Forbidden Hybrid, page 18
“For luck,” she murmured, licking her lips.
As he left the townhouse, and the most important people in his life behind, Bishop couldn’t help thinking; oh, I feel lucky, all right.
It was just past eight in the evening when Bishop pulled his car into the underground lot at the station. He’d called ahead and was told that Sam was still on duty and would be on until six in the morning; so here he was, ready to face-off with his partner of almost ten years. Hell, the guy was like a father to him. Closing the car door and striding to the elevator, Bishop thought about how only eleven days ago he was chasing serial killers as though they were any other case; sure, the murders were unusual and brutal and they’d pulled at him the way each job always did, but nothing more than that. He rubbed his knuckles, popping a few to ease the building tension, then he grinned ruefully, thinking about the world of change that had been wrought in those eleven days. Up until now, change had been a thing he’d stridently avoided. But now? Well, now there was Maeve; a scientific miracle dropped into their laps. Bishop was immensely grateful for her – as he knew they all were – but he realised her appearance didn’t magically equate to some Disney version of a happily ever after, at least not yet. Even after that kiss she planted on him a few minutes ago – as well as all the others over the past few days.
He wondered how long it would be until they could coax her back into bed. Not that that was all he wanted from her. On the contrary, his first priority was keeping her safe. He had promised her, and himself, that he would keep her safe no matter what and he intended to keep that promise. And Maeve wasn’t the only one on his watch; he had Gabe’s past to address and some vampire arse to kick once and for all. In his opinion, and his was the only opinion that counted, Gabe didn’t belong to anyone, least of all some blue-haired-slave-owner-come-human-trafficker and possible serial killer. What a fucking mouthful. And if that wasn’t enough, there was a possible government conspiracy and hybrid experimentation happening. “When it rains, it freaking pours,” he mumbled to himself before stepping onto the elevator … and two floors later, stepping out into some sort of mass hysteria.
“What the –”
“Bishop!”
Skinny female arms were around his chest and the owner of those arms was sobbing into his jacket. All around him was carnage and he pushed the woman gently into someone else’s grasp to find out what the hell had happened. He’d only called the precinct forty minutes ago!
“Bishop, thank god.”
He heard words, glanced up and around, kept moving. There was Hammond kneeling by Sam’s desk. The kid was bloody and looking dazed, but he was alive. Bishop kept hearing his name called but couldn’t place the voices. I called forty minutes ago … Fuck! With the full impact of everything around him crashing down, Bishop staggered through the throng of injured and dying to where Sam lay, his blood soaking into the carpet.
“Bishop …”
He knew who this voice belonged to – Hammond. The kid’s hands were pressing down on Sam’s chest and his eyes were wild. He quickly noted that the rookie’s slick palms were plugging a bullet wound. Bishop’s eyes scanned the room, noting the casualties and holes in the walls. This wasn’t the sort of damage you caused with a handgun. “Dammit!” he cursed. Quickly, he swapped the kid’s shaking hands for his own and pressed down with all his strength on the hole where the red stuff was still pumping. “Don’t you dare die on me,” he ordered Sam.
“Is he still alive?” Hammond asked, still on hands and knees.
“For now. You did good, kid.” And as he kept his partner alive, Bishop’s thoughts drifted to Maeve. He had no doubt that The Front were behind this, and if they would go to these lengths just to protect information, he could only imagine what they would do to Maeve if they found out she was a hybrid.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Maeve arrived at the hospital and was moving in the direction of the emergency department before Lucian even cut the engine. Gabe had been called to work. And tonight ‘work’ was Bishop’s precinct. She knew Bishop was fine because he’d called, but she’d already seen him hurt once, and man, she was so done with that! Of course, Gabe had looked as worried as she felt as he sprinted out the apartment door, and Lucian had ridden like a bat out of hell to get here. Ridden! She still cringed thinking about it even though her legs were now back on terra firma. Lucian apparently owned a motorcycle, and judging by the way they’d ran lights and swerved through traffic to get here, it was possibly the fastest bike ever built. With her helmet dangling uselessly from one hand, she practically wanted to fall to her knees and kiss the oil-stained, boot-scuffed concrete underfoot. Praying her thanks to the gods of all things four-wheeled and safe, she promised never to complain about walking again!
