American Blood: A Vampire's Story Read Online Free Page B

him.”
    “I know what happened. I had a front row seat.”
    “That agent saved your life.”
    “They all did.”
    Siri sighed and shook her head. “Everything, the capture, what happened to the men . . . it all went wrong.”
    “And that’s why we shouldn’t be in here.”
    “Don’t worry, she’s not going anywhere.”
    “What’s keeping her so manageable?”
    Siri came alongside. “Her system has its own unique set of pharmacological responses.”
    Ryan forced himself to turn away from the female’s stare. He again studied the maze of tubes and wires around the sphere and located a small osmotic pump being fed from a drip bag.
    “What’s being injected?”
    “It’s an aqueous solution of diallyl thiosulfinate at a rate of one hundred milligrams per minute,” Siri replied.
    Ryan gave the injector a hard look. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
    “Are you surprised?”
    “DTS . . . that’s allicin.” And Ryan gave Siri a disbelieving look. “The main active component of garlic?”
    “That dosing will keep her calm,” Siri said. “But she’s fully awake, and can even move if she wants.”
    Ryan frowned at Siri. “Then why doesn’t she just break out of this thing?”
    “She doesn’t have her full strength, yet. The allicin interferes with her voluntary motor pathways, we think. Almost a light paralysis, but her mind is unaffected.”
    “Vampires and garlic,” Ryan muttered as this common myth was revealed to be true.
    Siri shrugged and then pointed past Ryan. “She certainly seems to be interested in you.”
    Ryan took a needed deep breath and stepped closer to the sphere. The female continued to stare at him as she floated naked in her liquid prison. Perhaps five feet eight and one hundred thirty pounds, he guessed. The features of her face were elegantly proportioned with her large, almond shaped eyes complimented by her high cheekbones and full lips. Her smooth skin exquisitely followed the contours of the underlying muscle. Her legs had a slightly exaggerated length that only added to her unique beauty. And her hands were lovely with slender fingers ending in long, light-pink nails. If Michelangelo had sculpted a lover for David this is what he would have created. Yet to Ryan she looked so delicate within her small prison. It was all deception. She had the strength of five men when needed and was inhumanly fast.
    Her regenerative abilities continued to amaze him. He could see that her ruined shoulder had completely healed, the gaping wound fully closed. Only a slight variation in color remained, and it, too, would soon vanish. The entry holes from the bullets that had pierced her skin also had vanished. He looked toward the bottom of the sphere and noticed for the first time the small pile of spent shells that had been expelled from her body. He then moved over to the right side of the sphere and looked down. Her left foot, which had been ruined by an explosive shell, showed no signs of trauma, the sensuous curve of the arch restored. Her lovely breasts expanded and relaxed as she took steady breaths from the small respirator placed between her lips. And completing the visual was her long, dark hair that gently floated about her head.
    Ryan glanced at his watch. “She’s been in this thing for eighteen hours now and she’s almost fully healed.”
    “She does have interesting abilities,” Siri said.
    “I’d call her remarkable.” Ryan again looked up at her—she never took her gaze away from him. It was undeniably captivating. He tried to figure out the color of her eyes, but the plasma filtered out the ambient light’s shorter wavelengths and made her large pupils appear as dark, reddish circles. He wondered if she was beginning to hunger when she reached out with her right hand and touched her fingers to the inner wall. Ryan raised his hand and placed it on the sphere matching his fingertips with hers. She removed the respirator from her mouth and formed a word with her lips. He