Nocturnal Part 6

"Honey, are you okay?" he demanded, using their clasped hands to drag her up against himself. She was warm. She was pliant and soft, her heart beating against his chest beneath her breast. He couldn't bring himself to make a visual check, so he cautiously reached up to slide his fingertips into the hair at the back of her head. It crackled with dried blood and she tried to shy away.

"Nick, I'm icky and crusted...and I have weird goo in my hair," she complained, trying to draw back.

"That goo is probably half of your d.a.m.ned brain, Amara! What in h.e.l.l were you thinking! You got yourself killed!"

"Only for a little while!"

They stared at each other when they realized the absurdity of the argument.

"My G.o.d, I think we're zombies," she said with a shudder.

"Mara," he chided her, finally chuckling with the peculiarity of it all, "we aren't zombies. Just...remarkable healers. Man, even your hair is growing back," he marveled as he stroked his fingers over the very solid bone of her skull under her scalp. Finally he turned her around and looked for himself. No hole. No gore-discounting what was stuck in her hair. He looked around the autopsy room and saw an empty table with the handheld spray nozzle they used to wash cadavers before beginning the postmortem. "Come here."

Nick drew her to the welled metal table and gave it a pat.

"Nick, we don't have time for this," she said, eyeing the table skeptically.

"If there was a reflective surface in here, you'd disagree with that. Get up."

Sighing, she did as he asked. He arranged her so she was leaned back on her elbows with her head closest to the drain. He didn't think she needed to see what he was about to clean off of her.

"Close your eyes. Let me take care of you," he said softly. He grabbed the nozzle and squeezed. It took him a minute to figure out how to adjust the temperature so he wouldn't freeze or scald her. He started at her feet and with the pressure of the spray and the thorough stroke of his free hand, he cleaned her of all the evidence of her violent "death." He didn't stop until her hair ran crystal clean and both sides of her body had been tended to. The room was very cold, and she was s.h.i.+vering even before he turned the nozzle loose and stopped the water. He spied piles of fresh towels and crossed to grab some. Better still, he saw freshly packaged scrubs, each set conveniently marked for size. He held up both in triumph and she smiled as she eagerly reached for the towels. He helped her to dry off, buffing her skin to a warm, rosy glow.

It wasn't the time or the place for it, but Nick couldn't help the way his whole body seemed to grow tight with need for her as he dried her under her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, across her chill-hardened nipples, and up the elegant curve of her throat. Her pulse beat sluggishly there, making him realize that despite her recuperation, she had lost a great deal of blood and probably needed to replenish her energy and regenerative resources with a supply of blood.

Blood he he could not provide because he was just as starved for it as she was. His heart had yet to find a regular beat, though he had felt it fit and stutter, especially when he had become stimulated by touching her. could not provide because he was just as starved for it as she was. His heart had yet to find a regular beat, though he had felt it fit and stutter, especially when he had become stimulated by touching her.

He left her to the act of dressing and hopped up onto the table himself. As he washed away his blood he examined his healing body. He found the entrance wound from memory and saw it was almost invisible already. The exit wound low in his gut was a little more noticeable, but it wouldn't be for very long, he was certain.

Growing impatient with details, Nick finished was.h.i.+ng up and dried himself in quick pa.s.ses before getting dressed in the scrubs. He quickly moved to examine the exits as discreetly as he could. Nothing was locked. Why would it be? Everyone was supposed to be dead. But if this morgue was anything like the morgues he had seen, it had a door leading directly outside for easier body disposal.

To freedom.

He saw it instantly, the view of green vegetation through the small window visible even from where he was. He walked over to it almost as if in a daze.

"Amara," he said softly as he pressed a palm to the door and looked outside in wonder. It had been an entire month since he'd been beyond the cold walls of this place. A month since he'd been outside. When he saw a parking lot and a roadway, his heart finally began to beat in hard, steady thumps. He saw cars. Cars he knew how to break into and start. He held out a hand to her without taking his eyes off of the outdoors, trying to judge which car would be best for them and provide the least risk of getting caught.

"Nick."

He could hear the protest in her use of his name and it drew his full attention. "What's wrong, honey?" he asked a little impatiently. "We need to get going before someone comes in here."

"Nick, we can't leave them. They'll kill them. The children, too. If they find we've escaped, they'll burn this place to the ground and they'll run. Turned or unturned, human or Morphate, they will find a way to permanently destroy them all."

Nick felt his heart sink with the realization that she was right. He desperately looked back toward freedom. "I can get us help in a matter of hours. All I need is a phone."

"And you don't think they won't have planned for a cleanup in less than a couple of hours? Nick, we're probably sitting on a radical bomb as we speak. Something that will blow our atoms into such tiny bits they will never be able to heal."

"And what's to say they aren't already planning to do just that?" he snapped at her, running an agitated hand through his damp hair. "You saw what a cl.u.s.ter-f.u.c.k that was for them! We don't know what happened, Amara. They could all be gone, this place already written off! If we don't go, there's no hope for any of us. We have to get help."