“Not a fan of Lara?” Lucian asked.
“No. Are you a fan of living into eternity?” She thrust her borrowed helmet at his strong chest. “And I know I’m probably going to regret asking this, but why is your bike named Lara?”
Lucian grinned, “She’s named Lara because as a young, virile man in my … okay, let’s go with thirties, I always wanted to ride Lara Croft. Now I do. Every day.”
“See, I knew I would regret asking.” But she winked at him over her shoulder because now that she was no longer riding it, the bike and the whole leather jacket, I-flirt-with-death thing, was kind of a huge turn on. “It suits you,” she called out, walking toward the stairwell.
“Does that mean you’ll ride with me again?” he yelled after her.
“No.” Maeve shook her head decisively. “Never again. Ever.”
“Okay. That’s fair.” Lucian jogged to catch up. “But now that we’re here, do you really think you should be going inside? I mean, you were in the basement freezer drawers not so long ago. This hospital is the base for the city morgue. People are looking for you.”
“Then maybe it’s about time we let them find me.” Maeve dragged her hair out of its ponytail and fluffed it so that it fell past her shoulders and covered the puncture wound on her neck. “Maybe if Kane or The Front discover that their little hybrid experiment finally worked, we can catch them.”
“Catch them?” Lucian’s eyes popped wide and he took Maeve by the elbow, urging her to stop and look at him. “You make it sound as though we’re going fishing. Taking down The Coven, or even just its leader, will be hard enough.” Usually clean-shaven, he scrubbed an aggravated hand over the stubble growing on his cheek. “Exposing The Front and their years of experimentation … might very well be impossible.”
“My existence was supposed to be impossible too, remember?” Maeve squeezed Lucian’s strong arm through the leather and met his dark eyes seriously. Under these dim lights his indigo irises appeared otherworldly and almost ink black. Staring into their midnight depths reminded her of their recent conversation and how close she’d come to ruining what was growing between them. “Lucian,” she started, then stopped. Unsure of what to say or how to say it.
“Maeve, you don’t have to say anything. I already know.”
“I do have to say this,” she pressed on. “I need you to know that I had questions, but I didn’t doubt you. Not where it mattered.” She laid her palm over the centre of her chest, knowing her words to be true and hoping he’d believe them. If she lost him, or any of them now, she didn’t know what she would do. Violet was right; she was in love.
“Maeve.” Lucian cupped her face with both hands and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. Pulling back, just fractionally, so that their faces were almost still touching, he said, “Most people, when they say they know how you feel, they’re being polite. When I say it, I’m speaking the literal truth.” He rested his hand between them, over her thumping heart. “I can practically touch the love you feel for us, it’s so strong. I would never doubt you.”
“Really?” Maeve could feel tears welling in her eyes and threatening to spill down her cheeks. Then she slapped at him, “Why the hell didn’t you say something?!”
“We wanted you to realise on your own.”
“We?!” She’d spent all day trying to come to terms with feelings that apparently everyone already knew about?
“You look like you swallowed that marshmallow again,” Lucian smirked happily.
“No kidding,” Maeve huffed. “Violet calls it my constipated face. And you,” she jabbed him in the chest with her pointer finger, “have no right to be grinning like that.”
“What can I say, I’m a cheerful person.”
“Well tone it down a notch, will you? We’re entering a hospital. It’s not decent.” But as she walked up the stairs ahead of Lucian, she could feel his eyes ogling her butt appreciatively, and because she couldn’t resist teasing him, gave it a wiggle.
“You’re an imp,” he growled deep in his throat. “Hurry up and get us somewhere public, or the cameras in this stairwell are going to get a real show.”
Grinning, but not yet ready to become an exhibitionist, Maeve hurried up the last few stairs and pushed open the door to the emergency department. Signs pointed down a long corridor to radiology, the ICU and surgical wing. She and Lucian followed them until they stumbled upon the waiting room.
“Well, this is rather depressing, and the sort of place I usually try to avoid like the plague,” Lucian mumbled.
