His surprise rippled around her. “A shapechanger?”
“And probably a hooker, if I know Max. She was the one who clubbed me. When I woke, the office was on fire, and so was Max.”
He was silent for a moment, yet his gaze swept over her, a touch that seemed both calculating and troubled. “Do you think she administered the Jadrone?”
She opened her eyes. “Max was given Jadrone? Why on earth would she do that? He’s human.”
“Not Max. You.”
She blinked. “Me?”
He nodded. “Enough to kill, apparently. The doctor can’t understand why you’re still sitting here.”
She stared at him. Not so long ago, her late partner, Jack, had said she wasn’t human. She hadn’t wanted to believe him. She had hoped it was yet another of his lies.
Jadrone didn’t affect humans. It certainly couldn’t kill them. But it killed shapechangers outright, and it could certainly kill shifters with a high enough dose. Her stomach rolled again, and sweat broke out across her brow. She put a hand to her mouth, battling to hold back the rising tide.
Damn it, she was human. The Jadrone shouldn’t be affecting her.
“I’m going to be sick,” she muttered. Gabriel grabbed a nearby container and shoved it under her mouth. Just in time. When she’d finished, he silently offered her a towel. She wiped her mouth and closed her eyes, leaning back again. “I need to sleep.”
“No.” There was a hint of alarm in his voice. “Not for the next twelve hours.”
Not sleep for the next twelve hours? What drug was he on? “Just take me home, Gabriel. I’ll answer all your damn questions after I’ve gotten some rest.”
“If you rest, you’ll die.” His voice was tight, hinting at anger, barely suppressed.
She met his gaze. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that there’s enough Jadrone in your system to kill several shifters. The doc wants you
in the hospital. He doesn’t know why you’re still breathing, let alone conscious, but he’s certain that if you do slip into sleep, you may never wake up.”
“No hospital. And he’s already told me I’m not going to die. He only wants to run tests on me.” And she had no intention of being anyone’s lab rat. Not for the sake of the doctor’s curiosity, anyway. But…damn it, if she wasn’t human, then what the hell was she? A changer who couldn’t shapechange? And even if that were true, how would the budgie have known? For all intents and purposes, she presented as a human. It was only that unknown chromosome, and Jack’s mysterious words, that suggested anything else. So why had the budgie tried to kill them? What had the fat man known—and what had she seen—that had forced the budgie’s hand?
“What did you do or see in that office?” Gabriel’s question mirrored her thoughts.
“I don’t know.” She rubbed her forehead wearily. “We were discussing Harry. Max knew something, something he was afraid of.”
“Max was Harry’s supplier?”
She nodded. “Jack and I used to bust him regularly. It didn’t seem to make a great deal of difference to his business.”
“Small-time supplier?”
“Medium. Max liked his freedom too much to ever get involved with the big syndicates.”
Gabriel was silent for a moment, then he reached out, gently wiping the sweaty strands of hair away from her forehead. His touch felt so wonderfully cool against her fevered skin, it was all she could do to resist the temptation to lean farther into his caress. “You’d better come back to my place. It’s safer, at least until the Jadrone has vanished from your system.”
One minute he couldn’t wait to get rid of her, and the next he was acting like he cared. What was going on with him?
“Haven’t you got a murderer to catch?”
“Yes, but I can access the necessary reports from home. Can you walk?”
Just thinking about it made her stomach turn. “I’d keep the bucket handy.”
“What about the sunlight? How badly is it affecting your eyes at the moment?”