Chapter Fourteen
Maxim
My mate slept between us. She was on her side and I wrapped my body around her like a protective blanket. Her chest pressed to Ryston’s side, their legs entwined and her hand rested on his neck, caressing him even in her sleep.
I could not sleep. Pain, insistent and growing in strength, coursed from my Hive implants to my shoulder and down to the tips of my fingers. The ache had spread to my back and the base of my skull like hundreds of tiny, biting insects devoured me from within.
Rachel was exhausted, yet even in sleep I felt her mind working, her energy a constant buzzing awareness through the collar.
Unwilling to disturb my family, I gently untangled myself from our bed and rose. I would put on my uniform and search out Doctor Surnen. Perhaps he would have some answers. I knew Rachel would be angry with me for leaving her behind, but both Ryston and I had sensed her complete and total exhaustion. A few hours’ rest would do her good. I would wait, for I doubted there was anything she could do in the moment to ease my pain.
I was halfway to the doorway when she bolted straight up in bed. “They were moving.”
Turning, I returned to the bed and sat on the edge. “Hush, love. Go back to sleep.”
Her eyes were wide, her dark hair a tumble of soft temptation around her shoulders. Gods, she was too beautiful to be real, to be mine.
“They were moving. They shifted position. They aren’t supposed to be moving, right?”
Ryston groaned and rolled onto his side, wrapping an arm around her waist from behind. “Rachel. Go to sleep. You’re too tired. Your exhaustion is beating inside my head like a drum.”
Rachel wrapped her hands around his forearm and stared into space. I wasn’t sure if she was awake, asleep, dreaming, or out of her mind with fatigue. “Rachel?”
Not looking at me, she shoved Ryston’s hand from her body and scurried to the edge of the bed. “They shouldn’t be moving. What were they doing? How old were those implants? He said they were neutralized. But they were doing something. It was on the right. And when I looked again, it was on the left. That wasn’t me. Why were they moving? How are they moving?”
“Rachel?” Ryston sat now and we both stared as she tugged on her forgotten medical uniform and boots, still rambling.
“I need a sample.” Rachel’s eyes finally focused on us, leaping from Ryston to me and back again. “Get dressed. I need you both to come with me to the lab. Right now.”
“Why?” I pulled my pants on even as Ryston rolled out of bed with a groan. If I was expecting an answer, I would have been sorely disappointed, for Rachel left us behind, winding her hair up into some kind of twist. She lifted her writing utensil from her book near the door and shoved it through the mess as an anchor. “Maxim’s infected. Ryston’s not. The Quell in Brooks’ system wasn’t normal. It wasn’t normal. And it wasn’t black market. The chemical composition was slightly off. They’re making it. They’re alive, and they’re making it.”
She paced in front of the door, her emotions locked away completely. Where my kind, caring mate’s emotions normally washed through me like a warm, comfortable blanket, or a hot, raging lust, all I felt from her now was satisfaction. Completion. Curiosity. Fear. “Rachel?”
I stood before her and Ryston joined me. At the sound of her name, she looked up, her eyes focusing on us briefly before she turned away with a nod. “Good. Good. Come on. We gotta go. I need samples.”
Ryston shrugged when I met his gaze and we followed our mumbling mate all the way to the medical station like two pets on a leash. Not that I minded. I’d seen sex-crazed Rachel. I’d seen her kindness and trust. I’d seen her angry and defiant. But this new side of her was equally fascinating.
“What is she doing?” Ryston paced beside me and I smiled. I couldn’t stop the reaction.
“Being Rachel.”
The door to the medical station slid open and she led us into the dark, mostly abandoned research area. Built for emergency triage and to deal with battle wounds or mining accidents with equal efficiency, we’d modeled the station after the medical areas on board the Prillon battleships. Thank the gods, we’d never had a need to utilize the space.
The area was dark except for one station, where Doctor Surnen sat, his eyes glued to an odd-looking contraption I’d never seen before. He lifted his gaze when we entered. “Governor.”
“Doctor.”
I didn’t need to ask what he was doing. Nor did I comment on the obvious fatigue lining his face, nor the exhausted slump of his shoulders. But his gaze held intense focus, a driving desire to solve the puzzle. I recognized that look, for I’d seen it in Rachel’s eyes not long ago.
When Rachel walked up next to him, she set her writing pages, a thing she called a notebook, down on the table next to the doctor, who finally turned his attention to her. “This is a fascinating device.”
She smiled at him, a real smile, and I took a step forward before I could rein in the bastard inside me who didn’t want that smile directed at anyone else. “Isn’t it? Your ReGen wands are great, don’t get me wrong. But sometimes, you have to be able to see something to understand it.”
The doctor slid a tiny slip of glass off the device and replaced it with another from a tray. He locked it in place with small metal clasps and lowered his eyes to the viewing lenses. “I know our scientists have studied this technology in great detail. I’ve read all the reports. I’ve even done some analysis and research myself, but I’ve never looked at them like this.”
Rachel left the doctor to his device and walked to a small tray set up near one of the surgical beds. She waved her hand to the bed and lifted her gaze to us. “Sit. I need a sample from each of you.”
Ryston sat first and I followed. It was uncanny, the way Rachel didn’t look at us, but through us, as if we were not hers. Not real. Not even here. Her mind was far, far from here.