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Lydia got to her feet and paced around. “It was you, the night before last. Who was up here when we came to meet Xhex.”
“What a happy coincidence, is it not? I was here for another reason. I stayed… because of you.”
Shaking her head, she faced off at him. “It’s not going to be like that between us.”
“Because?”
“I’m married.” God, she wished she had a ring to point to. “Happily married.”
“And afterward?”
As pain lanced through her heart, she looked to the passageway out. “You know, I think I’m going to go—”
“I’m sorry,” the male said in a rush. Then he tried to sit up and couldn’t quite manage the vertical. “I’m rude sometimes.”
Putting her hands on her hips, she felt the need to correct him. “That’s not rude. That’s cruel.”
“I apologize.” He moved his hand off to the side, as if he were wiping his comment away. “Last night, how did you know I was there?”
Lydia touched the side of her nose. “I smelled you, from where you were standing. You’re not just a vampire, are you.”
“No, I’m much more dangerous than they are.”
“Is that a flex?”
“It’s the truth.”
She studied him objectively. With his dark hair and his fine features, he was handsome in an aristocratic kind of way, particularly in the fire’s restless light—but he was muscular as well, and he was right about the dangerous thing. She could sense the predatory nature of him, the wolf in her recognizing the animal in him.
“My kind are not welcomed in mixed company,”he murmured. “That was how my sister got into her difficulty.”
“What kind of difficulty?”
There was a long silence. And then he spoke clearly. “She was sold into an underground lab. She was experimented on. It was hell.”
“Oh… God.”
“Our family put her in there. I watched her get taken away.” He laughed. “You know, maybe it’s the painkillers they gave me, but I will tell you quite honestly… that it has destroyed me, what happened to her. What was done… to her. It’s become my life’s work, as a matter of fact.”
Lydia frowned. “That’s why you’re here on the mountain. You’re looking… for the lab here. Do you work for the F.B.G., too?”
“In a manner of speaking… yes.”
She started shaking her head. “You can’t destroy the lab. They’re trying to save people’s lives.”
“At the expense of vampires. And wolves just like you.”
“Not C.P. Phalen’s lab. My husband is dying from lung cancer, and the immunotherapy they developed could save his life if he tried it. But in any event, they will start treating people with the drug—people they want to cure, not hurt.”
As he frowned, Lydia talked even faster. “And the doctors who work there? They’re good people. They’re researchers who are ethical. I don’t knowwhat was done to your sister or where or by who. But what’s being done here? It’s going to save people’s lives, and yes, it’s developed for humans, but a vampire might need it.”
“Vampires don’t get cancer.”
“Oh. Well. Still. But whatever, there are no vampires down there. No wolven. The subjects who will try it will be volunteers and they will be properly monitored.”
In the silence that followed, she looked around again, as if anything in the cave could help her make her argument.
“After your husband dies,” the male murmured, “you’re going to come here and be on the mountain, aren’t you.”
