Talia bit her lip, wondering if she was saying too much. "Whatever he can do, I"m better. Trust me on this."
Worry furrowed his forehead again. "I"ll see what I can do. Be careful."
"I will. I"ll see you in a bit."
Kissing her lightly, he squeezed her hand and left her there. Talia stuck her hand in her pocket, wishing she could keep the warmth of him a moment longer.
Wow. Weren"t they in couple mode?
There"s no way it can last. There"s too many reasons why it won"t work, starting with the fact that you"re a monster and a monster-killer. How"s that going to play with his pack?
Talia hunched against her inner voice, wishing it would just shut up for ten seconds. She liked what was going on with Lore. The fact that he had protected her made her feel worth protecting and, dammit, she meant to enjoy that for as long as she could.
She went back to the elevator, taking it to the main level. It wasn"t hard to find the cafeteria from there. The greasy smell might as well have been a flashing sign.
Talia suspected the place was designed with the hospital"s future revenues in mind. It was the typical mix of cardiac-arresting doughnuts and fried food, dirty tables, and lighting so bad no one would notice that she was a vampire. About the only things she could ingest there were the cashier or herb tea. She was contemplating her options when she saw Errata at one of the tables by the wall, scribbling in a notebook.
She was about to walk over when she caught sight of someone else out of the corner of her eye. What the h.e.l.l?
Talia turned, frowning in the direction she thought she"d seen her brother. That"s crazy. Max is thousands of miles away. Shaking herself, she blinked the image away. It was unsettling. She"d been thinking about him and had seen his name on the bulletin board that morning. Obviously, she was missing him a lot.
Talia headed over and sat down opposite Errata. The werecougar looked up. Her eyes were red from crying.
"Hi," Talia said softly. "Lore"s gone upstairs. I"m waiting for him here."
Errata closed the notebook and took a swallow of coffee. She looked like a woman trying to compose herself. "Why Perry? Everybody loves him."
Talia felt a pang for her. There was never only one victim. "He had evidence that he was going to show Lore. Maybe somebody knew about it." By somebody, she meant Belenos.
Errata gave her a look that said she understood what Talia was getting at. "But how?"
"Or what? Do you know what he found?"
Errata shook her head. "I"ve been at CSUP all day. We"re short-staffed because of holidays. I was going to meet him late tonight. Then Lore called me at the station."
Once again, Talia thought she saw Max walk by in the distance. This time she got a better look, and it made her sit bolt upright. "Excuse me." She stood up, feeling suddenly light-headed. "I just saw someone I know."
"Is everything okay? You don"t look happy about it."
Without answering, Talia strode quickly between the tables, heading for the corridor where she thought she"d seen him pa.s.s. It had been a glimpse, his head and shoulders above the half wall that separated the eatery from the main hallway, but his profile had been clear. Talia knew Max"s face as well as her own.
What the blazes was he doing in Fairview?
A chill ran over her body as she put puzzle pieces together. There weren"t a lot of options. Max did only one thing: He hunted, and he used silver safety slugs. Perry had survived, and professionals came back to finish the job if they didn"t succeed the first time. As long as her brother was here, Perry was in danger.
No, no, I must be having a brain cramp. This can"t be real. She reached the hallway and looked around, dreading and wishing for a glimpse of Max"s dark head.
She nearly missed him in the hospital crowd. He was turning into the service stairway that led down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. The tension in Talia"s shoulders cranked up a notch. What"s down there? She ran to follow, wishing she had more than a knife to defend herself.
Max was her brother, but he would likely kill her on sight. Stupidly, that didn"t stop her from longing to cry out after him. She wanted to see recognition in his eyes one more time.
Slipping through the door, she stood on the landing for a moment, listening to the sound of footfalls descending. Why was he going down there? There was no underground parking at the hospital. That was all outdoors.
Silently, she followed, scanning for some clue as to what drew Max. Weren"t morgues usually in the bas.e.m.e.nt? Creepy.
