Bane's Choice (Vampire Motorcycle Club #1) - Alyssa Day Page 0,41
at her.
“It sounded better in my head,” she offered, not knowing where to go from there. Why would they want to tell anybody about themselves, when they’d undoubtedly end up in cages and being dissected by government scientists?
“I might be inclined to let you study me,” Bane said slowly. “Only you—nobody else could know—and only me. You stay away from the rest of my family. But it would be good to know the science, after all these long years.”
Ryan caught her breath at the idea that he was even considering agreeing.
“It’s not science. It’s magic,” Mrs. Cassidy said, speaking up from her post near the stove, where she was cooking something that smelled like fried grease and sugar—Ryan’s favorite food groups.
“Well. Perhaps,” Ryan conceded, because why wouldn’t it be magic? There were werewolves, too, for Pete’s sake. “But a lot of things that were thought to be magic in the past have been proven to be science. Maybe, if we studied exactly what happens to you—”
“We, Doctor?” Bane’s voice suddenly had a dangerous edge. “Do you have any idea what would happen to our kind if multiple scientists find out about us? Would you like to know what has happened in the past, perhaps in vivid, brutal detail? Would you be so willing to see my family in cages, being tortured and experimented upon? When I said just you, I meant it.”
“No, of course, I don’t want to see any of that. But—” She glanced around and then swallowed whatever she’d been about to say.
Read the room, Ryan. Keep this up, and you might be in serious trouble.
“I…I’m sorry. Yes, just me,” she muttered, taking a bite of pancake that still looked and smelled amazing but now tasted like sawdust in her mouth.
Bane put his fork down, turned in his chair until he faced her completely, and pinned her with a searing gaze. “We won’t be analyzed, dissected, or tortured in the name of science or progress, Dr. St. Cloud. Don’t doubt the lengths to which I’ll go to ensure that this never, ever happens. If you enjoy Savannah when it’s not a miles-long patch of scorched ground, you’ll never bring up the idea of other scientists being involved again.”
Ryan turned away from him, unable to bear the contempt on his face.
Meara’s expression was kinder but wary. “This is too much, I know. It’s why we never tell humans anything about us. Ryan, don’t worry. Of course, we’ll compel you to forget, right after breakfast, and take you home. We wouldn’t have told you otherwise.”
Bane shook his head. “Compulsion doesn’t work. Luke and I both tried. It brushes off her like water off a duck. Even when I reinforced the push with touch, she broke through it in minutes. We’ll have to think of another way.”
“You’ll not kill a doctor,” Mrs. Cassidy blurted out, waving a spatula at them. “I won’t have it.”
Ryan’s neck tightened at the baldly stated assumption that killing her was an option. Somehow, coming from the sweet, kind housekeeper made it frighteningly more real.
Of course, it’s real. Because: vampires.
Bane smiled at his housekeeper with apparent fondness. “No, of course, we won’t. We just need to think about—”
But Ryan didn’t get to hear what they needed to think about, because that’s when the kitchen erupted into chaos. An elderly man and an enormous dog that looked like a cross between a wolf and a Sasquatch burst in from the door on one end of the kitchen, and a white-haired man who appeared to have been beaten nearly to death burst in from the door on the other end.
The dog immediately started to bark and advanced on her, ears back, teeth bared, and a growl like thunder issuing from its throat. It—he—hurled his enormous, furry body between Ryan and the stranger, as if protecting her.
The injured man fell to the floor before anyone at the table could get to him.
“Tommy. Get Bram Stoker out of the kitchen if he can’t behave,” Bane ordered. “Edge. What happened to you?”
“Your dog’s name is Bram Stoker?” Ryan didn’t wait for an answer; the question was irrelevant. The second the man pulled the leashed dog back, Ryan was out of her chair and across the room to the injured man.
“Hot water and clean cloths,” she snapped. “And call 911—no, scratch that, I guess that’s not an option. Sir? Edge? I’m a doctor. Can you tell me what happened to you? Were you beaten? Shot? Do you feel any broken bones?”