His eyes flared amber.
“I like that, too,” she said. Were her words beginning to slur? “I like it when your eyes glow. You’re so beautiful.”
“I don’t know about her,” Étienne murmured, “but I’m beginning to feel rather nauseated.”
Melanie laughed. “He’s just jealous because you’re hotter than he is.”
Bastien gave her a rueful smile. “Perhaps it would be best if you rested and didn’t speak.”
“Why? I feel . . . I feel great. So relaxed and . . .”
The lights went out. No. No, wait. She had just closed her eyes.
Opening them, she examined Bastien with a grin. “You look like those women in the old Star Trek TV show episodes.”
Someone guffawed in the background.
Bastien smiled and frowned at the same time. “I don’t know how to take that.”
“It’s like I’m seeing you through a soft focus camera. You’re all blurry and pretty.”
More male laughter.
“Jackasses,” a woman with a French accent said. “Stop laughing. She can’t help it.”
“We’re not laughing at her. We’re laughing at him.”
“Ignore them,” Bastien said, leaning forward to stroke her hair again.
Melanie practically purred with pleasure. “You know what I want to do when I’m immortal?”
“What’s that?”
She licked her lips. “I want to make love with you again.” His eyes flared brighter. “I want to know what your bare body will feel like against mine when all of my senses are heightened.”
A throat cleared. “Okay. This is starting to get personal. I’m thinking maybe you should get us out of here, Richart.”
“Good idea. Lisette, are you coming with us?”
“Oui.”
Bastien leaned in close, still holding her hand. “You shouldn’t say such things, sweetheart.”
She tried to move her other arm, but couldn’t. Someone was holding it.
“Don’t move your arm, love,” Bastien instructed softly.
A winter chill seemed to settle into her body. “I’m cold,” she said, shivering.
Bastien turned away. “Do you have another blanket?” Releasing her hand, he shook out a blanket and draped it over her. “Better?”
When he leaned down again, she touched his face, stroked his jaw. “It isn’t true.”
“What isn’t?”
Her eyelids felt so heavy. “Not too good for you.”
“Yes, you are.”
“If . . . were . . . wouldn’t be . . . falling in love with . . .”
Bastien stared at Melanie, his heart jackhammering in his chest.
She was falling in love with him?
Just the possibility of it left him feeling as euphoric as if he were himself a mortal who had been bitten.
He had known she was attracted to him, that she had tender feelings for him. Hell, he had used any damned excuse he could find to brush up against her so he could let those emotions wash over him. But he hadn’t realized . . .
He knew he loved her. His desire to spend every moment he could with her, his need to protect her, and the happiness that filled him whenever she smiled at him could be nothing less.
But Melanie . . .
How could she love him? How could she think he was good enough for her? He would never be worthy of her.
He looked at Roland, who watched him closely, lips locked on Melanie’s arm.
He looked at Linda.
“I’m pretty sure she would’ve preferred to tell you that in private,” she murmured.
“You don’t think it’s just the influence of the bite confusing her?”
“No. She talks about you all the time. Has for weeks.” She clamped her lips shut. “And now I feel guilty as hell for telling you that. Crap. Forget I said anything.”
Melanie talked about him to Linda?
He opted to look at the woman who had the most reason to hate him last.
“You’re an empath, Bastien,” Sarah said, voice kind. “Surely you knew.”
Melanie’s cold hand grew warm as Roland began to infuse her with the blood he had taken from her. Blood that now carried the virus in large enough amounts to effect a swift transformation.
Bastien said nothing more.
The infirmary door opened and Chris strode in. “What’s going on?” He stopped short when he saw the damage done to the room. “Damn it! We haven’t been here twenty-four hours and you’ve already wrecked the place? At least tell me you destroyed—” He looked over, caught sight of Bastien, and swore.
His eyes widened when he saw Roland standing beside Melanie’s bed with his fangs buried deeply in her arm. “You’re transforming her?”
Bastien nodded and prepared to fight the human if Chris tried to stop them.
“Please, tell me you got her permission first.”
Sarah stepped forward. “We did.”
He relaxed. “Make a list of everything she’ll need during the transformation and I’ll get it.”
Though Bastien believed him, he would feel better if Melanie endured the illness that would soon assault her at David’s place, where the elder immortal would be on hand to aid her if something went wrong. “She’ll have everything she needs at David’s.”
