my tight glare and sharp seethe. “Does anyone see a dead man lying here?” I bite out. “Not his final words, damn it!”

  For a long—too long—moment, the only sounds in the room are those god-awful machines with their heartless beeps. Finally, Lydia is everyone’s savior with her quiet but firm statement. “Em is right. We can’t give up. There’s got to be a way to reverse, isolate, or block what Faline’s done to Reece. How much of his blood could that shit really have gotten into anyway?”

  “How fast can any supervirus spread in a guy with supercharged blood?” While Wade’s mutter is nearly imperceptible, it’s not silent. The damning glare my sister throws at him might as well be an answering scream. I direct a grateful stare at her for it…and the strength I desperately reap from it.

  At once, Sawyer grits out, “Draw more blood, you guys. Then get your asses in there and run as many tests as you have to until we know what the fuck we’re dealing with here.”

  By there, he means the attached lab, filled with every state-of-the-art blood-analysis machine available on today’s market, plus a few that aren’t. Team Bolt has not wanted for every advance in the hematological realm since the lab and command center were fully functional, and they damn well have plenty of baseline readings of Reece’s blood from the last month, so they should be able to run some comparative readings and find at least a sketchy path to whatever’s turning his bloodstream into a platelet omelet.

  Though maybe it’s not a whatever.

  Maybe it’s a whoever.

  I order myself not to go there, even as the lab door opens and Alex Trestle appears in the portal, wearing a determined scowl. His lanky frame is already dressed in a poly lab coat, and a pair of latex gloves dangles from one of his strong hands. The team’s master of disguises also has the chops to be a nerves-of-steel scientist if he chooses, and I’ve never been more grateful for his multiple talents than right now.

  “Ready for another fun round of weird science, kids?” he asks, sliding a hand into one of the gloves with a loud smack.

  Wade grunts while leaning over Reece’s arm, brandishing a needle with a blood sample tube attached. “Depends on what you’re calling ‘science’ today, class dork.”

  Oddly, everyone gives in to fast smiles. The nickname, which Wade has been using since we got back from Paris and Alex started helping out in the lab, is the reminder we all need of the “good old days”—aka three days ago, when life wasn’t exactly carefree but was a lot closer to the description than now. When all we were worried about was a group of insane scientists coming after us before we had any intel that would help us go after them. Before we learned Kane Alighieri never went to Tibet to mourn his dead husband but tried to go after the insane bastards himself. Before he ended up shackled in their lab instead, at the mercy of those lunatics—though as we also learned, at their mercy had very little to do with mercy itself.

  Especially when, just a few weeks later, Kane showed back up in downtown Los Angeles…and razed half the city in a mindless rampage.

  Purposeful emphasis here? Mindless.

  Faline Garand had gotten her hands on his self-will.

  No. Had gotten her claws on it. Then into it.

  And now has tried the same with Reece.

  We’re not going to let that happen—no matter what we have to do. And right now, every damn option is on the table.

  Except killing him.

  Nope, nope, nope. The “killing him” shit is absolutely not an option.

  As if the man has read my damn thoughts from the midst of his bizarre blackness, he flinches to the point of rattling the bed. I look up in alarm before realizing it’s just an involuntary reaction to the needle prick as Wade locates a vein and starts to collect the new blood sample. I drop my hand and wrap it around Reece’s freezing fingers, unable to identify why I’m reacting as if Wade’s slicing a whole knife down the middle of Reece’s arm. What’s wrong with me? I know Reece has consciously succumbed to this procedure a hundred times in the last month. But on all those other occasions, his blood has been red—not iridescent blue.

  Electric blood should not be happening for him right now…

  But it is.

  Oh holy shit, it is.

  An anomaly that really isn’t a trick of my imagination, if the deeper grooves between Wade’s brows mean anything. The icicles in my vitals lengthen as soon as he raises the vial, twisting his lips as if preparing to embellish the scowl with one of his classic profanities, which I find myself yearning for desperately instead of what he does spit.

  “We have to simmer this stew at once, kids.” Alex flings open the door to the lab. “Kitchen’s open.”

  “Outstanding.” The word is the only heartening aspect about Wade’s vibe as he leads the exodus from the room, which allows me the solitude to focus on taking one deep breath after another as the room is consumed by a strange stillness.

  Yes, stillness. Not a single bleep, tick, ring, or ding…

  “What the he— Oh!”

  And suddenly, I’m swept off my feet with a rush of invisible but instantly recognizable energy.

  “Oh, my… Reece?”

