Ecstasy in Darkness (Alien Huntress #5)(88)
Author: Gena Showalter

His? He immediately chided himself. Never his. Bitch was a stone-cold killer. And while he usually admired that quality in a woman—he’d been known to date  p**n  stars, emotionally bankrupt heiresses, and the coldest of ice princesses—he wasn’t a fan of rampant disease.

Here’s what he knew. Trinity was a woman who took what she wanted, damn the consequences. Proof: she infected men, kept the ones she liked, and discarded the rest, letting them fend for themselves and infect others. Proof: she ruined one planet and then quickly moved on to another one. Proof: she claimed to like Dallas, to desire him, yet she’d allowed him to be shot rather than take the rays herself.

So, if she was so selfish and self-indulged, that begged the question of why she hadn’t just infected him, since that’s what she so badly wanted to do. Only one answer made sense. She couldn’t. Physically, emotionally, whatever the reason, she needed his cooperation to act. Through seduction or manipulation, she needed him to say yes. Had to have that yes.

It was so clear now. Trinity was woman, disease—and followers. Three, as he’d suspected, but without that yes, she was stuck. Unable to harm him. Which meant he finally had what he’d been searching for: a weakness.

How could he exploit it, though?

If she would appear before him, solidify again, he could wear one of AIR’s Night-Night rings. The rings looked innocent, but when you moved the stone in the center, there was a tiny needle that—needle. The word chilled his blood.

Injecting her, even with so tiny a needle, could have devastating results. For him, for all of AIR. The rings weren’t like the darts, and didn’t cauterize the wound. If one little bead of her blood spilled—and it would, because the Schön disease always knew when an escape hatch, for lack of a better term, appeared, always knew when a new host was nearby …

Some of AIR’s finest had been infected that way while first testing the Schön.

A thought suddenly crimped his newest theory about Trinity needing a yes before doing her dirty work. The doctors hadn’t willingly agreed to be infected, yet they had succumbed.

Or maybe they had welcomed the virus. Unintentionally, of course. The virus was alien, alive, and could have whispered to them, tricked them.

“Up and at ‘em, I see.”

Dallas pulled himself from his contemplations to eye the speaker. Mia. She stood beside his bed, grinning, all her pearly whites showing. She was a walking contradiction, and years ago he’d thought himself in love with her. He’d promised himself he would never think about those dark years, when he’d watched her, wanted her, but she’d kept him firmly in the friend zone, and he’d never gone back on his word. Until now. He blamed the painkillers pumping through his system.

Noelle Tremain was a lot like her, he thought. Pretty, yet tough as f**king nails. Maybe that’s why he’d eventually sleep with Noelle and end his friendship with Hector. Maybe he’d be pretending she was Mia.

Thought you were going to stay away from Noelle from now on.

I bet she gives amazing TLC.

Even in his sad condition, his body reacted to that thought.

Don’t throw a love triangle into the cluster-fuck of your life right now. You’ve got too much to worry about. Hector had stopped by to see him multiple times, and Dallas had almost broken down and asked the guy what he thought of the new agent. He’d kept his mouth shut, though. They all had too much to worry about.

“Ignoring me?” Mia asked, fake grin fading. Yeah, he’d known it was fake. What he didn’t know was why. “Or has your abused brain finally given up and withered away completely?”

“Hey,” he said in greeting. “And the brain’s just fine, thank you.”

“Let’s see that chest.” Without waiting for his permission, she removed the bandage covering his wound. She whistled under her teeth. “That’s gonna leave the cutest little scar.”

If by “cutest little scar” she meant “mountainous crater,” then, yeah. It was.

A knock sounded at the door, and Dallas shifted his gaze. As if his earlier thoughts had summoned him, Hector entered.

“I brought you a cupcake from the bakery downstairs.” Hector extended his untattooed hand as he approached the bed. The one that couldn’t dematerialize and punch through anything.

Dallas had been living off of soup and eagerly took the—empty wrapper. He frowned. “Where’s the f**king cupcake?”

Hector shrugged his big shoulders. “I ate it on the way up. Sorry.”

Dallas flipped him off, then tossed the wrapper at him. “So what’s going on?” And something was definitely going on. Despite the smiles and the “gifts,” both radiated a tension they couldn’t hide.

“Well,” Mia began, putting his bandage back in place.

“Hello, hello. I brought my handsome boy some flowers,” Devyn said from the doorway, seizing center stage.

A reunion. Great. “Don’t they have a limit on the number of people I can have in my room?”

“They sure do,” Devyn said with a nod. “Give me a minute to get rid of everyone for you.”

He’d do it, too. Force everyone to leave by controlling their bodies. Devyn never cared who he pissed off, and Dallas had always loved that about him. “They can stay. You can stay. Will someone just tell me what the hell is going on?”

“In a minute,” his best friend said. “When your attitude has improved.”

Please. Like he could improve. “So where are the flowers?” he asked, noticing Devyn’s hands were empty.

“Oh. I gave them to a nurse.”

Dallas rolled his eyes.

“What?” Devyn said, all innocence. “She looked sad.”

“Mia?” Dallas focused on her. “You were saying?”

She turned and kicked the door shut, then jammed the crash cart in front of it, ensuring no one else would enter. When she straightened, she rubbed her hands in a job well done.

“Okay, so,” she began again.

“Wait. I need to get comfortable.” Devyn grabbed the only chair in the room, moved it to Dallas’s other side, and plopped down. He waved his hand, a king before his court. “Continue.”

Mia popped her jaw. To Dallas’s surprise, she didn’t give the Targon shit, just started up again. “We gave Johnny some of McKell’s blood. We hoped it would kill the Schön disease, and maybe it did. After a terrible first reaction, Johnny seems to be better. Looks one hundred percent better. Except …”