Page 156 of Tamed By Her Touch

“Ow! Fuck,” he grumbled. He didn’t usually curse, but that had hurt. Had he been stung by some kind of local insect?

He rubbed at the area, but the sensation was already gone and he didn’t see any stinging insects flying anywhere—they would have a hard time getting into the sealed and secure Blood Archives anyway. So what had stung him?

“Well, well and how is the research going?” a voice murmured in his ear.

Kaelus whirled around and saw Sendar stood less than two meters behind him.

In one hand he held a narrow syringe fitted with an unusually long needle—a drop of bright green fluid trembled at its tip.

Kaelus stared at it, then at Sendar. Had the other male injected him with something?

“What in the Seven Hells are you doing?” he demanded angrily.

“Oh nothing much—I just gave you a little something to help your research along.” Sendar gave him an evil smile. “You’re so interested in the Savage Syndrome—I thought you might like to experience it first-hand.”

Cold horror crawled through him, and Kaelus’s hand flew to his neck again.

The injection site was already beginning to burn.

A sick certainty settled over him—Sendar wasn’t kidding. Still, he had a hard time believing the male would do something so heinous.

“You infected me with the syndrome?” he asked in disbelief.

Sendar nodded smugly.

“In just a little while, you’ll feel the full effects. Just in time for your beloved little wife to find you. I just called Maera and she said Clair is on the way. Apparently she made some kind of breakthrough and wants to share it with you.”

For one terrible second, Kaelus could not make sense of the words.

Clair was coming here. Clair…his Clair.

His mind supplied an image before he could stop it—Clair walking into the Archive smiling and excited, clutching her data pad, eager to tell him what she had discovered. Then another image followed…

Clair screaming while something savage and diseased inside him used his enormous strength against her…his hands closing around her delicate body…his fangs piercing deep to inject his essence as his mating fist filled her.

The reports from Glenvarren flashed through his mind—the women attacked by males who had loved them, protected them, and worshipped them only hours before. Seven women dead in the first two days. Males sobbing afterward when the fever broke enough for them to understand what they had done.

Kaelus felt like he was going to be sick.

No. No, no, no. He couldn’t do that to Clair! He would rather die.

He shoved the mental images away so violently his head hurt.

Please Goddess—let me find a way out of this! Don’t let me hurt the woman I love!

The prayer came instinctively, ripped from somewhere deeper than thought inside him. Kaelus had never been an especially religious male. He respected the Goddess, and honored the traditions of his people, but science had always been the language through which he understood the universe.

Now science had betrayed him…or rather, one scientist had.

“You son of a bitch!” he growled at Sendar, his voice coming out low and hoarse. “You can’t make me hurt her—I won’t fucking do it!”

Sendar merely gave him that smug, evil smile again.

“How can you avoid it with the virus running rampant in your system?”

Kaelus wanted to wring the other male’s neck, but there was no time to punish Sendar for his evil. He had to get out—he had to get far away from here until the symptoms subsided.

He crossed the chamber in three enormous strides and struck the access panel to the main doors, but nothing happened. Feeling desperate, he entered the emergency override, but it was denied. He tried again and the panel flashed red.