Private Demon

They were only a few minutes away now. He would park at the gate and move her to the driver's seat.



"Why did you do this to yourself? Why didn't you marry? If your sickness prevented children, you could have adopted them. In this country? You could have purchased them. You should have a keeper. One who wouldn't permit you to do foolish things that could get you raped and murdered in an alley. If I were your husband, you wouldn't leave our bedchamber. You'd be too tired to walk."



He was irrational, furious, ready to shake her back to consciousness. Then he looked down and saw her face, and he wanted to stop the car and gather her into his arms and cry against her hair.



"What do I do now, little cat?" All the hopeless love in the world, and here was his, and he was wasting these precious minutes shouting at her. "How can I leave you now, even when I know I must? Who will be there the next time someone tries to harm you?"



At the front gates of Shaw House, Thierry stopped the convertible and got out to lift Jema from the passenger seat. She stirred a little when he eased her into the driver's seat. He used his fist to sound the car horn, watching Jema's face as he hit the horn over and over, until he saw Bradford hurrying out of the front doors.



Thierry moved back from the car and stood in the shadow of the wall. The gates opened and Bradford rushed out.



"Jema? Jema!"



He watched the physician check her, and then move her to the passenger side of the car. Bradford got behind the wheel, but before he drove off he stared hard at the deep pool of shadow where Thierry was standing.



It was his scent, of course. Strong emotions and spilling blood always brought it to its greatest intensity, and it was pouring off him.



Bradford shook his head slightly, put the convertible in gear, and drove through the gates.



Alex watched from the sidelines in the lists as Valentin Jaus defeated his fourth consecutive opponent. She glanced up at Cyprien. "How many more asses is he going to kick before he gets tired?"



Michael rested his chin on the top of her head and closed his arms around her. "He doesn't get tired."



Jaus had been like a caged tiger ever since Alex had confirmed her initial findings on the witch's brew that Daniel Bradford had been giving to Jema Shaw. Further analysis of the "insulin" revealed that Jema was being heavily sedated and subjected to a hormone that retarded several natural functions, primarily menstruation.



"She's probably had very few periods, if any," Alex told Jaus and Cyprien as she explained the effects of the hormone. "This stuff was once manufactured in Eastern Bloc countries and given to certain athletes, like gymnasts."



"This cannot be right." Jaus shook his head. "Jema does not perform gymnastics. She never has."



"Well, if she had wanted to, she could have been Olympic material, because she likely heals just fine. In addition to suppressing the menstrual cycle, this hormone prevents a woman's body from developing normal breasts and hips and putting on fat. These are all things that keep older gymnasts small and light enough to compete with twelve-year-olds." She rubbed her eyes, tired from staring at so many screens. "One more thing: This hormone has been banned for thirty years, ever since a little Asian girl died in the middle of a gold medal-winning performance. During the investigation, the Olympic Committee discovered that the long-term side effects include serious heart and liver damage."



After hearing that, Jaus excused himself and went to the lists to begin plowing through his men.



Alex wasn't sure why Bradford had been trying to keep Jema in a perpetual state of prepuberty, and, from her own observations, she felt he had been only partially successful. Jema's growth and development may have been stunted, but she showed too many signs of physical maturity. Now the big questions were, how long had Bradford been dosing Jema, and how much permanent damage had the mixture caused?



"We've got to tell her, Michael," Alex informed Cyprien as she watched Jaus take on a fifth opponent. "She'll need to be weaned off it—the sedatives are narcotic, so she's definitely addicted to them—and put in the hospital for tests to see what else is going on inside her." She winced as Jaus knocked his larger opponent onto his back and stood over him with his sword at his throat. "You'd better go over there and try to talk some sense into him. All the blood is starting to make the other guys slip."



Before Cyprien could speak to Jaus, the suzerain stalked out of the lists.



"I cannot fathom the reason for his anger," Cyprien said after he helped one of Jaus's men from the blood-spattered floor. "He cares about her, and with this new information we can help Jema. You said she could live a more normal life."



"If her insides aren't all fucked-up from Bradford's drugs." Alex felt the weight of Jaus's confidences bearing down on her. "I think Val needs another sympathetic ear. Let me go talk to him."