"We can't abandon our pack!"

"They aren't a f.u.c.king pack!" he exploded, even though everything inside him hissed in contention. "They are people who need help!"

Amara's hands balled into fists at her sides, her bronze eyes flas.h.i.+ng with fury. "You are a liar! If they aren't a pack then I am not your mate!"

"Mara," he warned icily.

"You can't pick and choose what you are going to believe and what instincts you are going to follow! Don't stand there and tell me your whole psyche isn't screeching to go back and lead them to safety." She stuffed a clenched fist against her belly. "It's writhing in my guts like a virus I can't choose to ignore, Nick. We did things that made us responsible for leading those people. If we leave without them and Paulson destroys them, we'll have hundreds of deaths on our hands."

"Thousands," he corrected her softly. "Look."

He nodded out of the little window. She bit her lip but obeyed him and came up to look. What he saw froze his soul, and he knew she felt the same. Identical buildings. Six others besides their own. One, he knew, housed all of the children. The others, he imagined, held any number of experiments just like theirs.

"Even if we go back to our pack, baby," he said gently against her ear, "nothing we do from inside here will ever free them from inside their prisons."

"But-"

Nick held a finger to her lips suddenly and ducked away from the gla.s.s as two employees entered the lot, chose their vehicles, and left down the long roadway.

"G.o.d...I think I just had a very cold-blooded idea," he said grimly. "All we need is a few hours, right? A few hours where they won't know we're gone?"

"Long enough to get a phone and for you to do your...cop things." She waved a hand at him in summary, making him laugh softly.

"Okay. What if we fill those body bags with bodies? All we have to do is hope the autopsy isn't until tomorrow. It's late. s.h.i.+ft is changing, looks like."

"We're going to kill two people?" she asked, s.h.i.+vering.

"Not my first plan, no," he said with a head shake. "But you need blood and so do I. We drink deep enough and they'll be out a good long time. If they die in the interim...well, two lives for thousands-I can live with that if it's two p.r.i.c.ks from the workforce here."

"That doesn't sound very coplike, Agent Gregory," she scolded quietly. But she was looking out of the window and judging distances and shadows for herself. "The black Honda Envy?"

"I was thinking the gray Mitsubis.h.i.+ Heron. Gray has a way of being unnoticeable. Besides, it's out of sight lines from almost everywhere but the south." Nick reached for the door but she grabbed his arm.

"Wait."

She hurried away and he impatiently watched a few others go to their cars. He didn't want it to get too busy out there. They'd get caught.

Amara returned and he realized she had a knife in her hand. A scalpel actually. He was wondering why she felt she had to arm herself when she suddenly stabbed herself in the arm with the thing.

"s.h.i.+t! What the h.e.l.l are you doing?!"

She was bending over a sink, her blood pooling thick and slow, the precious drops doing everything they could to remain in her body. She stuck a finger inside of herself and there was a clang in the bottom of the sink.

The implants.

"They don't work on us anymore," he reminded her fiercely.

"Maybe. There's a perimeter device. One of these four implants triggers it. It's incendiary. Raul said anyone who tries to escape gets ashed. I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to test my new genes that far."

"Right. Give me that thing."

Chapter 12.

"Nick!"

Jamie Mulloy almost fell flat on his back in his tipped-back chair when Nick Gregory suddenly appeared in his office doorway. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d had gone missing months ago, and suddenly he strolls in looking like...

Nick was a big, fit man. Pretty impressive overall. He was handsome as a devil with his black hair and ocean-green eyes and had the track record with women to confirm it. In fact, he had one in tow right that very second. A blonde. But while Jamie was certain it was Nick Gregory standing before him, this was a very different-looking version of him. Gone was the easy, almost blase humor around his eyes. Now there was more of the predatory Nick, the one Jamie saw on the coldest, darkest a.s.signments he'd managed him on. Usually the ones where little kids were at stake. Nick always took on the brutal stuff involving victimized kids.

Overall, there was something dangerous and harsh about Nick that hadn't been so readily apparent before. He also looked like he'd been through h.e.l.l a few times.

Now the cute little blonde he was holding hands with like a teenager with a crush...she was something else. She had mouthwatering curves and held herself in that s.e.x-kitten way some women just seemed to be born with. However, her reddish-brown eyes held that same lethal glint he could see in Nick's.

"Nick, where the f.u.c.k have you been?"

"Long story. Glad to tell you if you get the team together ASAP. I should have called this in but..." Nick hesitated and ran a hand through his hair in agitation. His blonde drew up against his side, comforting and supporting him with the warm press of her body and the soothing stroke of her fingers over his Land Corps tattoo. "Where's Kincaid?"

Jamie startled and Nick instantly caught the reaction. Was he out of his mind, or had Nick just sniffed at him? Weird Weird.

