Lora Leigh - Primal

My heart leapt. It was exactly what I’d been waiting to hear. I wanted to pinch myself to prove this wasn’t just a dream.

“How can you help her?” Declan asked. He didn’t sound as relieved as I felt. Instead, he sounded wary, suspicious, and not the least bit friendly.

His query earned him a sharp look. “I believe I asked you to leave the room before I started my examination.”

“I’m not leaving Jill’s side.” Declan stood just out of reach, his arms crossed over his chest. I saw a glint of the silver stake he kept in a sheath on his belt under the edge of his black jacket. He didn’t look directly at me, despite his fierce and protective claim.

Jackson had left when he’d been asked to. Declan, however, had flatly refused, not budging a step when Dr. Reynolds made the original request. It was fine with me. More than fine. His presence helped to give me extra strength to face whatever the doctor had to say to me.

Dr. Reynolds’s jaw tightened as he glared at the stubborn vampire hunter. “Declan Reyes. Your reputation precedes you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You’re a dhampyr.” It was said through clenched teeth.

Declan didn’t reply to that, which was confirmation enough.

“Declan’s with me,” I said, not liking the tension that had been steadily rising in the room. “Whatever you have to say to me, I’m fine with him hearing it, too.”

“Maybe I’m not fine with that.”

“Let me guess,” Declan said. “You have a problem with dhampyrs.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yeah.”

The doctor’s narrowed eyes flicked to me. “You know dhampyrs are extremely dangerous to humans, don’t you? Perhaps even more so than vampires.”

I’d heard this song and dance before. I held the gaze of the doctor, whose face had flushed with anger. “Declan’s different.”

“Have you seen the other kind of dhampyr?” he asked sharply.

“Yes.” A chill went down my spine. There were two types of dhampyrs, and Declan was the more human type. The other kind were referred to as monster dhampyrs because of their more monstrous appearance and appetites. They were as mindless as they were ravenous, like large, pale, humanoid piranha—sharp teeth, soulless black eyes, and an overwhelming need to feed.

The stuff of nightmares, actually. I had the sleepless nights to prove it.

I watched Dr. Reynolds, whose attention was now focused on Declan. There was something there that made me uncomfortable—a willingness to believe the worst. This is what Declan had been putting up with all of his life—people jumping to conclusions about what he was, based on half of his DNA.

I’d come face-to-face with several hungry vampires since I was first injected with Nightshade. I easily remembered what it felt like to be bit by one of them—the sharp pain as those razor-sharp teeth cut into my flesh. Just because every one of them who had tasted my blood had died a quick and fiery death didn’t make the thought of getting attacked any more pleasant.

“Declan’s with me,” I said. “And I trust him completely. If you have a problem with that, then we’re going to have to leave.”

After a few more moments, Dr. Reynolds’s unfriendly and tense expression faded and his brow furrowed. “I apologize for my unprofessional behavior.” He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, then cleaned the glasses on his sleeve before putting them back on. “My wife, she—she was killed by a dhampyr. It’s colored my objectivity.”

Immediate empathy surged through me at the thought of anyone facing death at the hands of one of those nightmarish monsters. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

“So am I.” His jaw tensed and his expression shadowed. “This is neither here nor there. I need to take some samples of your blood now so I can study it.”

I rolled up my sleeve without argument, happy for the change of subject, and he set to work. He drew in a sharp breath when he first saw the color of my blood. It wasn’t red. It was more of a dark, very dark, crimson.

“It’s incredible,” he mused aloud.

Seeing it only made it that much more real. I flicked a glance at Declan before returning my attention to the doctor. “What? Incredible that I’m still standing. Still breathing?”

A slight smile played at his lips. “I’d be lying if I said no. Yes, it’s incredible that your body has withstood the poison for so long, especially with visible transformations like this. It’s infused your entire being. If it was developed by regular chemistry, there’s little doubt that you wouldn’t have survived this long. However, parachemistry is different.”

“So you can help her,” Declan said. “For real?”

Declan’s voice was enough to put a crack in Dr. Reynolds’s pleasant expression. He really didn’t like the dhampyr and wasn’t making much of an effort to hide it. “Yes. I’ll use these samples to create a new serum that will release the Nightshade from your cellular makeup.”

“Sounds . . . encouraging?” I said, gripping the edges of the examination table. My heart pounded so hard and fast it was difficult to appear calm.

His expression darkened. “Once we separate the formula from your blood, I think we can cleanse the blood through intensive hemodialysis. Dialysis isn’t normally a painful process, but I should warn you that the separation process likely will be . . . difficult for you.”

The thought of more pain made me cringe. I’d experienced so much pain since first being injected that it had redefined agony for me. This wasn’t something I’d choose if I had any other option. There weren’t any other options.

I hadn’t been expecting a magic, sugarcoated pill to cure me. It would have been nice, but this wasn’t a fairy tale.

I nodded firmly. “Let’s do it.”

“You’ll stay here during your treatment—the floor above us is where my patients stay. It will be quite comfortable for you.”

I assumed that the vampire guinea pigs didn’t get the same first-class treatment. “What do you want in return? I don’t suppose this is covered by health insurance.”

He placed his clipboard under his arm and moved to the other side of the examining table, giving Declan a wide berth. “If there’s any way I can rediscover the formula, if I can extract it from your blood and re-create it—it’ll be an invaluable weapon. Even though you’ll no longer be a part of it, there’s no reason why the Nightshade program needs to be discarded completely.”

He was helping me so he could try to re-create Nightshade. Sounded reasonable to me.

I nodded again. “When do we start?”

“The moment I have the information I need from these samples. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”

I felt lightheaded from the blood donation as Declan and I left the examining room and rode the elevator back up to the warehouse level. Declan kept his hand at the small of my back in case I lost my balance.

We got off the elevator and walked through the empty warehouse until we emerged into the sunlight again.

He eyed me cautiously. “You okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” I pressed my hand to my forehead. “Must be all the blood he took. I’m feeling a bit drained.”

“I’ll go get the car,” Declan said. “Wait here.”

I nodded and leaned against the wall, just outside of the front door, and watched him disappear around the edge of the building. I eyed the camera that was trained on the front door. For something that was there for security reasons, it made me nervous.

“Did it go well?” Jackson asked. I started a little, since I hadn’t seen him standing to the other side of me.

“I think so.” I rubbed my fingertips over the Band-Aid at the crook of my arm. “Listen, thanks for pointing us in the right direction.”