Back at the main house, Sacher told her the suzerain had retired to his bedchamber to wash and dress. Alex went up to the room Sacher directed her to and knocked on his door. When there was no answer, she debated whether or not to intrude, and then used a little Kyn strength to force the lock.



Her first impression of the sitting room portion of Jaus's bedroom was that it was big and silent and very, very white. Like the camellia scent permeating the air.



"The Kyn don't hang out with the Klan, do they?" she asked, looking around at the walls, floor, and the single whopping-huge leather sofa, all of which were as pristine white as the new-arrivals rack at a bridal shop. "I don't want to know what your bills for bleach are."



The sounds of someone dressing came from the next room over. Alex followed the rustle and entered a bedroom done in dark midnight blue, where the scent of camellias grew stronger.



"I'd hate to have to pick one color and live with it like this. I like too many of them. Imagine, just pink." She shuddered as she turned to see the wall opposite the bed. Twenty-nine framed photos of Jema Shaw at various ages covered it. The images were all candid shots, evidently taken from a distance with a powerful lens. "Couldn't fit these on your desk with the other one?"



"Go away, Alexandra."



"I will, eventually." She picked up the sword he had left on the coverlet of his bed, only to find her hand covered with blood. "I hope you Scotchgarded the mattress."



Now she heard splashing sounds from the adjoining bathroom.



Alex looked in and saw Jaus standing in front of a sink and washing blood from his hands, arms, and chest. He might be a shrimp like her, but with all those muscles, who would notice? "Feel better, Conan?"



"No." Still wet, he strode past her and went into the white room, and came back a minute later carrying a full fifth of Stoli.



"That's going to make you very sick," she warned him. Straight liquor was one of the worst things a Darkyn could ingest.



Jaus glanced at her. "Do you wish to provide the mixer?"



She held up her hands. "Who am I to get between a vampire and his choice of emetic?"



"I don't drink it." He opened the bottle and poured the liquor onto a cloth, then used it to clean the blood from his sword.



"Does that work well?" Alex wondered if it was the same basic principal as soaking instruments in alcohol..



"Unlike you, it evaporates quickly." He crumpled up the cloth and placed the sword in a case on the wall that held several other weapons. "Why did you break the lock on my door, Alexandra? Have I not sufficiently entertained you this day?"



"I have a soft spot for lost causes." She smiled brightly. "And men who can beat five other men into the floor without breaking a sweat."



Jaus propped one arm on the wall by the case and leaned against it. "I fight them so I won't go over to Shaw House and kill Bradford."



"Maybe I should go beat the crap out of someone, then." She still couldn't quite believe what the doctor had been doing to Jema, or why.



Alex went into the bathroom to wash her hands. The bathroom was, like the front room, all white with antique-looking fixtures. The tub sat on brass claw feet, and the toilet flushed with a chain. The chunky bar of yellow-gray soap in the dish smelled of lye.



"Whew." She wrinkled her nose as she scrubbed. "Man, I have got to take you to Linens 'n Things."



"I will pay you to change her as you were."



Alex dropped the soap in the sink. Jaus stood in the doorway, wiping his chest, arms, and hands with a white towel. "Pay me."



He tossed the damp towel into the tub. "Whatever you wish. Money, jewels, property, anything. You have but to name your price, my lady."



She turned off the taps, put the soap back, and sluiced the water from her hands. "What if I want the city of Chicago?"



"I do not own Chicago."



"Oh, well." She shrugged.



"I own part of Chicago. A large part. It is yours."



He was serious. "A tempting counteroffer." She saw there was no getting through the doorway at the moment. "But, nope, I can't settle for port of a major metropolitan city. Me being Cyprien's girl and all; everyone would just snicker behind my back. You understand."



He folded his arms, making muscles bulge in all the right places. "I am not jesting with you."



"I didn't think you were." She moved to stand in front of him. That was the nice thing about him; she didn't have to stand on a stepladder to go eye-to-eye with him. "Valentin, I know you love her. I knew it before I came in and saw the creepy stalker wall. That's why I'm going to pretend we never had this conversation."



"I must have her. I will do anything."



"No, you won't." She gestured toward the bedroom. "Let's go crack open a unit of AB negative. Have you ever noticed how it has a bit more zing than plain old type A?"



"You smug bitch." He wasn't moving a centimeter. "You dare deny me. When you could save her. You have your love for eternity."