“Continual dosing over a long period of time can lead to drugs lingering in your system.” They did it to her and others often enough in the labs. She stepped forward, maintaining her distance from the Ogre...er, Jackson. “May I?”
When she stretched out her arm, the boy flinched. She pulled away. “I need to check something. You have my word I won’t touch you.”
A dusky rose filled his cheeks. “I’m yours to command.”
Horror sliced through her at his soft refrain. “I’m no one’s master.” She almost lost her courage, almost left him to his own devices, but there was something shattered in his eyes that she recognized.
She lifted her hand again, palms outward, her heart stuttering at being so close and having all that naked male chest on display. “Don’t move.” She pressed closer, narrowing the space separating them to a few inches. Heat poured off his skin. She closed her eyes, concentrated, searching for the energy field that surrounded the living. Most people labeled it an aura. It bowed under her touch, fluctuating wildly at the intrusion.
Sparks snapped around her, melding with his shield, testing, judging and finding the source of the sickness ravishing his beast. Any attraction vanished, replaced by concern. To heal him completely would take more out of both of them than she was willing to risk at the moment, revealing more of herself than she was comfortable. The drugs would have to sweat out of his system the normal way.
With a little more push, she focused on the opened wounds on his back, forcing them to mend by redirecting the energy in his body to the injuries.
An abrupt, half growl made her jerk back. Her eyes snapped wide to find Jackson pulling the kid away. When both men looked at her, their eyes had gone neon yellow.
“What did you do?”
The guttural question stung like a reprimand. She curled her fingers into fists and lifted her chin, refusing to back down. She had done nothing wrong. Jackson had no right to judge her when he demanded that she take responsibility for the kid in the first place. “He was injured. I healed him.”
She shook off her irritation and faced the kid. “Your metabolism should drive the drug out of your system in the next day or so. You’ll be hungry, queasy but you should start feeling normal.”
They stared at her like she was a freak. Their perusal needled her pride, and she stiffened her spine. Maybe it was better this way. She spent her life keeping her distance from others. She didn’t know what it was about the boy that had her forgetting her own rules.
“Food’s in the kitchen, take any open room upstairs. We’ll talk in the morning about other arrangements.”
Chapter Four
DAY TWO: MORNING
The smell of hickory coffee penetrated Raven’s preoccupation, and she stretched at the computer, the long night leaving her exhausted. Her mouth watered, and she gazed longingly at the empty counter space.
Damn Dominic and his rules. His first order of business had been to remove her coffeemaker and place it upstairs, spouting such claptrap that she’d never emerge from her cave otherwise.
With a disgusted sigh, she lifted her fingers off the keyboard and watched her computer power down. One way to maintain security was to build a computer that only she could run. Who else in this world would be able to power the machine just by touch? Any tampering would melt the hard drive.
Another whiff of dark brew invaded her senses. She pushed back the chair and rose, tugging on her gloves, feeling more herself with the added protection. The vampire case would have to wait, the prep work, a must when dealing with the paranormal, was mostly done. The meeting to see if she would accept the job wasn’t until ten tonight.
Vampire hours, you got to love them.
The lights flickered and turned off as she walked by, the basement suite built for convenience, sustained by her power. The reinforced cinder walls able to withstand whatever she could throw at them without harming anyone else. In theory. She hadn’t had to put it to the test yet.
Her knuckles whitened on the knob. A quick scan confirmed she had all her power locked down tight, leaving her feel strangely vulnerable not to have the threads of energy at her beck and call. Maybe today she could have a conversation without running away like a coward.
She pulled the door open and promptly tripped over the body sprawled at the base of the door. With a yelp, she stumbled, nearly taking a digger on the floor before catching her balance.
Crouching, she pressed one hand against the wall and dropped the shields that took hours to prepare. Energy immediately leapt at her touch as if starved for the very taste of her. She drank the current from the wires like a glutton and forced her body to take more as she scanned the room for any threat. Static crackled across her skin, the hair on her arms stood to attention.