Maeve agreed with him. The waiting room was busy but subdued; a box made of white walls, filled with plastic soot grey chairs and old magazines. Mounted in two corners were a boxy pair of televisions – each muted and playing the highlights of a weekend football game. If possible, Maeve thought the room smelled worse than it looked; the odour a nose tingling mix of antiseptic and the hand sanitiser gel mounted in dispensers by every door. She glanced around at the occupants. she could see lots of uniforms and others she suspected were police even though they wore plain clothes. In the centre of it all she saw Bishop speaking with an older, attractive, woman. As though sensing Maeve’s eyes on him, Bishop turned and the woman followed his gaze. Maeve didn’t recognise her but given the woman’s ashen colouring and the shocked expression on her face, she suspected that lack of recognition was one sided. “Who is that?” she whispered at Lucian.
Lucian just grabbed Maeve around the waist and propelled her back down the corridor. By her ear he hissed, “That was Doctor Anna Marvel. She was the one who pronounced you dead and was scheduled to perform your autopsy.”
“Not good,” Maeve mumbled.
“Not at all,” Lucian concurred.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Turning tail had been a knee-jerk reaction but, Lucian admitted, not a spectacularly strong solution to their problem. Standing in the morgue now alongside Bishop, Maeve, Doc Marvel and a recently arrived Gabe, he looked around at everyone’s faces and saw a mix of shock, anger, guilt and a whole bucketful of uncomfortable. Most of the anger was coming from Bish and pretty much all of it was directed his way.
“Well the cat’s sure as hell out of the bag now.” Pacing the wall of cold chambers, Bishop glared at Lucian, “Are you going to say anything?” he demanded.
“Technically, the hybrid is out of the bag,” Lucian answered obligingly. When Bishop rounded on him, teeth bared, he briefly wondered if he should get his arse off the doc’s desk and hide under it. Sharp eyes quickly scanning the wooden construction beneath his butt, he soon determined the flimsy pine would make a pitiful shield against a humourless, two-hundred-and-sixty-pound werewolf with an inclination for violence.
“Violet knows. Anna knows,” Bishop spoke as though the doc wasn’t standing right beside him and ticked names off his fingers. “Who next?”
“If you wanted to reach a lot of people at once you might consider hiring a skywriter. I know a guy ...” Even as the words left his mouth, Lucian knew they were probably a mistake and when Bishop growled menacingly he held up two hands in surrender. “Just forget I said that, okay?”
“What the hell possessed you to bring her here?!” Bishop took two calculated steps forward, “Of all the dumb –”
“I wanted to come,” Maeve interrupted impatiently. She stood, hands planted on hips, her eyes every bit as hard as Bishop’s.
But Bishop’s eyes cut straight past her, his gaze narrowed on Lucian. “Why would you let her?”
“Let her?” Lucian laughed out loud, and considering their surroundings, the sound was jarring even to his own ears. “Have you tried to stop her?”
“You could have –”
“Enough!” Anna yelled, her uncharacteristically booming voice surprising everyone. “You two are going to quit swiping at each other right now, and then someone is going to calmly explain what is going on here.” She blew out an unsteady breath. “Let’s start with how a dead woman is standing here, breathing, instead of laying on a slab?” She peered at Maeve over the rim of her glasses, “I’ve got to admit, you look good for a dead girl. No hard feelings about me almost cracking your rib cage open, I hope?”
“Thanks,” Maeve smiled tightly at the left-handed compliment. “And none at all.”
“Good to know,” she smiled. “So, while the chest-thumping alpha-males in my morgue fill me in, would you mind if I conducted a quick physical on you? Maybe took some blood too?”
Doc Marvel asked the question gently but even from Lucian’s position across the room he could see the scientific curiosity bright in her eyes. Still, he thought that a blood test might be a good idea – that way they would have a clearer picture of what they were dealing with. He wasn’t sure that Maeve would see things that way, and picking up on her hesitation, he pushed away from the desk and moved to be by her side. Taking both of her hands in his, he noticed hers were cold. Chilled hands, pale face, nervous eyes, Lucian realised worriedly. Probably because the last time she was here, she’d been pronounced dead and stuffed in a cold drawer. That’s enough to make anyone a little anxious. Releasing her in order to shrug out of his jacket, he draped the heavy leather over her shoulders. "I think you should let Anna take a look at you. Take a little blood, too."
