Bane's Choice (Vampire Motorcycle Club #1) - Alyssa Day Page 0,36

What happened?”

Ryan, who’d started bullheadedly struggling to get away from him the moment he’d picked her up, pointed.

“Look!”

It was Hunter. Lying on the table. But not the Hunter they’d left in the care of Lucas such a little time before. Now, the former human, former firefighter looked like nothing more than a mummified skeleton, and an exhausted-looking Luke slept on the floor next to the table.

“What happened to him?”

Bane sighed with more than a little relief and released the doctor. “Finally. Now he can complete the Turn.”

She whirled to face him. “What? This is normal? He looks like he died twenty years ago!”

“I know. The Turn devours the human blood of its host during the process, and then we will have to replenish his blood with ours. It’s…tricky.”

“Tricky? It’s tricky?” Her beautiful blue eyes, so different in shade from his own, widened, and he lost the sense of her words when he fell into her gaze, drowning in the liquid dark—sinking into her intensity—into her passion.

How long had it been since he’d seen such passion?

How long since it had been directed at him?

“Can I examine him? Is there any point? Does he even have blood pressure like that?”

Why did she keep asking him questions, when all he wanted to do was watch the shapes her mouth made when she spoke?

She pounded a fist on his chest, snapping him out of his mental trance. “Hello? Are you even listening to me?”

“Not really,” he admitted, reaching out to touch one long, damp strand of her hair and then pulling his hand back. He had not asked to touch it.

It occurred to him that this, at least, was one thing he could rectify.

“May I?”

“May you what? Bane, I have no idea what’s going on here, but every medical instinct in my body, every ounce of education and training, is telling me that we have to get him to the emergency room. We need—”

“May I touch your hair?” The answer to his question was suddenly the most important answer in the world. “And believe me when I tell you that taking him to the hospital now would kill him. This is a vital part of the process and gives me reassurance that he will survive it.”

Her enormous eyes were filled with doubt. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” he said, what little patience he had waning. “I’ve done this several times over the centuries, Doctor. Now. Your hair. May I?”

She blinked and then opened and shut her beautiful mouth a couple of times. “You want to touch my hair. Now.”

“Yes. And I did ask,” he pointed out, moving a step closer but careful not to crowd her.

“Is this really the time?” She put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes, but he could sense a thread of excitement and maybe even anticipation beneath her outward impatience. Not to mention the faint golden glow that began to shimmer faintly on—or maybe beneath—her skin. The doctor was no more immune to him than she was fully human, this much he knew.

And—in spite of himself—he treasured the knowledge. Now, he wanted to demand. Instead, he decided to coax.

Maybe even a monster was capable of learning?

“Please?”

She blew out a long breath, glanced back at Luke and Hunter again, and then squared her shoulders. “I think this is a bad idea, but because you said please. And because you stopped when I said no in that bathroom. And because of the shower and the clothes and… Okay. Just…okay,” she finished, her voice all but inaudible.

He leaned in and inhaled her scent and completely forgot about manners and consent and coaxing.

“You will let me touch you whenever I please,” he demanded instead, forcing every ounce of his power and compulsion into his voice.

She swayed a little but then quirked one corner of her mouth in a lopsided grin. “Keep trying. I’m sure somebody is going to listen to your enthralling voice sometime. And yes.”

“And yes?”

She drew in another breath, this one shaky. “You can touch my hair.”

He stilled to motionlessness and stood, drinking in the sight of her flushed cheeks. Her lush curves pushing at his shirt that she wore. Her bare feet and their silly purple toenails.

“Thank you,” he whispered, and then he reached out a hand. Took one long, wavy strand and slid his fingers down damp silk. Released it and watched it spring back into its curl.

Immediately regretted the loss of its touch.

Her breath stuttered, and he could hear her heart speed up, could see the