Page 109 of Blade's Battle
“A dirty Angel?”
“My. . .” He planted a light kiss on her bruised cheek. “. . . dirty. . .” Another kiss landed behind her ear. “. . . Angel.” The last one captured her mouth, and he didn’t let go until she was weak in the knees. He cupped her cheeks. “Six days until the Running of the Moon. Then you are mine.”
“And you’ll be mine,” she said, smiling with all her heart.
* * *
“Will it hurt her?” Damien asked as Anna finished preparing the injection.
“It’s a shot, Damien,” Tess said, rolling her eyes.
“I’m injecting new genes, ones I’ve taken from Damien, to replace your damaged genes. Technically, the delivery is through a virus that will target the damaged genes. This is a common enough technique, assuming I’ve correctly identified the genes.”
“I have faith in you.” Tess showed no hesitation. In fact, she was practically jumping in her seat.
Anna released a long breath. It was hard not being nervous. What if this was another failure?
Tess gently squeezed Anna’s arm. “You’ve got this, Anna. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll continue to be your lab rat as long as it takes.”
She didn’t know how Tess could be so calm with so much at stake. Damien’s arm wrapped around Tess’s waist and leaned into him, teasingly. Anna understood at last. No matter what happened, Tess had Damien, and that was all she really needed.
“There should be no side-effects,” Anna said, as she straightened as much as her bruised ribs would allow and put some punch into her voice. Confidence was a key ingredient in research, and Blade had given her tons of it. “But I don’t know how long it will take before we see any results.Ifwe see results, it could be hours, days, even weeks.”
“So, go about my normal business and forget about it.”
“Exactly. Try shifting once a week, but don’t stress yourself. If it doesn’t happen—”
“Then nothing lost.”
“Ready?”
Damien scrutinized Anna’s every move as she injected Tess. She didn’t begrudge him for his overprotectiveness; Blade was the same way. Seeing Damien, all that shifter muscle and power standing there squirming with nervousness was exactly the reason she hadn’t told Blade the full extent of her research in the bunker. He had enough to worry about containing his wolf. He wouldn’t want her taking risks. Just like Damien wasn’t thrilled about the risk Tess was taking now. And it was a risk. Anna didn’t have the means or the luxury of time to test either process on lab animals first.
“Do you think Callen found your friend yet?” Tess asked she sensed Anna needed a distraction.
“Katy? I sure hope so. It’s been three days already.”
“And it might be weeks more before we hear from him,” Damien said.
Anna hadn’t missed the alpha’s tone. He clearly preferred that she focus on the task at hand. “Waiting is hard,” Anna added, as she prepared the second injection.
Hard, but she was an expert at it by now. “I wish I could have told him more about her, anything to help him find her.” Anna withdrew the needle. “There, that second shot will take care of any antibodies attacking the adenovirus capsid proteins.”
“Callen’s a good tracker. One of the best,” Blade said as Tess hopped off the exam table. “He’ll find her, Angel.”
Blade had been sitting by the window, not saying much until then. She wasn’t sure what was eating at him at the moment, but he’d been keeping a wide berth of Damien ever since they’d returned.
“How can you be sure Callen won’t give up and leave?”
“I know him like I know you.” He kissed her on the cheek as soon as she’d dropped the needle into the bio-waste tin.
It took all her control not to turn away from his kiss. Of all the things for him to say to her, that had hit the very center of the huge heap of guilt building within her. What if the treatment didn’t work? What if blood-bonding him weakened him like it had Kurt? She’d lose Blade, just like she lost Kurt. Her fears were rising again, and the closer they got to the ceremony, the more pronounced they became.
Four days. Her life, and especially Blade’s, would change, irrevocably so, in one week.
Anna tapped Tess’s knee. “All done.”
Tess jumped up, all smiles she knew the genetic modification would work. She pulled Damien down by his neck into one long and very sensuous kiss. The way Damien’s hand smoothed down Tess’s back and cupped her ass, Anna knew it was time to slip away with Blade. Anna suddenly had the urge to find a private spot somewhere in the woods with Blade, just the two of them, bruised ribs be damned.
