Page 22 of Bitten By Desire

“Not yet,” Marcia said before the doctor opened the flow. “He has to be awake for this.”

My hand trembled as Snake snatched the powder from my grip. “Turn on the Bunsen burner and start heating some of the old formula.”

When I didn’t respond, he squeezed my ass painfully and whispered, “I can do whatever I want to punish you as long as I leave no physical markssss.”

I mindlessly started up the burner as my pulse pounded in my ears. Snake’s hands and voice felt very far away as I zeroed in on the man I loved, helpless on the table while Marcia woke him with her command.

Immediately, he went to spring upright, but the bar across his biceps and chest prevented more than his head lifting. It took him less than three seconds to lock eyes with me. His normally vivid irises had dulled to the point that I couldn’t make out the color from this far away. And as I’d come to expect from Julian, his face filled with concern only for me.

I’d frozen in place, hand lifted in the air, as Marcia gave the order to start the infusion. Time stilled, or at least it seemed to as the mercurial liquid slid down the plastic tube toward him. The veins on his arm bulged and darkened against the pale skin, rising from his muscles that tensed against the onslaught. Then the dark passage of the silver in his veins continued growing up to his shoulder and spread out into his chest and neck.

It took a moment for the pain to register as his face contorted while fingers of poison clawed onto his cheek, chin, and forehead. He convulsed against his bonds, every muscle contracted, body raised from the table’s surface and pressed to the sizzling bars of silver, and head thrown back in agony as he screamed.

Something inside of me broke in that instant and my vision turned red.

Power swelled inside of me, much like it had that night when Julian’s sire had pushed me too far. Still, I couldn’t risk trying to use it only to fail. I had to make my strike count.

“I said, add the elixssssir,” Snake’s voice suddenly burst through my haze.

Gladly, I thought, wishing I could grab the purple one that I knew caused pain. But this would have to do.

I reached for the largest container of the neon green potion and pulled out the cork.

“Don’t waste that much,” Snake snapped at me.

“You’re right,” I said, tossing a small splash his way. “You aren’t worth it. Freeze and don’t say a word.”

His snake eyes glazed over, and he stood still as a statue. I smiled then vaulted over the table, knocking everything else to the ground as I ran toward Julian, tossing out the liquid in an arc, making sure most of it landed on the major.

“Freeze and shut up!” I screamed as I dove for the IV and flipped off the silver infusion.

Julian writhed on the table, his screams having turned to hoarse groans. I smoothed back his hair and swallowed thickly as I watched the veins on his face flatten. But they remained dark, the skin surrounding them bright red.

Shit.

I looked up at the major and the doctor, both frozen in mid-turn. Several people had abandoned their stations to move toward me, uncertain but clearly not friendly.

My container was empty, so I grabbed the major and fished in my belt until I found a syringe to hold to her throat. It didn’t matter that it was the cure for vampirism. They didn’t know what the hell I was threatening her with.

“Stay back,” I ordered, and it worked, despite my lack of elixir. Then I looked to the doctor as Julian’s body collapsed against the table, his screams silenced.

No. He couldn’t be dead. I wouldn’t let him die. Not like this. Not now.

“Fix him,” I ordered the doctor, putting everything I had in the command.

The doctor sprung to life and went to lift one of Julian’s eyelids. “I don’t know how,” she said as she searched through her medical bag. “The only thing that helps vampires is usually blood. But I can’t extract the silver from his veins.”

You can, Pythia whispered.

“Okay.” I readied myself and grabbed his hand as the doctor reached to remove the IV. “Stop.”

She did and I focused on Julian’s body. Stay with me, I said through our bond, not knowing if he could hear me or not.

I reached out with my mind, searching, and I found what felt like a foreign substance in him. It stung all over my body, and I drew in a sharp breath as tears bloomed in my eyes. That would be only a fraction of what he felt.

Out, I silently commanded it as I pulled with my telekinesis. Slowly, the thick, silvery substance began to climb up the plastic tubing back toward the bag. But he needed blood coming in while it was extracted. I knew it, not only from my own studies, but also on a much deeper level.

“Cut your wrist and tip the blood in his mouth,” I told the supposed doctor. She gasped but did as she was told. When she went to jerk away, I told her to freeze and readjusted her stance so the scarlet drizzled over his lips and into his partially open mouth.

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