Free henri dunn 01 - immortality cure by tori centanni

urges and letting the song sing through his veins instead. And then there was a sharp pain, quick and then gone, and a joke, and then an itch. His hand closed over the syringe and yanked it out. Lark’s face was full of confusion and they made a joke. But pain started to radiate out from the wound. He felt flushed, hot. Strange. Like a mortal with a fever.
    The impression stopped there. Unlike with Ray, it was not his last moments that I saw. But maybe they were the last ones that had mattered to Thomas and that was why it was those moments the blood showed me.
    “I’m sorry it ended this way,” I told him and I meant it.
    I popped a mint in my mouth to chase away the slightly rotten copper taste of his blood and then I hurriedly made my way toward the exit.

CHAPTER 7
    D ownstairs, Lark was standing apart from the group of vampires, a purple wrap hugging her broad shoulders like an emergency blanket. Grief and agony seemed to cloud around her. I wanted to offer her condolences, but she cut her eyes at me. Lark was tall and stunning, her brown skin paled by immortality but not the sickly bone white of lighter-skinned people given the Blood.
    She stared at me with unbridled hatred. My heart pushed its way into my throat, blocking the bile that was crawling up my esophagus.
    I turned and marched toward the front door, where one of Cazimir’s security team nodded at me in greeting and opened the door for me. Outside, it was cool for a July night, and humid, too. Flecks of almost-rain but not-quite-fog hung in the night air. I shivered, wishing I’d grabbed a sweatshirt out of my car. It had crawled up to ninety this afternoon, but tonight the wind howled through the streets, foreboding a summer storm.
    The door opened and shut behind me and I whirled, heart slamming into my ribs when I saw Lark standing there, watching me, still as a statue. I folded my arms over my white work blouse and stared back, but you can’t win a staring contest with an immortal.
    After a long, frigid moment she spoke: “Thomas was my everything. Now he’s gone.”
    I unfolded my arms and put my hands up in front of me. “I know. I’m sorry for your loss.”
    She fixed me with a look that could turn someone to stone. “You caused his death. You should have picked another to infect with your poison.”
    “It wasn’t me,” I said softly, keeping my voice low. Lark could strike out like a snake and crush my throat in her fingers before I had time to react. And right now, she was definitely hurt and angry enough to kill first, ask questions later. “Someone stole it. The lab was robbed after the scientist was killed.”
    She lifted her chin. The effect was full of regal power and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. She did not speak.
    “Trust me. I wouldn’t wish this ”—I gestured to my human body—“on any of us.”
    Her mask cracked and something softer—grief mixed with pity, I thought—slipped through. But then the mask slammed down again. “Whatever poison you pushed into Thomas’s veins has killed him. For that crime, I’ll see you tortured before you’re killed.” But she wasn’t sure. If she was, she’d have killed me right then and there. I tried to be relieved, but my heart insisted on pounding until I was out of range.
    “I didn’t do it. But whoever did is still out there. I’m going to find them, okay?” She didn’t move or respond. “Did you see anyone suspicious? Anyone looking at you and Thomas weirdly at the concert?”
    Lark’s mask again slipped, thrown off by the question. She considered and then shook her head. “No. Everything was normal until … ” The words caught in her throat. “Until it wasn’t.”
    “I’m very sorry,” I said.
    “You should be,” she said, not cruel or angry. Just matter-of-fact. “You handed that mad scientist samples of your blood. You made it possible for him to make his poison.” I winced like I’d been slapped. “I will see justice served,