Maeve looked around at the group, and apparently seeing assent in their eyes, nodded. “Okay.”
“Good,” Anna patted her arm then pulled out a chair and directed her to sit. Moving to her desk, she opened a drawer and removed a blood pressure cuff and stethoscope.
“Forgive me if this is a stupid question, Doc,” Bishop shifted his feet, “but aren’t most of your cases a little far gone for high blood pressure and heartbeats?”
Lucian had been thinking the same thing. Standing sentry beside Maeve, he gently squeezed her shoulder as the doc positioned the cuff around her upper arm.
“I’m still a doctor,” Anna told them all. “Sometimes I even fill in in the ED when they’re busy.” She waggled her recently gloved fingers, “These haven’t lost their touch yet. Now,” as she pumped, Anna looked sternly over her shoulder at Bishop and Gabe. “Which one of you handsome men want to tell me how Maeve miraculously left my morgue the other night?”
Lucian saw the colour drop from Gabe’s face but had to smile when the big guy raised his hand.
“In my defence, it was more of a rescue mission,” Gabe muttered. “And the security in here is really lacking. You should probably have someone look into that.”
“Oh, believe me, I will,” Anna told him drily. “And now that I know the who,” she eyeballed Gabe pointedly, “and the how, let’s get on with the why …”
This time it was Bishop who stepped up to the plate and laid out the facts as he knew them. Lucian realised that his friend must really trust the medical examiner because he wasn’t holding anything back. Anna was printing a label for Maeve’s vial of blood when Bish wrapped up their story.
“So you’re saying that a vampire and a werewolf are murdering people, hoping to create a hybrid and that an organisation known as The Front are essentially doing the same thing more covertly?”
“That’s about it,” Bishop agreed. “Plus, the bit where Kane has some sicko revenge plan.”
“You know,” Anna crossed her arms over her chest, leaned her back into the exam table and studied them, “a member of The Coven was brought in here tonight – he was at the station waiting to be questioned when the place was shot up. Apparently, he caught some shrapnel in the shoulder.”
“Could he still be here?” Lucian asked darkly. He had some questions for The Coven and he was done being patient. Maybe he could even use the guy to arrange a meeting with Kane and his contact at The Front.
“I imagine so. Given the severity of the patients brought in tonight, he wouldn’t have been high on the triage list.”
“Let’s go pay him a visit, shall we?” Bishop snarled.
Bishop and Gabe were already moving for the door and Lucian was hot on their heels when another thought struck. “What about Maeve?” he asked. “Given that we were in the hospital all of two minutes before she was recognised, her traipsing around the surgical ward probably isn’t the smartest idea.”
“I don’t traipse,” Maeve muttered sourly.
“She can stay with me,” Anna offered. “My assistant, Alec, won’t be back until tomorrow and she can keep me company down here until her bloodwork comes back.” She handed the crimson vial to Bishop, “Give this to Marjorie upstairs. Tell her it’s urgent and to contact me here.”
“You got it.” Bishop pocketed the blood with the Jane Doe label and asked, “Could you call and check on Sam too? He was in surgery but they thought he was going to make it.”
“Of course, I will,” Anna promised Bishop.
Lucian glanced at Maeve one last time only to find her still looking immensely uncomfortable. He could feel how much she wanted to go with them, not because she really wanted to see the Coven member, but just because she didn’t want to part with them. If it was possible for him to feel his heart skip, he would have. He knew he had been cocky and almost casual earlier when he had admitted they were all aware of Maeve’s feelings. But he felt anything but. He knew what a miracle they were, and what a gift it was to be loved by such an amazing woman. He was even more in awe of the fact that she hadn’t denied it or tried to take it back. Although she clearly wasn’t ready to say the words, or perhaps even admit them yet, she still had not denied them. She was so much braver than himself – braver than all of them if he were being honest.