She reached the bottom of the stairs, putting her hand on the k.n.o.b of the fire door that separated the landing from whatever lay beyond. Nerves urged her to hurry, to try to catch up, but experience told her to play it cool. She listened a moment, and was rewarded with the shush-thump, shush-thump of a heartbeat. He"d heard someone coming, and was waiting on the other side of the door. Talia debated, her hand hovering above the door handle. Abandon the chase, or find out what her brother might know? That meant confronting him.
The quiet was broken by the sound of a round being chambered. He knew he was being followed.
This was a dance she"d done before, but it usually ended in a death. She"d have to be good, very good, to make this end well.
She grabbed the door handle and pushed it open with as much force as she could muster. In the same gesture, she tucked and rolled, making herself as tiny a target as possible. Max fired at where her head had been moments before.
Regaining her feet, she grabbed him from behind and slammed his face into the painted concrete of the wall. He grunted with surprise, dropping the semiautomatic. Talia yanked his head back, using his hair as a handle.
"Talia!" His voice held pure horror.
"Sh!"
Max was silent.
She waited, forcing away the chorus in her heart that was cheering, It"s Max! It"s him! Were they safe? After the gunshots, she expected a sudden rush of security guards, or morgue workers. Somebody.
n.o.body came. For whatever reason-budget cuts? shift change? the weather?-the bas.e.m.e.nt was deserted. A shielding spell? There were such things, to keep pa.s.sersby from noticing a crime. If someone had used one, she wouldn"t necessarily know.
"Talia." Her name came out in a croak.
That yearned-for look of recognition was in his eyes. She breathed in the familiar scent of him, childhood coming back in a rush of remembered laughter, fights, shared meals, and shared secrets. He was solid proof that she"d had a life and people who loved her.
But that life hadn"t been kind to him. Once, dark-haired Maxim Rostov would have given Joe a run for his money in the hot-guy department. The few years since she"d seen Max had been hard. He was only thirty, but he looked haggard, his dark eyes eating up the rest of his face. In his own way, he"d suffered as much as she had. Poor Max.
"You!" he snarled. "What are you doing here?"
She flinched at the rage in his voice. "I ran away. I had to get away from Belenos. This was on the other side of the continent."
He was immobilized, her fingers laced through his hair, her other hand pressing him into the wall. She was stronger than him now, and she could smell the fear coming off him in waves. Tears welled in her eyes. She was doing this to him. His little sister. "If I let you go, are you going to try to kill me?"
She hoped he would say no, and wished even harder that she could believe him. "I still love you. You"re still my brother."
"You bit me!"
It had been one of the king"s embellishments of cruelty. He"d taken both brother and sister, but Turned only one. Then he served up the other for dessert. Barely days old, burning bright with hunger, she"d had no self-control.
Guilt seared her like acid. "I"m so sorry."
Max bucked, struggling to get away. "Bulls.h.i.t."
"It"s true. I am. At least Belenos let you live."
"He made me a venom junkie."
That shocked her. Then Talia understood what had happened. Her brother hadn"t been for killing. The vampire king had other suffering planned for him. Dozens of bites. Dozens of doses of addictive venom. Degradation of the chief Hunter"s son had been the objective.
She hadn"t known. "Oh, Max."
"I kicked it." Slowly, he turned his head to fix her with furious eyes. The movement must have cost him a clump of hair. "I beat what he did to me, which is more than I can say for you."
His disgust hit her with the force of a blow. She felt her lips growing cold with emotional shock. "He made me dead. That"s a little harder to cure."
Suddenly Max blinked hard, confusion crumpling his face. "I know. You"re one of them now."
"I"m still Talia."
He began to silently sob, his anger finally giving way to grief.
"Oh, Max." She bent close, meaning to kiss his cheek, but he reared away, nearly breaking free.
"Don"t bite me! For G.o.d"s sake don"t bite me!"
It was an addict"s cry not to send him back to that corrosive h.e.l.l.
"Don"t bite me, Talia, please!"
She hadn"t meant to, but he shouldn"t have put the idea in her head. Talia felt her mouth going dry, parched as if it were stuffed with dust and ashes. His struggling didn"t help. Fear, struggles, heat, and the scent of blood and sweat added up to only one thing: prey.
