Home > Twice Bitten (Argeneau #27)(22)

Twice Bitten (Argeneau #27)(22)
Author: Lynsay Sands

Wyatt snorted with disbelief.

“He’s telling the truth this time,” G.G. said a little breathlessly. “Atlantis did exist and it was more developed technologically than the rest of the world.”

“They were isolated from the rest of the world by mountains and the sea and advanced much more quickly than everyone else,” Tybo explained. “But then Atlantis fell. A series of earthquakes sent it sliding into the sea. The only survivors were the Atlanteans who had the nanos. But these nanos use a lot of blood to accomplish their work, more than the human body can produce. They handled that in Atlantis with blood transfusions, but when the survivors crawled out of the ruins of a collapsing Atlantis and joined the rest of the world, it was to find that world barely past the caveman stage.

“There were no doctors or scientists to help them, and no blood transfusions to supply the blood they needed to survive. Some killed themselves rather than suffer the agony the lack of blood caused. Some went crazy with blood hunger and were so desperate to get the blood they needed, they attacked the primitive people they encountered. But the nanos in another portion of them lived up to their programing. Their directive was to keep their host at their peak condition. They needed blood to accomplish that, so the nanos forced a sort of evolution on their hosts to get the blood they needed—the fangs, increased strength, night vision, mind reading, and the ability to control their prey.”

“So the nanos turned you into vampires,” Wyatt said quietly.

“The correct term would be immortals,” Valerian said dryly, returning to the room. “Do not call us vampires.”

“Told you,” G.G. said with amusement.

Wyatt nodded an acknowledgment, but asked, “Why? It’s what you are, isn’t it?”

“No,” Valerian snapped. “Vampires are dead, soulless corpses that crawl out of their graves at night to drink the blood of the living. We are neither dead nor soulless and do not have graves to crawl out of. We are merely mortals made nearly immortal by scientific advances.”

“If you’d read one of the gazillion vampire romances out there, Valerian, you wouldn’t mind being called a vampire.”

Wyatt turned with a start at that amused comment and stared at the lovely redhead with silver-green eyes who stood behind him in the doorway.

“Vampires are considered sexy nowadays,” she continued. “While immortals . . .” Wrinkling her nose, she shrugged. “No one’s even heard of immortals.”

“Which is just the way we like it,” Valerian assured her.

“Let Rachel in, Wyatt,” G.G. said, sounding relieved at her arrival.

“You’re the doctor,” Wyatt said, his gaze sliding past her to Elspeth even as he moved to the side.

“I looked at Elspeth on the way in. She’s doing fine,” Rachel told him gently as she entered the room.

Wyatt nodded, and then glanced at the woman following Rachel. He recalled Tybo saying the doctor had been shopping with someone named Sam. This woman appeared to be Sam. She was slender with long, wavy dark hair framing a face with large eyes, a slightly crooked nose, and a full mouth that all somehow worked together to make a very attractive face.

“Hi,” she murmured, offering him her hand. “You must be Elspeth’s life mate.”

“Her what?” he asked with surprise.

“Er . . . Sam?” Tybo said with amusement. “We hadn’t got around to explaining to him about LMs yet.”

“Oh.” Grimacing apologetically, she slipped past Wyatt to join Rachel as she walked around the desk to the injured giant.

Wyatt frowned after her and then shifted his gaze to Tybo in question as he recalled G.G. saying he was Elspeth’s LM to Sofia. “So, an LM is a life mate?”

“It’s what G.G. calls them,” Valerian explained.

“Okay.” Wyatt nodded. “So, what the hell is a life mate, then?”

Tybo opened his mouth to respond, but Elspeth chose that moment to start shrieking and thrashing about in the next room.

“So . . . life mates!”

Wyatt dragged his gaze away from the closed office door to gape at Tybo with disbelief when he shouted that. Cupping a hand to his ear, he yelled, “I’m sorry. Did you say something? I couldn’t hear you over the headbanger music from the bar, and the screaming coming from the kitchen. You know, where Elspeth’s suffering the agonies of hell?”

The moment Elspeth had begun to shriek, loud music had started thumping in the bar. Apparently, Sofia was trying to drown out the screaming so The Night Club’s customers wouldn’t be troubled by it. Wyatt had no idea if it was working in the bar area, but it wasn’t back here. Elspeth’s piercing cries seemed to drown everything else out for him. Turning to Rachel, he asked with frustration, “Can’t you give her something to help with the pain?”

“I did,” Rachel reminded him as she finished taping up G.G.’s ribs. “But at this point it will barely touch the pain. She’ll just have to fight through it. If it makes you feel better, I can tell you she won’t remember this when she wakes up. While the drugs can’t do much for her pain when it’s this bad, they will at least ensure she doesn’t remember her suffering.”

It didn’t make him feel better. He would remember this. Wyatt suspected Elspeth’s mangled face twisted in a rictus of pain and her frenzied shrieks and struggles against the chains would haunt his nightmares for years to come. He’d never seen such suffering before, and hoped to God he never did again. As ashamed as he was to admit it, he’d been relieved when Rachel and Tybo had forced him back into the office once Rachel had done all she could for her. He wanted to be there for Elspeth, but this was unbearable.

“So . . . life mates!” Tybo shouted again.

Wyatt released his breath on a sigh. “Fine! What the hell is a life mate?”

Now that he had his attention, Tybo paused briefly, as if considering how best to explain. Finally he said, “You know how wolves mate for life?”

“What?” Wyatt asked with bewilderment, not following what wolves had to do with immortal life mates, and then, horror claiming him, he said, “Please tell me immortals aren’t werewolves too.”

“No, of course not,” Tybo snapped, sounding annoyed. “Look, there are animals that mate for life, like wolves, coyotes, beavers—”

“Termites,” Wyatt added dryly. “So what’s that got to do with life mates?”

“Immortals mate for life too, and that’s what a life mate is,” he explained with exasperation. “An immortal’s mate . . . for life.”

“Well, at least until one of them dies,” Valerian put in. “Then, if they’re lucky, the survivor might find another life mate.”

“And you guys think I’m that for Elspeth?”

All five of them nodded, and then G.G. said, “But Elspeth will fight it. As I mentioned, she’s led a very sheltered life. She hoped to enjoy a little taste of freedom before she settles down with a life mate. Finding you right away wasn’t in her plan.”

Wyatt supposed he could understand that, but let it go for now and asked, “Why do you think we’re life mates?”

“She couldn’t read or control you,” G.G. said solemnly.

Wyatt recalled him saying something about that before, and frowned. “Well, surely you all encounter a person once in a while you can’t read?”

“The only mortals an immortal can’t read are either insane, or life mates,” Valerian assured him.

“And we know you aren’t insane because the rest of us can all read you,” Rachel assured him.

“Except me,” G.G. added with wry amusement and said, “Mortal here, remember? Can’t read anyone.”

Wyatt nodded and turned back to peer at the immortals. They could read him? That was alarming. Had they been reading him all this time?

“Of course we have,” Rachel said with amusement as she put away the items she’d been using to tend to G.G.’s ribs. “Aside from the fact that you’re shrieking your thoughts at us, the way you’ve been gripping that knife would be rather alarming if we didn’t read your mind to reassure ourselves that you weren’t planning to use it on someone and were just holding it as a security blanket.”

   
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