Chris studied the others.
Bastien caught Sarah’s eye and willed her to defend his decision. Chris would never let them take her otherwise.
Sarah produced a smile. “She might be more comfortable in a home environment than she would here. And David will be right there if she should need him. He helped me through my transformation.”
Chris nodded. “All right. If you’d like me to arrange to have a doctor stationed in David’s infirmary for the duration, let me know.”
“I’ll do it,” Linda jumped in.
Chris drew his cell phone from his pocket. “I’ll—”
Seth abruptly appeared. His eyes surveyed the room, went to Roland and Melanie, and flashed a brilliant gold.
Oh. Shit.
“Did you gain her permission?”
“Yes,” they all hastened to declare.
The luminescence faded, leaving his eyes a brown so dark they were nearly black.
Roland completed the transfusion. As his fangs retracted, he touched his fingers to the bite marks and healed them, then lowered Melanie’s arm gently to the covers. “I thought I would never transform a mortal. Now I’ve transformed two.”
Sarah joined him and leaned into his side, wrapping an arm around his waist.
Seth crossed to stand beside Bastien. Reaching down, he rested his hand atop Melanie’s hair.
How well did he know her?
“We should take her to David’s,” Seth said. “She’ll be more comfortable there. And safe.” He gave the damage to the other part of the room a quick once-over and sighed. “I’m not even going to ask.”
Melanie wondered how many times she would have to hang her head over the damned toilet before her stomach got the message that there wasn’t anything left to come up.
When the latest bout of retching finally ceased, she sat on the floor and leaned back against the huge whirlpool tub, too weary to rise. She was nearing the end of day two of her transformation and so wanted it to be over with already.
Sarah had warned her it would be like this, that it would feel as if she had contracted the worst case of the flu ever. Fever, aches, majorly unsettled stomach, a fluctuating migraine. Her muscles felt like she imagined they would if she had never exercised a day in her life, then spent a week working out for hours every day with heavy weights. She was hot. And cold. Her body shivered while heat flayed her just beneath the skin and poured out of her eye sockets.
Melanie grimaced at the image that evoked and told herself to get up and drag her weak ass back into the bedroom.
Minutes passed and she didn’t move.
Oh well. She’d just have to come back in here and gag her head off in half an hour anyway. May as well stick around.
She contemplated her new sumptuous accommodations. Glass tile in soothing green tones. Dark wood cabinets. Bright white sink and tub. Shiny chrome fixtures. Bamboo plants. Fluffy white towels. It was like being in an expensive spa.
Closing her eyes, she rested her head back against the tub.
“Dr. Lipton?”
Frowning, Melanie pried her eyes open. Had she fallen asleep?
Peering up at the small figure leaning over her, she tried to get her eyes to focus. “Ami?”
“Yes. Are you all right?”
“Sure.” She couldn’t seem to get Ami and the rest of the room to quit swirling around.
“Where’s Linda?”
Something about an emergency at the network? Or a Second being injured? Melanie couldn’t remember.
“Can I help you back to bed?”
“Okay.”
Decked out in hunting garb, Ami crouched down in front of her and pulled Melanie’s arms around her neck.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Ami locked her hands behind Melanie’s back, then hoisted her to her feet.
Melanie’s knees buckled. “I don’t know.”
Though smaller than her, Ami shifted Melanie to one side and pretty much carried her into the bedroom. “Why were you on the bathroom floor?”
“Whatever they’re eating upstairs keeps making me sick.”
“You can smell that down here?”
“You can’t?” The scent was so strong they may as well have been cooking it in the damn room with her.
Ami helped her into bed and pressed a hand to Melanie’s forehead. “You’re burning up.”
The sheets felt cold against her skin, inspiring a tidal wave of shivers.
Ami arranged Melanie’s limp body comfortably and drew the covers up to her chin. “She’s burning up,” she said softly.
Bastien loomed over the bed. “Melanie?” His hand was cool against her fiery forehead. His hair was windblown. His clothes were wet in places. His skin smelled of sweet North Carolina nights and something metallic. He must have just returned from hunting. “Melanie? Can you hear me, sweetheart?” Then lower: “How long has she been like this?”