32
Annabel – Annabel le Strange the baroness! – had told Sasha that it would be best for him to cooperate with the doctors and nurses for the time being. Protesting would only get him chained up tighter, maybe even drugged again, and that if he wanted to earn a little bit of freedom he had to be polite and agreeable.
So though it went against his screaming internal alarms, he sat quietly in his hospital bed and thanked the technician who brought him his next meal. The tech, a skittish young man, startled badly when Sasha spoke, and then managed to scrape together a smile before he fled the room.
He ate every bit of the meatloaf and potatoes he’d been given, because he was hungry, and then set the tray aside on the night table that he could just reach from the bed. He was sitting up against the wall, hands folded neatly in his lap, when two scrub-clad nurses, and a man in black tac gear with a gun on his hip came to collect him.
“Hello,” Sasha greeted, forcefully bright.
“Hello,” the nurses echoed back. They were both women, both middle-aged and maternal-looking. One came to him with a blood pressure cuff and a stethoscope, and another brought a penlight to peer into his eyes, nose, and ears, unafraid and proficient.
The guard, though, was on edge. He stood just inside the door, one gloved hand holding a baton – a stun baton; Sasha could feel the faint hum of its electric charge. He stared dispassionately at the far wall, a well-trained, emotionless soldier. To a human, he would have given the appearance of an immovable object. Jaded and unconcerned. But Sasha could smell the ripeness of fear sweat gathering beneath the man’s arms, detect the rapid flutter of his pulse, visible in the side of his throat. Anxiety had a scent, and it filled the room now, rolling off the guard.
Sasha almost felt sorry for him.
He smiled. “I’m not going to hurt anyone.”
“Oh, we know, honey,” one of the nurses said, peeling off the pressure cuff. “Keys, please,” she said over her shoulder.
The guard stepped forward and handed a set to her.
His cuffs were unlocked, all four, and the nurses stepped back. “Okay, if you’ll follow us,” the one with the penlight said. “We’ll go see Dr. Talbot.” She gave him a quick, impersonal smile.
Sasha’s stomach churned with worry, but he tried not to show it as he swung his legs over and eased to his feet. He was stiff and sore, unsteady. He had to grab at the bed’s handrail, and a nurse steadied him with one strong hand on his shoulder.
“Easy now. We can get a wheelchair.”
“I’m fine.” And he was, once he’d taken a few shuffling steps and felt his circulation coming back. “I heal quick.”
“Mmhm.”
They fell into a loose formation as they exited the room: the two nurses shoulder-to-shoulder in front, Sasha after them, and the guard behind, stun baton held across his chest, ready to use.
Sasha was dressed in loose white shirt and pants, socks with rubber grippy bumps on the soles that were, at the moment, necessary. He moved slow, careful little steps that sent aches shooting up both legs and into his knees. He felt like an old man, and nothing like the lithe wolf that he was.
They moved down a white hallway that smelled of new paint and plaster, and then emerged into a cavernous space that looked like a retrofitted wine cellar: stone floors and ceilings, empty sconces that would have once held torches. And a mess of modern wires and computers and lab equipment set up on long tables. He turned his head back and forth, nostrils flared wide, and tried to take it all in. He hadn’t been inside a place like this since he was first turned, and that had been an Americanized Soviet facility. This looked like Dr. Frankenstein’s lab…but much, much more high tech.
The nurses led him to a sturdy, steel-topped table surrounded by wheeled computer monitors and medical carts. A man in a white lab coat sat on a rolling stool, clicking through images on one of the computer screens, the blue light reflecting off his glasses. Sasha recognized his scent, and then, when he turned toward him, his face: Dr. Talbot.
“Ah!” he exclaimed when he saw them, getting to his feet. He wasn’t a tall man, which was probably part of the reason he reminded Sasha of Monsieur Philippe. “There you are. Hello, Sasha, good morning! How do you feel?”
It was so absurd that Sasha wanted to laugh. He’d been darted, drugged, and shipped here against his will. Chained to a bed. He was their prisoner. And Dr. Talbot acted now as if he was a welcome guest.
Nikita would have snarled at the man – vampire or not. Would have given him a frigid stare and jutted out his chin in defiance.
Just thinking of his friend and packmate made Sasha a little braver. Brave enough to decide that Annabel’s wisdom was well-meant, and that it would be best to cooperate.
“A little tired,” he said, and managed a smile.
“Understandable,” Dr. Talbot said, expression apologetic. “I’m afraid the sedatives we were forced to use are quite strong. It may take another few hours before they’ve been completely metabolized.”
Forced to use. Sasha swallowed and kept his smile pinned in place.
“But let’s not dwell on that,” Dr. Talbot said, still smiling. Like Philippe. “On behalf of everyone here, let me formally welcome you to the Ingraham Institute of Medical Technology.” Pride shone from his face, a visible glow. “It is such a pleasure to finally meet you, Sasha. I’ve been reading your files for years – I feel as if I already know you.”