"Nick, Kin went looking for you. We haven't heard from him in two weeks."

Jamie had never seen Nick settle so still and quiet before. Nick wasn't the still type. He was an agitator. He had to move or pace the more upset he got.

Still was f.u.c.king scary on Nick Gregory.

"Team. Conference room. Now."

Nick bit out each word in command. Jamie knew it wasn't the time to get touchy about who was ordering whom. Something bad had happened to Nick, and apparently time was wasting.

Jamie picked up the phone.

Chapter 13.

Amara did not envy Nick's position in the least.

He was sitting at the head of the conference room table, his hands gripping tightly to the arms of his chair with the tension that had been locked into his big body ever since he'd heard that a man named Kincaid was missing. His partner? His partner? she wondered. He'd implied he worked rogue. A close friend? It disturbed Amara that she didn't know. She frowned, wondering why it should matter so much to her. He was upset and that was enough; it was all she needed to know...wasn't it? she wondered. He'd implied he worked rogue. A close friend? It disturbed Amara that she didn't know. She frowned, wondering why it should matter so much to her. He was upset and that was enough; it was all she needed to know...wasn't it?

Nick had also just told all of his closest friends and coworkers that he had been turned into a genetically mutated being, by a mad scientist, and that there was a secret compound full of others just like him.

Silence reigned, and Amara tried to will Nick's eyes to hers. She wanted to be there for him, but he wouldn't allow it. He was sitting stark and alone, as if she could do nothing for him. As if no one could. All of his fire and determination had evaporated when he'd heard about Kincaid. Now he was on autopilot.

It made his story unconvincing.

So Amara wasn't surprised when one of the men busted out laughing.

"Oh, man. Nicky! You've told some hot s.h.i.+t in your time, but that has to take the cake. Why can't you just admit that you ran off with your little chickie here and f.u.c.ked like bunnies for a month and lost track of time?" His laughter spread around the table in masculine chuckles. Amara wondered why there were no women there, and then shrugged it off as unimportant at the moment. Male, female, or otherwise, they needed to make these men act quickly, and that meant convincing them fast. Since Nick seemed to be paralyzed in his own mind at the moment, that meant she had to do something.

Amara used every new reflex she had to grab the sidearm Nick's manager had holstered onto his hip, and even as the whole table was reacting in surprise, she disengaged the safety and shot herself through her palm.

"Amara!"

Nick exploded out of his chair.

"Jesus f.u.c.king Christ!" Jamie exclaimed.

"s.h.i.+t!" the laughing man cried, no longer laughing. Amara slammed the gun down on the tabletop and held out her dripping, b.l.o.o.d.y hand even as Nick rounded the table and went to grab hold of her. She warned him off with a look and a primitive sound, which he responded to just as savagely-his way of telling her she wasn't to boss him around.

"Jeez, Mara," Nick complained, "you could have just flashed some fang."

"I don't know how to do it on command like you do," she said with a shrug.

"I'm getting a medic," Jamie said urgently.

"No! Wait. Watch," she commanded them all, her tone brooking no argument. The room was full of tough, lethal men who didn't take orders from much of anybody, but at her bidding they all sat back in their seats and watched her bleed.

Clearly, Nick couldn't bear to see her injured. Certainly not after seeing her shot to death before his very eyes. He could also help her show what she was trying to show a little faster. He touched her shoulder and slowly, with the tenderest of caresses, he ran his fingers down her arm and cupped her injured hand into his. He brought her palm to his lips and, his eyes fixed only onto hers, he slowly lapped at the raw, ugly gunshot wound. Someone at the table made a sound of revulsion, but they both ignored that. Nick turned her hand and licked the exit wound closed, sealing it with a sweetly romantic kiss. Then he turned to his gaping peers and showed them her rapidly healing hand.

"No friggin' way."

"It's a trick!"

"You think I carry dummy bullets in my sidearm, Agent?" Jamie snapped irritably. He pointed to the carpeting where the slug had punctured it. "See?"

"You're a f.u.c.king ghoul," the no-longer-laughing man spat as he surged out of his seat and drew his sidearm.

"Carl!"

"Carl, no!"

"Agent Jackson, put that weapon down," Jamie barked.

"Don't you get it?" Carl hissed. "They're vampires or something! They are unnatural...things! He lapped up her blood like it was flavored body oil, for f.u.c.k's sake! Look at him. He's got a G.o.dd.a.m.n erection. He got off on it!" He lapped up her blood like it was flavored body oil, for f.u.c.k's sake! Look at him. He's got a G.o.dd.a.m.n erection. He got off on it!"

Amara glanced down Nick's body. The surgical scrubs left no mystery to the state of Nick's arousal. She met his wry gaze and smiled.

"Men," she sighed with an amused roll of her eyes. "Were you thinking of flas.h.i.+ng that that for proof?" for proof?"