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The death vision came on fast, nailing him like an explosion of blistering daylight. He was awake, at least, but suspended in a paralyzing state of awareness, all of his senses gripped in a debilitating, full-on assault. The vision had never come to him outside of sleep. It had never been so fierce, so ruthlessly strong.
One minute he'd been standing next to Tess, swamped with the erotic images of what he wanted to do with her; the next thing he knew, he was ass-planted on the linoleum of the examination room, feeling himself becoming engulfed in smoke and flame.
Fire climbed toward him from all sides, belching thick plumes of black, acrid smoke. He couldn't move. He felt shackled, helpless, afraid.
The pain was immense, as was the despair. It shamed him how deeply he felt both of those things, how hard it was for him not to yell out in torment for what he was living through in his mind.
But he held on, the only thing he could do whenever the vision struck him, and he prayed it would be over soon.
He heard his name on Tess's lips, asking him what he needed. He couldn't answer. His throat was dry, his mouth filled with ash. He sensed the honesty of her concern and the truth of her apprehension, as she drew closer to him. He wanted to tell her to go, to let him suffer it out on his own, the only way he knew how.
But then he felt cool and gentle fingers come to rest on his shoulder. He felt the white calm of sleep float down over him like a sheltering blanket as she stroked his taut spine and the sweat-dampened hair at his nape.
"You'll be all right," she told him softly. "Let me help you, Dante. You're safe."
And for the first time he could ever recall, he believed that he was.
Chapter Sixteen
Dante lifted his eyelids, waiting for the splintering headache to blind him. Nothing happened. No staggering aftershocks, no cold sweat, no bone-numbing fear.
He blinked once, twice, staring up at a white acoustic-tile ceiling and an extinguished fluorescent-light panel above his head. Strange surroundings--the muted-taupe walls, the small upholstered sofa underneath him, the tidy wooden desk across from him, its orderly surface illuminated by a ginger-jar lamp next to the computer workstation.
He breathed in, smelling none of the familiar smoke or other burning stench that had filled his nostrils in the hellish reality of his death vision. All he smelled was a spicy-sweet warmth that seemed to cocoon him in peace. He brought his hands up from his sides, smoothing them over the fleece throw that only partially covered his big body. The plush cream-colored blanket smelled like her.
Tess.
He turned his head just as she was coming into the room from the hallway outside. The white lab coat was gone; she looked incredibly soft and feminine in an unbuttoned pale green cardigan over her beige knit top. Her jeans rode her hips, baring a thin wedge of smooth creamy flesh where the hem of her shirt didn't quite meet the top of her pants. She'd let her hair down from the plastic claw that held it before. Now the honeyed brown waves fell down around her shoulders in loose glossy curls.
"Hi," she said, watching him sit up and swivel around to put his feet on the carpeted floor. "Are you feeling better?"
"Yeah."
His voice was a dry croak, but he felt surprisingly well. Rested. Cooled out, when he should have been jacked up tense and hurting--the usual hangover that came in the wake of his death vision. On impulse, he ran his tongue along the line of his teeth, feeling for fangs, but the fearsome canines were receded. His eyesight felt normal, not the sharp, otherworldly twin laser beams that marked him as one of the Breed.
The storm of his transformation, if it had come at all, was past. He moved the fluffy throw off him and realized he was missing his coat and boots. "Where's my stuff?"
"Right here," she said, pointing to the black leather coat and the lug-soled Doc Martens that had been placed neatly on a guest chair near the door. "Your cell phone is on my desk. I turned it off a couple of hours ago. I hope you don't mind. It was ringing pretty continuously and I didn't want it to wake you."
A couple of hours ago? "What time is it now?"
"Um, it's quarter to one."
Shit. Those calls were probably the compound, wondering where the hell he was. Lucy was gonna have some 'splaining to do.
"Harvard's resting, by the way. He's got a few problems that could be very serious. I fed him and gave him fluids and some IV antibiotics, which should help him sleep. He's in the kennels down the hall."
For a few seconds, Dante was confused, wondering how she could possibly know the Darkhaven agent and why the hell he'd be medicated and sleeping in the kennels of her clinic. Then his brain kicked into gear and he remembered the mangy little animal he'd used as a means of ingratiating himself further with Tess.
"I'd like to keep him overnight, if you don't mind," Tess said. "Maybe a couple of days, so I can run a few more tests and make sure he's getting everything he needs."
Dante nodded. "Yeah. Okay."
He looked around at the small, comfortable little office setup, with its minifridge in the corner and the electric hot plate that sat next to a coffeemaker. Obviously, Tess spent a lot of time in the place. "This isn 't the room I was in before. How did I get here?"
"You had some kind of seizure in the examination room. I got you on your feet and helped you walk back here to my office. I thought it would be more comfortable for you. You seemed pretty out of it."
"Yeah," he said, rubbing his hand over his face.
