Allegiance(60)

Dosage: 80 mg. Strongest they make. Ironically, bright-yellow warning labels plastered the sides of the bottle. Addiction; respiratory distress; do not mix with alcohol or other medicines without checking with your doctor or pharmacist; do not operate machinery. It was the opioid script, so that after you got good and hooked, the drug manufacturers could claim innocence: you’d been warned.

If he had the sense God gave a billy goat, he’d march right into the bathroom and flush these babies into the local groundwater system. He wouldn’t stand here mesmerized at the sight of the thing that had set him on the road to ruin.

Or the road to Aidan and Melissa. How could he truly hate the thing that had led him to the two people he loved most?

He’d flush them. He couldn’t let Aidan down. Mel. Krys. Any of them.

“Mark? You here?”

He wrested his gaze from the bottle in his hand to the doorway. “Mel?”

He should tell her about the drugs. Let her help him figure out who put them here.

First, he’d see what she wanted. No point in dragging her into it if she was here to start a fight, after all, or discuss the terms of divorce now that she’d had a chance to get used to the idea. Not that he was sure he could go through with it; he’d accepted that he was always going to love her. But he did want her to be happy.

He jerked out the top dresser drawer and tucked the bottle underneath his socks. I’m not hiding it. I’m getting it out of sight until I have time to figure out the right person to tell. He got the drawer closed a split-second before she appeared in the door from the hallway.

“How’s your back?”

Funny, he hadn’t given it a second’s thought as long as that bottle of pills was in his hand. Maybe he should just walk around with them: therapy by association. “It’s better, but I probably overdid it today. I guess you came to talk about the divorce.”

He was so preoccupied with walking to the bed and sitting down with as little wincing and groaning as possible that he didn’t realize for a moment that she hadn’t answered. Once he’d planted his butt on the mattress, he looked up at her and saw the tears.

“Is that really what you want, Mark?” She wiped her cheeks with a very human-looking flash of annoyance. “If it is, then we can talk about it. But not before I apologize.”

God, he wasn’t sure he could handle another tortured conversation. “Why are you here, Mel? Aidan will be by in a few minutes. It’s dinner time for vampires, as I guess you know.”

She had been standing in the doorway as if afraid to get close, but now she stepped inside the bedroom and closed the door behind her. “Aidan’s not coming—he’s waiting until the late feeding tonight and moving Britta to a new guy, Grayson, who came in from Atlanta today. Will and Randa recruited him. They’re switching around the schedule since Max is gone . . . and Robbie.”

That made no sense. “Why switch Britta?”

“You knew Matthias escaped?”

Melissa pulled the heavy wooden chair from beside the closet and parked it in front of him so they’d be facing each other. Only when she sat down and rested her hands on her knees did Mark notice what she was wearing: a loose pair of gray sweatpants and what looked like a tank top under her oversized sweater.

What she’d said finally sank in, and Mark felt the room tilt beneath him. Not again. Oh dear God, not again. Haven’t we been through enough?

“No, tell me.” He closed his eyes and listened as she shared what she knew, which was virtually nothing. Nobody knew where the old bastard was, or what he was up to.

“Until we know where Matthias is and what the Tribunal’s up to,” Melissa said, flicking a piece of lint off her pants, “they want the original Penton people sticking close together. Britta’s not a target—she hasn’t been here long enough—but you are, and I am.”

Mark knew he had a concussion, but something still didn’t compute here. “What does that have to do with feeding schedules?”

“I . . .” Melissa twisted her hands in her lap. “I wanted to see if you’d accept me in her place.” At his dumbfounded look, she talked faster. “Aidan said I could go to you or to Nik, that Ranger guy, but Mark, I want to try . . .” She took a deep breath. “I’ve made such a mess of everything . . .”

She finally ran out of steam and her hands fell still.

“What happened? Cage got tired of you?”

As soon as the words were out, Mark wished like hell he could reel them back in and choke himself on him. He’d aimed them to hurt, and they’d hit their target. She looked at the floor, and when she spoke again, her voice was soft and subdued. “I was never with Cage. Never. I was so confused when I was first turned, and he seemed safe. I just let you both think . . .”