Suddenly, Talia was shaking with hunger. She was starving. It had been days since she"d had a proper meal-too long for someone as newly Turned as she was. All she could see was fragile skin, all she could smell was his panic. Older vampires would make a game of seduction. She was too raw for anything but selfish urgency.
She began to salivate.
When she struck, skin would break with a springy resistance that reminded her of grapes. As her fangs breached flesh, there would be the first gush of hot comfort, and the blessed release of the venom. Her teeth ached with it, a pressure that built the hungrier she became. Now it would discharge, flowing from her into his veins and sending him into bliss. Oh, yes, she would give him a rush of pleasure.
In just a moment.
Unless she could hang on. She had to hang on. It was her brother. That would be weird and wrong. The first time, it had been a cruel trick. This time, she was in the driver"s seat. She could resist.
She hoped.
Max fought back, egging on the predator inside her. Talia couldn"t see his face and didn"t want to. The intimacy of the moment wasn"t something she wanted to remember. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she struggled against the urge to take him. She was panting, trying to find enough air to relieve the ache that racked her whole body.
Back away, back away, back away.
She could almost accept the blood-drinking thing. What she really hated was the loss of control.
A clattering of heels broke her hunger trance. The door burst open and Errata nearly smashed into them. Talia looked up, hoping she wasn"t sticking out her fangs like some B-movie Draculette.
The werecougar was staring at her openmouthed. "What are you doing?"
Duh, isn"t it obvious? Sucking on a victim just outside the local morgue. Saves on body fluid cleanup. How"s your night been going?
"Hairb.a.l.l.s, something told me I should check on you. Talia, talk to me." Errata took a slow step forward. "Who is this guy?"
Talia swallowed hard before finding her voice. It came out strained and hoa.r.s.e. "My brother."
Errata grabbed Max"s arm, pulling him out of Talia"s clutches. "Then don"t eat him. That would make Thanksgiving really awkward."
Talia felt an irrational urge to yank him back, but reason was starting to claw its way through the feeding frenzy. Max flattened himself against the wall, glaring at Talia. Errata had her phone out, calling somebody for help.
Talia bent and picked up the semiautomatic, her fingers shaking with need denied. She couldn"t bring herself to look Max in the face.
So much for the movie-of-the-week family reunion.
Errata put away her phone. She looked from Talia to Max curiously, taking in his nondescript black clothes, the gun, and his glare. Her look said she had him pegged as very, very bad news. "What"s going on? What"s he doing here?"
"Is this your friend, Tal?" An unpleasant leer came over Max"s face. "I always wanted to meet a girl who was all p.u.s.s.y."
His head whipped to the side, smacking against the wall. Errata"s hand had moved faster than Talia"s eyes could follow.
"Next time, the claws are out," Errata hissed. "I don"t care whose brother you are."
"Don"t!" Talia automatically stepped forward to defend him.
The malevolence in his eyes froze her where she stood. What"s happened to him? He was never this cruel.
But who was she kidding? Hunters killed monsters. Would they sweat a little rudeness? But he"s not like that. I know him.
Errata gave her a look that was close to pity.
The door slammed open again; this time Baines burst through. He flashed a badge. "Derek Baines, Supernatural Crimes Division. Stay right where you are."
Lore arrived a moment later, his expression baleful. He looked at Errata. "The detective was standing right next to me when you called."
When he caught sight of Talia, his expression said his worst fears had been confirmed. Detective Baines didn"t realize it, but he"d just found the elusive Talia Rostova. She slid the gun into her pocket and out of sight.
Baines took a step toward Max, but he looked at Errata. "There was an altercation?"
With her stomach turning hard and heavy, Talia began a slow fade down the hallway one step at a time. Until her name was cleared, she was in trouble if the police figured out who she was. If she was on that frickin" registry, they"d hand her straight back to Belenos.
But this was Max. Was she going to abandon him? Was she going to sell him out as the gunman who"d shot Perry?
But he"s my brother.
The worst they had on him was nearly being eaten by his vampire sister. Max would be okay. Talia had his gun-they wouldn"t even pick him up on a weapons charge.
He shot Perry. He tried to murder someone.
But that was what Hunters did. That was the family business.
Perry had helped her.