think I’m a figment of your imagination?” Zane said, his tone incredulous.
Hunter sank to his heels in front of her so that their gazes were level. “Those would be obvious possibilities,” he conceded softly, and her heart sank at his words, and she saw sympathy spark in his eyes.
“I need to figure out what is wrong with me,” she said, trying to hide her fear.
“I’m not something ‘wrong,’” Zane said as he walked around the chair to face her, his expression troubled. “This is why we’re here? You think I’m driving you crazy?” Surprisingly, there was hurt in his tone, but there was also something else...she’d almost think it was concern. “I hate to break it to you, vamp, but I’m not some latent memory of yours. We never met before—” the muscle in his jaw twitched “—before I died. And I’m not a damn poison.”
“I need to fix this,” she said, her voice stronger. She was looking at Hunter, but her words were intended for Zane. “I can’t lead Nightwing if I’m losing my mind.”
“And it’s all about position and power with you, isn’t it, Vivianne?” Zane said, his deep voice rumbling in a snarl.
“You’re worried about your colony?” Ryder asked, and she looked beyond Hunter’s shoulder to meet his gaze.
She nodded. “A prime can’t hold their position if they’re non compos mentis. Only the strong can lead, and mental deficit is a weakness. There will be a leadership stoush, which would weaken Nightwing among our neighbors, and our enemies. Fighting from within, fighting from without—it will be a bloodbath for my people.”
“What about Lucien? Can’t he take the prime position?” Ryder asked.
Zane’s lips curled back at the mention of Vivianne’s brother’s name.
Vivianne shook her head. “No. He’s taken a leave of absence from Nightwing, and so has surrendered any claim to the Nightwing Prime position. He would have to fight for it, just like anyone else, and after what my father did to his wife, I don’t see him wanting to be Prime.”
“I can’t believe your brother and I have something in common,” muttered Zane. “We both hate your old man.”
She frowned. She was already divulging more information than she was comfortable with. “Can you help me?” she asked Hunter.
He gazed at her for a moment, assessing her. He shrugged. “We can run some tests, and find out what we’re dealing with,” he told her. She settled back into the chair, relief lessening the strain in her shoulders. She would have preferred a “yes, we can fix you” response, but she appreciated he wasn’t prepared to make false promises. She could respect that.
“Okay.”
“You agree to the tests?” Hunter asked.
She nodded. “I do. When do you want to schedule them?”
He smiled. “No time like the present,” he said, touching her forehead lightly.
Darkness descended across her mind, and the last thing she saw was Zane’s concerned face as she slid into unconsciousness.
Zane watched as Hunter lifted the unconscious Vivianne onto a gurney that Ryder had wheeled in. He couldn’t help but be impressed with how quickly and smoothly Vivianne had been knocked out. Hunter had easily bypassed Vivianne’s natural mental defenses, no small feat when dealing with a vampire prime.
“I’ll take her to my rooms for a scan,” Hunter told his brother. “She’s got auditory hallucinations, but what we saw doesn’t quite gel with a normal PTSD diagnosis.”
“Schizophrenia?”
Hunter shrugged. “I don’t think so. She displayed ordered thinking and behavior, apart from the occasional side trip to Crazyville.”
Ryder nodded as he reached for the phone. “I’m calling Dave in. He was the one to put her into the stasis. He was also there when she came to. He might have something to offer.”
Zane drifted along, watchful carefully as the older Galen brother, Hunter, rolled Vivianne’s gurney into a well-lit room. A massive hearth took up almost one entire wall of the room. Hunter snapped his fingers, and a fire flickered to life. Zane’s eyebrows rose. Wow. He’d remembered some of the old tales of light warriors, of how they could harness the power of light and fashion it into weapons, or for healing. He never thought he’d see a light warrior in action, though, and settled back to watch.
His gaze slid to Vivianne. She looked relaxed, but he wasn’t fooled. She’d wake up spitting venom when she realized she’d been rendered unconscious so easily. His brow dipped when he thought about her words back in Ryder’s office.
She thought she was going crazy.
He was driving her nuts. The sentiment should have given him some satisfaction, but for once he felt no triumph in causing pain or discomfort to a vampire. To drive a woman to despair—well, that was just one more hit to his ego around this woman. Still, he never wanted to make a woman feel miserable in his presence. It didn’t sit well with him. He shifted. Guilt was not a comfortable coat to wear.
Hunter stood at Vivianne’s feet, gently clasping her ankles, then closed his eyes. Zane leaned back against the wall, arms folded, and watched.
Tendrils of light swirled and ebbed from the fire, arcing toward Hunter, as though attracted by a magnetic field. Zane frowned. It was light, though, not flame, that danced across the room to skim and flit across his skin, to eventually snake around his wrists, and flow on to Vivianne’s ankles. There was no singeing of hair, or blistering of skin. It was...remarkable.
Her body twitched, and Zane straightened. Was Galen hurting her? He strolled forward, eyeing her face, but her features remained calm, relaxed. The light danced along her legs, up over her hips and across her torso. The tendrils gathered close, and became a glowing orb around her body.
Zane didn’t understand how the examination worked, but could only assume Hunter was working his way along Vivianne’s body as the light changed in color in a slow wash drifting up over her form. It took several minutes, but eventually the orb positioned around Vivianne’s head. Hunter frowned, and released her ankles at the same time that Ryder opened the door and stepped into the room.
A man followed him, and it took Zane a moment to recognize him. The man wore black boots, black motorcycle leathers and a black T-shirt beneath the leather jacket. His eyes were shielded behind a pair of dark sunglasses, his dark sandy hair cropped short, as was the beard dusting his jawline. Dave...Carter. The name came to him through a fog. He had a murky recollection of meeting the man, but the details were a little hazy.
“Dave.” Hunter greeted him as he strode along the gurney to Vivianne’s head. He gently threaded his fingers through her hair, and for the briefest moment, jealousy flared within Zane at his familiarity with the woman on the table.
“Hunter.” Dave nodded. He frowned when he saw the woman on the gurney. “Vivianne Marchetta, huh? What’s wrong with her?”
“That’s
