“Bastien?”
“Yes. He’s in love with a mortal and almost lost her today. I was with him while he sat there, agonizing and blaming himself, waiting to hear if . . .” He shook his head. “I just kept thinking . . . what if it were me? What if it were us? What if you had been harmed?” He stroked her face with gentle fingers. “I love you, Jenna.”
Her throat thickened.
“I know it may seem too soon,” he continued.
It didn’t. Not for her.
“But I love you. I do.”
Jenna pressed a hand to his jaw and smoothed her thumb across his stubbled cheek. “I love you, too.”
He closed his eyes, turned his face into her touch. “The thought of losing you was too much. I needed to hold you. To lose myself in you.” He urged her closer. “I just needed to be with you.”
She could live with that.
Quiet enfolded them.
The corners of his lips twitched.
“What?” she asked.
“I think we may have shocked John.”
She laughed. “Somehow I think this won’t be the last time.”
He smiled. “I think you may be right.”
“So. You spending the day with Jenna?” Sheldon asked as Richart donned his coat.
He nodded.
“What’s wrong? You guys have a fight or something?”
“I feel guilty,” Richart confessed. “She works long hours all night, then I keep her up most of the day. It’s wearing on her.”
“Mentally or physically?”
“Physically. She tries to hide it, but she’s exhausted. There are circles under her eyes. She keeps getting headaches. And she’s so run down she’s caught that flu that’s going around.”
“That sucks. Try to get her to go to sleep earlier.”
Richart smiled wryly. “I always intend to, but . . .”
Sheldon smiled. “I hear ya. Hey, do you want me to make her some chicken soup?”
“No. I’ve tasted your chicken soup. I want her to feel better not worse.”
“Smart ass.”
Richart teleported to Jenna’s living room and found John waiting for him.
John raised a finger to his lips, then motioned for Richart to accompany him outside.
Puzzled, Richart followed him out onto the landing and waited while he closed the door behind them.
“Something’s wrong,” John said without preamble.
Richart frowned. “What?”
“You need to talk Mom into seeing that doctor you mentioned.”
“Dr. Lipton? I already tried once. Jenna said doctors can’t do anything for the flu unless they catch it in the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours, that it just needs to run its course.”
“This isn’t the flu. It’s been two weeks.”
Richart nodded. “Dr. Lipton mentioned that some of her colleagues who came down with it took a couple of weeks to recover, that it was quite a nasty strain.” Richart hadn’t been sick in over two centuries, so he relied on Dr. Lipton and Jenna to apprise him of how these things usually went.
“I’m telling you,” John insisted, “this isn’t the flu. It’s something else.”
“How can you be so sure?” Jenna seemed sure.
“Because Mom doesn’t get the flu.”
“She’s never had it before?” Wasn’t the flu fairly common among humans?
“I’m saying she doesn’t get sick. Period.”
Alarm bells sounded. “Ever?”
“Ever. She’s never even had a cold. Not that I can remember.”
Jenna sure as hell hadn’t told him that. “She had food poisoning a month ago.”
“I’m not convinced that’s what that was.” John looked away, jaw clenching and unclenching. “Look, I like you, Richart, and I don’t want there to be any tension between us for Mom’s sake, but I have to ask. . . . Have you been biting her?”
“No.” Hell, no. She had already been bitten once by the vampire who had attacked her that first night. Any more bites and she would have become more susceptible to . . .
Merde.
“I’m just asking because I know you said vampirism is caused by a virus and that frequent exposure . . .” He stared at Richart. “What? What is it? Your eyes are glowing.”
Was it possible? Could she have been bitten again without him realizing it?
When? He was always there when she reached and left work. And any shopping she needed to do she did during daylight hours.
“Have any of your mother’s friends or work colleagues dropped by after dark?”
“No.”
“Have you brought any friends home?”
“My study group takes turns meeting at each other’s places. They’ve been over here a few times.”
“At night? After Jenna got home from work, while I was still out hunting?”
“Yeah. Why?”
Cursing, Richart practically tore the door off its hinges in his hurry to get inside.
Clad in a T-shirt and striped pajama bottoms, Jenna looked up, pallid face brightening, when he burst into her bedroom. “Hi.” Her smile faded as he sat beside her on the bed. “What’s wrong?”
“Just give me a moment.” Leaning in close, Richart buried his face in her neck just above her carotid artery. He drew in a deep breath. Held it. Found her scent. But not the scent he feared most.
“Richart?” Concern crept into her voice.
As John entered the room, Richart leaned back and palmed one of his daggers. “I need you to trust me, sweetheart.”
“Okay,” she answered, winning his heart all over again.
Taking her hand, he pressed the tip of the dagger to her palm and applied just enough pressure to produce a tiny nick. A single bead of blood welled.
Richart raised her hand until it almost touched his nose, again drawing in a deep breath.
And there it was. The virus.
A growl rumbled deep in his throat.
She frowned. “Richart?”
“You’re infected.”
John took a step forward.
Jenna stared up at Richart, fever blazing in her eyes. “Infected with what?”
“The vampiric virus.”
“No. I told you. It’s the flu.”
“I can smell it, Jenna. You’re infected.”
Her face grew paler. “That’s not possible. You’ve never bitten me. I haven’t blacked out. And you’ve been watching over me at the store.”
He would figure it out later, after he took her to the network doctors. If she was this sick already . . .