Free Hidden Heat by Amy Valenti Page A

diagnostic equipment. “Hello, Holly. How are you feeling?”
    “Scared,” I said honestly.
    She gave me a sympathetic smile. “I can understand that. But I’m here to help you, if I can.”
    Something about her was immediately calming. I understood a little better why she was the head of the medical section of the committee. “What do I need to do?”
    Beth shot a glance at Scott and Grant. “First we need to get some privacy. Honestly, you’re both medical students and you’ve never heard of doctor-patient confidentiality?”
    While they protested their innocence, Beth beckoned me towards the door. “Come on, Holly. The kitchen will have better lighting.”
    It did—fluorescent lighting, to be precise. At Beth’s urging, I sat down at the kitchen table and tried to relax, watching her close the blinds in case anyone should glance in from out on the street. “They told me about Theresa.”
    Beth tutted, opening her medical bag. “Theresa has become a committee ghost story since it all happened. Don’t believe what you hear, because a lot of it is over-embellished.”
    “I’ll try to keep that in mind,” I murmured, holding out my arm so she could take my blood pressure.
    Compared to a lot of the medical instruments we used nowadays, the blood pressure gauge was pretty archaic—unchanged from how it used to be over a hundred years ago. Apparently, there was no more reliable way of measuring BP. I slipped my arm into the fabric sleeve and let it squeeze tight around my biceps, while Beth watched the readout connected to the in-sleeve sensors.
    “Normal,” she said, and I let out a sigh of relief. At least that word applied to one thing about my life right now.
    Beth continued to work her way through the basics, shooing me off to the bathroom to obtain a urine sample, then drawing enough of my blood to feed an army of vampires for a year. While she worked, I told her how I’d come to slip through the net, the same way I’d told Scott a couple of days before. She listened without comment, nodding every now and then and looking thoughtful.
    “I’ll look into your records a little deeper when I get back to the university. The information you’ve given me should help shed some light.”
    She became immersed in her task and as I watched her test my bodily fluids my mind drifted back to how things had been that morning, before it had all gone so wrong.
    Beth must have noticed me mentally swooning, because she laughed. “I take it you had a good weekend.”
    I nodded, a little embarrassed. Sex was never really mentioned in Focused social conversation, so to freely admit that I’d had it was still strange to me. The committee members all seemed very sexually liberated. I guessed it came from knowing that the main factor that had brought them all together was the desire to keep their sex drives.
    If I did have this ‘nymphitis’, as Scott and Grant thought, I was going to get a lot more relaxed talking about sex. And not in a healthy way.
    “Until today, yeah…it was a good weekend.”
    Studying the readout on her portable blood-testing kit, Beth frowned and I tensed up, terrified again. “You’ve found something.”
    “I have. Nothing to get too worked up over, don’t worry. Just higher than usual hormone levels. Testosterone, oestrogen, dopamine, endorphins—the whole lust cocktail.”
    I was a doctor in training, and we’d studied a little about the suppression procedure in class. I knew what that meant. “All the stuff the hormone dams are supposed to limit.”
    “Unfortunately, yes. I’ll need to scan your brain to see how the failed dams are looking. I’m not sure if your aunt would have removed them while you were out during your third attempt. Did she mention it?”
    “No. Sorry.”
    “Not to worry. We’ll find out soon enough.” She paused, then asked, “Have you noticed a decrease in your inhibitions? When it’s just you and Scott?”
    I was certainly more inhibited now, and I