Chapter Forty
Taking the steps two at a time, Benic climbed the stairs of the tower back to Susan. What had possessed him to place his laboratory at the top? He carried a pot of willow bark tea to help reduce her fever and rehydrate her body. He should have had it on hand prior to infecting her.
The immunity-boosting medicine should be cool enough to administer now. He’d used this combination of essences to heal dying shifters many times over the decades. It had worked wonders.
His plan to make Susan a vampire still might work. He hadn’t expected her to mate a shifter. Why would an Apisi give a stray, unknown creature a mating bite? Bed her, yes, but not claim her. Shifters with their marking fetishes. Mine, mine, mine.
He ran past his open bedroom door and halted so quickly he almost spilled the tea. Backpedaling, he peeked inside.
A broken metal bracelet lay next to a prone, naked Inacio.
Benic roared and entered the room. No sign of Kele anywhere. “Inacio.” He toed the incubus’s side hard enough to make him moan.
Inacio sat up, holding his head. “My face hurts.” He spoke with a lisp. His hands slid away to reveal swollen lips and a blackened eye. “Benic?”
“Where’s the shifter female I left chained to the bed?”
“Someone attacked me.” Inacio wiped the blood from his lips. “And you’re worried about your new pet?”
Benic rolled his gaze toward the ceiling in the direction of his laboratory. “Susan!” He handed Inacio the teapot and scrambled up the stairs to where he’d left her. The door was already open, the cot empty.
No.
He grabbed a glass beaker and smashed it against the wall by the doorframe. The shards flew in all directions.
Inacio ducked the broken glass as he stepped into the room. “I take it your project escaped as well?”
“Yes.” The snap of his response crackled between them. “How?” he pleaded to the empty room. “I have twenty-foot walls surrounding this castle, guarded all day and night, and a cursed incubus lounging in my tower. How did they get out unnoticed?”
“A small rescue party. It was a hunter with midnight-black hair who knocked me out.” Inacio rubbed his jaw. “A very handsome one.”
“Ahote.” He spat out the name. “They can’t be far.” Susan burned with fever. It could kill her if left untreated. The fools weren’t saving her. He grabbed the cold metal syringe of the immunity-boosting medicine and placed it in a satchel. “Where’s the tea?”
Inacio set the pot on the table. “What is this about? What does this female mean to you?”
“None of your business.” He was quite aware of the incubus’s possessiveness. The idiot was a lovesick fool.
Benic emptied the flask of water on the floor then poured the tea into it, spilling some in the process. The flask’s cork fit snugly in the neck.
He knew the forest best among the castle dwellers, and he could move faster alone. Somehow he’d have to stop the shifters and convince them he meant no harm. He groaned in silence. They would never believe him. How would he explain the virus and the mutations it created without sounding mad? Vampires had kept their suspicions that all races of Eorthe evolved from a common ancestor, for centuries. He hadn’t a name for this ancestor until he met Susan. Humans were their missing link. Should he even speak of it?
He raced from the laboratory back to his bedroom where he gathered a travel cloak and his sword. The blowdarts rested on top of his bedside chest. He fingered the set. It would make his job easier to just knock the shifters out; however he’d have to spend the next fifty years rebuilding their trust. He’d already done damage the first time he took the females. He didn’t want to repeat the same mistake.
Leaving the blowdarts, he swung the bag containing the syringe over his shoulder. Taking any knights with him would appear threatening as well. It would only make the shifters run faster and hide. He needed them to feel safe so they’d stop and confront him.
“Benic.” Inacio blocked the doorway. “I need you to know I didn’t even touch the pretty shifter, no matter how tempting.”
Incubi used emotions like shifters used claws and vampires words. Benic would never trust Inacio with anything. He should have locked his damn bedroom door. “I don’t have time for this.” He shoved past the incubus.
Emptiness threatened to consume Benic. Dark and cold, the possibility he’d made a grave mistake by infecting Susan wanted to consume the confidence he thrived on.
It would have worked. If only…
He shook the doubts from his mind. Didn’t matter anymore. He ran across the courtyard toward the gate. Questioning the guards wasn’t necessary. He knew where they were heading. All trails led to the Temple.