A pleasure. As if this was tea between long-distance friends. As if they’d happened upon one another out in the wide world.
Sasha’s stomach cramped, and he had to swallow again. He thought he might be sick.
“Dr. Talbot,” a cool, British-accented voice said behind him. Fulk had approached, and Sasha had been too distracted to notice the other wolf’s presence. “You can dismiss the armed guard. I’ll provide security.”
Sasha saw a groove sprout between Dr. Talbot’s brows and turned a fraction to read Fulk’s expression.
The baron’s sharp features gave away nothing. He stared at Dr. Talbot with something worse than contempt: complete and utter disregard. It reminded Sasha, a little, of Alexei. The ingrained arrogance of royalty.
“The prince,” Dr. Talbot started, and Fulk cut him off.
“The prince ruled a kingdom. I think he can rule his own actions for a half hour.”
A stare-down ensued, and if Sasha hadn’t known any better, he would have guessed that Fulk was the master, and the doctor the pawn. But. Yet again in his experience, physical power was overshadowed by governmental power.
“Very well,” Dr. Talbot said, mouth twisting with disapproval. “That’ll be all, sergeant,” he told the guard, and the man left them without a word.
Fulk folded his arms and leaned a hip against the heavy metal table. As you were, his expression said.
Talbot took a breath. “Where were we? Ah, yes, your files.” He rubbed his hands together, smile returning as he focused on Sasha once again.
Nikita was coming, Sasha reminded himself, and endured it.
~*~
Dr. Talbot talked a lot, but said little. He spoke at length about Rasputin, asking Sasha question after question about his skills, his strength, his psychic abilities. Eventually, when his legs grew tired from standing, Sasha climbed up onto the table. He didn’t try to hide his dislike for Rasputin – “He was wicked,” he said, to which Dr. Talbot lifted his brows in disbelief – and refused to participate in the glowing wonder that the doctor was trying to cultivate.
Once or twice, Fulk snorted, an amused sound, but when Sasha twisted back to look at him, the baron was blank-faced.
Sasha had begun to think he’d been captured just to have this conversation, but, finally, Dr. Talbot set aside his notepad and picked up a syringe.
Sasha felt his flagging energy rebound, anxiety spiking.
“I’ll just need to take some blood samples.”
After, crook of his arm bruised and bandaged, woozy and hungry again, Sasha was surprised to feel Fulk move in beside him.
“I’ll escort him back,” he said, and Dr. Talbot thanked him.
“We’ll speak again soon, Sasha.”
“Yes, sir,” Sasha mumbled, and slid down off the table on jelly legs.
Talbot turned back to his computer monitor, blood vials secure in his lab coat pocket.
“Come,” Fulk said, and Sasha shuffled after him through the maze of workstations.
When they reached the mouth of the hallway – all its bright white and fresh cinderblock – Fulk hesitated. Sasha caught himself with a palm against the wall and thought it might have been a kindness: giving him a moment to rest.
“Why do I feel like this?” he asked, panting.
Fulk propped a shoulder against the wall; it looked like a negligent pose, but Sasha could read the tension in the lean lines of his body. “When the anesthetic starting wearing off too quickly, they pumped you with horse tranquilizers and heroin,” he said, dispassionately. A muscle in his jaw ticked, though. “If you were human, you’d be dead three times over. I imagine you’re experiencing withdrawal.”
“Oh,” Sasha said. “Well.”
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
They continued down the hall to Sasha’s room. In his absence, someone had made up the bed with fresh sheets and left some bottled water and protein bars on the night table. He smelled lemon cleaner. This place was as good as a prison cell, but in the moment, his shaking becoming uncontrollable, Sasha moved to the bed and sank onto it with a grateful sigh, real relief easing the tension in his shoulders.
He thought Fulk would leave right away, but to his surprise, Fulk eased the door shut and leaned back against it, sealing them in together.
The shakes moved up Sasha’s neck, into his jaw. He swallowed, and it was hard to form words. “There are…a lot of things I would like to ask you. But I know you don’t like me very much.”
“Don’t take it personally. I don’t like anyone.”
“Except your mate.”
Sasha said it innocently – he still grappled with a strange joy because there were mated wolves in the world – but Fulk growled all the same.
“I’m not challenging you,” Sasha said. “I don’t want to be your rival.” Soft, the shaking getting worse: “I’m glad for you.”
Fulk gave a lupine snort and tipped his head back, gaze narrow, blue, uncompromising. Grudgingly: “What would you ask?”
He really was feeling terrible, but hope flared to life inside him, a strength all its own. The questions came tumbling out like a flood. “When were you turned? Did you really turn Annabel yourself? Who was your vampire? How did you get here? How…” He exhaled with an unsteady laugh. “I’m sorry. I’ve never met another wolf before.”
“I can see that,” Fulk said mildly. He studied Sasha a moment. “I’m sorry.”
Sasha blinked. “What? Why?”
“I sold the book to Philippe.”
Sasha absorbed that information. Parsed it out. “Oh.”