Charming the Beast (Purgatory 3)

Connor felt a hand curl around his shoulder. He didn’t look to that hand. He knew Eric was there. “Keep your control,” Eric advised him as his hand tightened on Connor’s shoulder.

Control is over-rated.

He wanted to shut David up before the guy said anything else.

Too late.

Because that ass**le David said, “He’s a killer…he’s tortured…lied…destroyed…and you think he’s…gonna…gonna help you? He’s one…drawn to take…”

“Vincent is being transferred to another facility tomorrow,” Eric promised Connor. “You won’t ever see him again.”

“I’d better not. If I do, he’s dead.” A simple truth, and Connor saw David shudder under the face of that threat. “Now let her out, Eric. Let her out!”

Eric pulled away from him. Connor watched as he went to the control board and typed in the passcode that would open the door to Chloe’s cell. When she walked out, her steps seemed extra cautious, as if she were afraid of touching the silver.

“It burned her earlier,” Eric said quietly. “So I guess her…sensitivity…to silver is back.”

Chloe quickly came to Connor’s side. “If that’s back, what else will return?” Her face showed her worry. “I don’t want to get stuck again. I don’t want to be like that ever again.”

He hated her fear. And her scent—damn David Vincent, but the guy had been right. Her scent pulled at him just as it did any other werewolf.

Only now that he’d had her blood, Connor found that he wanted her even more than before.

“Take me to the doctor,” Chloe said. “To Holly. Let her run those tests of hers.”

Wait, she was volunteering for tests?

“I don’t want to go back…I can’t live that way.” Her lips trembled. “I won’t. So get Holly to run her tests. Get her to help me. Please.”

The desperate plea in her voice pierced through him. Connor looked at Eric, more than ready to trade, lie, threaten—do anything to get Chloe what she needed.

But Eric nodded. “Holly has been waiting for you.”

And Connor realized that Eric had played Chloe like a pro. Exposing her to the silver, putting her with David…Eric had wanted Chloe to be afraid, to feel that the only people who could help her were the Para Agents.

Chloe had fallen right into Eric’s trap, and, well, that just pissed Connor off.

I don’t want him playing her. I don’t want anyone hurting her. Not Chloe.

Because…she mattered too much to him.

***

She was poked. She was prodded. She was burned with silver.

But Chloe kept her lips clamped shut. She didn’t cry out. She just let Dr. Holly Jacobs run every test that the woman wanted.

Her father had known about Holly. A woman who was supposed to be an expert on paranormal genetics. The senator had even tried to recruit Holly to help him in his research, but Holly had been firmly allied with the Para Unit.

Chloe wondered why Holly was so loyal to them.

Holly glanced up at Chloe, and the doctor’s warm brown eyes were worried. “The sensitivity to silver has definitely returned.”

Chloe almost smiled. “Yes, I noticed that, too.” It was rather hard to miss the whole burning bit.

“A week ago, you had no silver sensitivity.”

And she’d thought that she’d been free of her curse.

“Have you felt the urge to change? Your claws? Your teeth? Have you—”

“No changes, not even close.” She rolled her shoulders. She was wearing a paper gown, one that she’d donned for her exam. “Not that my changes were ever anything spectacular, anyway. Getting stuck as a half-woman, half-wolf, well, that’s more the thing of nightmares.”

Sympathy flashed on Holly’s face. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail. “We need to monitor your changes. You have the DNA that should make you a candidate for the transformation, but something is—it’s inhibiting you. I can’t figure out what it is.” She frowned down at Chloe’s file. “Your dad injected you with so many different serums, I don’t know if your own genetics are inhibiting the change or if it’s something—”

“That he did to me?”

Grimly, Holly nodded.

“I just don’t want to be a monster,” Chloe whispered.

Silence.

She looked up and saw that Holly had a guarded expression on her face. “Well…” Holly finally said, her voice considering, “there are lots of different monsters in this world. And those monsters aren’t all vampires and werewolves. Humans can be pretty screwed-up, too.”

Holly turned away. Her shoulders sure looked stiff. Great. Chloe realized she’d just insulted the doctor. Probably alienated the one person who could help her. “You’re…one of us, aren’t you?” Chloe asked. It was just something in Holly’s voice. Her tone.

Holly glanced back. Flashed fang. “I don’t feel the urge to pretend as much any longer.”

Chloe’s heartbeat slammed into her chest. “You’re a vampire.” A vampire doc? How had Chloe missed that?

“That’s what I am, now. Just as you—you’re not human any longer. You have to accept that fact. Move on. Grieve for what you had, I did. But know that life isn’t over. You can still be happy. You can still love and be loved.”

Obviously Holly had never lived with Senator Donald Quick. Because Chloe had never actually felt loved. She’d been an appendage to him. The daughter to parade in public. Hell, half the time, she felt that she’d been his sympathy vote. Look…the handsome senator is caring for his daughter…isn’t it such a shame about what happened to his wife? To die so early, such a tragic, tragic accident.

Accident, Chloe’s ass. For the first eighteen years of her life, she’d thought her mom died in a car accident. A random, terrible accident caused by a drunk driver. Then she’d learned the truth. Her mother had been running away with her lover, leaving Chloe and the senator behind.

Only the senator didn’t like to get left.

“Chloe?”

Her head snapped up. She’d gotten lost in her past and now Holly was frowning at her. “Chloe, I asked…those marks on your wrist…those are vampire bite marks, aren’t they?”

Holly would know.

The door to the small lab opened. Connor stood there, frowning at them. “You about done, Holly?”