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myself to, but inside, I never believed I could win. We have to do tests.
Right away.
 You stay in bed. You re still running a low-grade fever, and your
color s not good. I ll get what I need, and you can rest here while I run
tests.
 I can rest downstairs. She twined his hair around her finger, smiled.
 If you carried me.
Chapter 10
==========
 IT was sick, too. That s why it fought to get out, why it couldn t quite
make it.
She d recovered quickly, was already up, pacing the lab, studying slides
and computer analyses with her robe flapping around her legs.
 Isn t it more to the point that you were sick, and the fever another
sort of infection allowed it to manifest without the lunar cycle.
 It s one in the same that s the real point. The fever, and we should
have gotten a blood sample while it was spiking, caused the change, but
weakened it, gave me the chance to fight it off. It was sick, it was
scared. It can die. I don t know why I never thought of this before.
Her eyes were bright again, almost fever-bright, when she whirled to him.
 This could be the answer.
 You need to slow down.
 No, we need to speed up. There s still time before the full moon to
bring it out again, in a weakened state. To use that moment, Gabe, when
I m between human and lycan form.
 Which means injecting you with a drug that shoots your body temperature
to dangerous, potentially fatal levels. Which causes a fever that could
result in brain damage, paralysis, stroke, even death.
 There s no risk of brain damage until the fever hits one hundred and
eight.
 You were at one hundred and six and climbing, he snapped back.  For
God s sake, you had a seizure.
 I came back. I came back. And with more controlled circumstances, we
could lessen the dangers. Gabe, they re doing tests now, and having a lot
of success with treating cancer cells with iron oxide, heating the cells
and giving them a fever. Magnetic fluid hyperthermia. I read about it.
 You don t have cancer, Simone.
 But using that theory, we could attack the lycan cells. What are they
but a form of malignancy? And it has a faster metabolism than mine. You
concluded that yourself.
What he hadn t concluded until now was that the cure could kill her.
 It s not safe, Simone, not even close to safe. And this kind of risk
isn t worth your life. We can work with it, yeah, start researching and
testing on this theory. But I m not pumping something into your system
that could kill you.
 It s progress, he said more gently and reached out for her.  A big
step. We ll work the problem.
SHE knew he was right. Logically, scientifically, rationally. They could
and should do more tests, make further studies, continue to run computer
analyses.
They could keep spending nearly every night in the lab focused on her
condition, swimming in equations and formulas and theories. And dreading
the full moon.
She was sick of it. Sick of herself.
She lay beside him, unable to sleep.
It had been easier when she d been alone, when she d been able to carve
everything else away and concentrate only on herself, her mission. Her
Holy Grail. It had been simpler when she d had only a well-trained and
devoted dog to engage her affections. Then she didn t have anyone else to
consult, anyone to worry about, anyone to consider.
Anyone to love.
She hadn t wasted valuable time on lazy Sunday mornings, or foolish
conversations, on daydreaming impossible plans for an impossible future.
She should break it off, push him away, convince him that she didn t love
or want him. She could do it in heat or in cold. Pick a fight, be vicious
and cruel. Or simply freeze him out with disinterest. She d be better
off, and so would he.
And that was ridiculous.
Sighing, she turned on her side to study him as he slept. She wasn t that
stupid, and she was far from that unselfish. She had no intention of
giving him up, of insulting the love they shared by denying it, or of
damning herself to an empty, rootless one-dimensional existence.
She had her lover in her bed, her wounded warrior who even now bore the
badge of the gouges she it had given him. He slept on his left side,
always, and sometimes in the night he d manage to maneuver himself so
that his body was nearly diagonal over the mattress, his right leg hooked
over hers, just above her knees.
How could she give that up?
Their dogs slept curled together at the foot of the bed. Gabe s cell
phone was clipped into its charger on her dresser. His shaving cream
stood beside her mouthwash in the medicine cabinet, and his clothes were
mixed with hers in the hamper.
No, she d never give it up. She wouldn t throw away the gift of love, or
the treasure of normal he d brought to her life. But neither would she
watch it erode, gnawed away by the demands and violence of what lived
inside her.
She knew what she had to do, not only to keep what they had, but to open
the possibility for more.
WHEN he left for work, after a routine morning, a wonderful morning, of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]