  He knocks me back, lifts me up, and then brings me down right on top of him—where he digs a ferocious grip into my thighs and spreads me to straddle him. At once, he rocks my shocked core up and down his surging crotch as he raises up to claim my gasping mouth, stabbing his tongue up and then in, focusing on dominating me with fierce, almost violent, desperation.

  His charge is invasive and startling but passionate and hot, inciting a war between my mind and my libido. What’s going on? On the other
hand, do I want to know? He’s back. He’s awake. Oh dear God, is he awake. But how? And why? And most importantly, as who? On the outside, every inch of him is still my muscled superhero warrior, but there’s something different about how he’s maneuvering that form. His actions are so furious and fevered, I’m at once hesitant and urgent to return his passion.

  As soon as I hold back, he stalls too. I take it as a good sign, though he adds a growl that’s different than any sound he’s ever given me before. He seems like a beast that’s been deeply wounded but is fighting to keep the whining evidence away from the air. Battling to hide his pain…

  From me?

  “Baby.” I press the word against his lips while he gets back to working my other set of lips. His cock, freed from its shroud, swells and jerks against my center, which is only covered by the flimsy cotton sleep shorts I hastily threw on hours ago. “Reece. It’s all right. It’s all right now, my love. I’m here. I’m here.”

  He snarls again but finishes with a wolfish whimper this time. “Need…more. Need you, Velvet. Need you.”

  “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  He growls again. Thrusts his hips harder. “Mmmph. Not enough.”

  “Reece…” Again, I’m not sure whether to protest or encourage him. I’m so damn wet. The tang of my arousal mingles with the metallic scent of his. Both our essences thicken as he keeps sliding me up and down his erection, slickening his flesh with the soaked crotch of my shorts. But what would giving in to this animal attraction really be? Our sexual chemistry is directly tied into the force of our spiritual and mental connection. With a good chunk of those cylinders not firing for him, would this be just a bestial fuck and nothing more?

  The question alone is an open invitation for a dervish of dread into my gut…followed by a slam of confusion through my brain. Why my stress? The two of us aren’t strangers to wild monkey sex. We like wild monkey sex. Less than twenty-four hours ago, we were going at each other in the mud in the canyon, resulting in some of the most amazing orgasms of my life and the light show every canyon critter is likely still chittering about today.

  But what the hell is wrong now?

  The answer hits too easily. And too painfully.

  Spiritually, there’s nothing there. No answer from his heart when mine calls out to it. No charge of love beneath his touch. And as I meet his gaze directly, the experience is like looking at lightning—in black and white photo form.

  “More.” If Reece notices the same thing, he sure as hell isn’t getting deterred about it. “These. Off. Now.” He dips a hand to shove aside the thin cotton that separates his hard flesh from my soaked tissues. “No,” he murmurs swiftly. “Fuck it. Just need to be—yessss. Oh, Christ. Oh, yes!”

  I layer my high gasp atop his lusty grate as he surges up to breach me. At once, he’s filling my sex and conquering my body. And though I’m physically ready, the incursion is abrupt and fierce, his cock stretching my walls, his savagery stealing my breath. My astonishment makes me clench for a few seconds, squeezing his length until he rocks his head back and hisses through his teeth. “Goddamn.”

  “Unnnnhhh.” My moan is as dark and just as conflicted as his. This is so right but so wrong. Something’s missing. What the hell is missing?

  “Emma.” He focuses on the glistening juncture of our bodies. Where he’s pushing up as I’m slamming down, seeking more friction. Needing him…

  To do what?

  “Reece!” I gaze down, marveling at the beauty of his locked teeth against his burnished skin. He’s concentrating so hard.

  Trying to do what?

  “Reece…please!”

  And that’s when the answer hits.

  It’s not what he’s trying to do.

  It’s what he’s trying not to do.

  What I usually start to feel by now, pinging against the walls of my womb with transformative energy. The electrons of his essence. The lightning of his life force.

  But right now, the come he’s deliberately holding back. By every excruciating drop.

  What the hell?

  The mystery’s too thick for me to even pretend at being his Sherlock. I tell him exactly that by jerking his face up with both hands.

  “Oh, my God.”

  His gaze is a full spectrum again, blasting me with so many intense shades. The hurricane grays of his irises. The cobalt lightning rods erupting out of them, delivered to the edges of his eyes on strands of blinding silver, where they collide with strands of crimson rage. The kind of anger he only reserves for one person alone—only she’s not here right now.

  Or is she?

  Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

  I plummet my hands to his chest. Push vehemently up from him.

  “Oh, shit!”

  I’m impaled deeper on him, though for the first time since we’ve been lovers, he grimaces in tangible pain about the fact. “Emma.” The whimper has taken over all of his tone now, but in place of his beautiful baritone, his agony delivers him to me again. The clear connection of our spirits. The bright ignition of our souls. The dazzling bond of every fuse between us, slamming the air like headlights blaring in a moonless night. It’s so overwhelming, my eyes sting and my throat convulses.

  Just before he grits his teeth and bites out, “Get off me, baby. Right now.”

  My eyes sting worse. I blink hard. “Excuse the hell out of—”

  “Goddamnit, Emma!” he cuts in. “There’s no time. I can’t block her totally out for much longer.”

  “Shit.” The reiteration comes with a new deluge of tears. I swing my head in wide but useless back-and-forths. “No. No. No!”

  “Emmalina.” Though he’s back to channeling his inner wolf, the effort clearly costs him in resilience. “We don’t have time, baby. Listen to me.” When I pull back a little, he looks like I’ve given him water in the desert…and I hate it. My body has been hardwired by the universe to mesh with his, but his grip on my thighs conveys a defined message. He’s holding back. “Damn it, Velvet. Can’t you see? This is what she wants me to do. Why she chose now, when you and I were alone, to wake me back up.”

  He could have told me Faline decided to blow up the rest of LA and gutted me less. Everything he’s said is a perfect string back to what Wade and Fershan have already posited…and though I confront that reality in the torment of his eyes, I state it aloud anyway. “Because Kane did put something into you.” As soon as the harsh angles of his face confirm that, I fight the yearning to bury my fist in one of the bedside monitors. “Something awful,” I rasp. “Her…her evil. Oh, God. It is a damn virus…and she woke you up, commanding you to fuck me…so you’d give me the electric flu as well.”

  The grim validation on his face becomes the horrific motivation for me to slide all the way free from him. The second we’re apart, his cock springs up like an ignited flare, blue veins straining at the flesh, stretching him to the point that the shaft visibly jerks, his lips part on a rough groan, and thick drops of his stunning, glowing essence gush out of the slit at his erect tip.

  “Holy…shit.” I facepalm myself, wishing I could toss off the motion as melodrama…but this situation is really that eye-poppingly insane. “H-How could you…did you…hold back?” His stunning cock is still dripping with those heavy, glistening drops—none of which are inside me.

  “With me, all the code gives her is control,” he utters back through clenched teeth. “But if it gets inside you—”

  “I’m dead.” I state it because I have to. Because I have no choice but to accept it. We were ready to screw each other like a couple of Grand Theft Auto horndogs, but Reece fought off Faline’s sadistic control and his raging libido, not spilling even one cell of himself inside me.

  Unbelievable.

  This man, identified for so many years because of the prowess of his penis, just saved my life because of his abstinence.

  “Well, damn.” I pull in a shaky breath. Let it out on a wobbly sigh. “You do love me.”
To depths that astound and move me as never before.

  “Yeah, little Bunny.” His gaze glitters with matching intensity. “I do.” While he skates his touch up my arm, his tone descends into a concentrated growl. “And you love me too.”

  “Yeah, you big ox.” I declare it through lingering tears. “I really do.”

  “Good.” He curls his fingertips around the back of my elbow. “That’s…really good.”

  My heartbeat clutches…and not in a mushy I’m-sixteen-again way. “Why?” I draw it out with open suspicion, not encouraged when he sets his mouth into a determined line.

  “Because I’m going to ask you to prove it.”

  “How?”

  “No,” he amends. “I’m going to order you to.”

  “How?”

  He raises his hold and grips my upper arm now. “I can’t fight her off much longer, Emma. And when she gets back into my head, she can’t have access to my free will.” He pauses as if knowing I need a second to process that. To envision what would happen to this place, and possibly all of us, if Faline Garand were able to control Reece like her personal drone. “She can’t get even one crack of access to my consciousness,” he finally utters. “Do you understand?”

  I lift my head, giving him an unobstructed view of the pulse pounding at the base of my throat. “I’m… I’m not sure.”

  He nods toward a glass-fronted case on top of a nearby counter. “In there. Rear right side. You’ll find some vials of Pentobarbital. I’ll walk you through how to use them.”

  “Annnnnd we’re throwing a flag on this play, stud.” Somehow I get it out past my lurching stomach. “You… You want me to do what?”