Professor Blood (Ironwrought Book 2) Read online

  So he still didn’t have friends now, except for his coworkers at the car shop downtown. He wiped the engine grease off on his pants, glancing at the plaques on the lab doors.

  He was just here to talk about his assigned project. Not to see Quinn or anything.

  He found himself outside the Blood Synthesis lab, and his stomach flipped a little. Quinn can’t be in. It’s 7 PM.

  The professor had been distant lately, not looking at Brandon, even though Brandon had sat in the empty front rows during his lectures. Quinn had been hurrying off right after the last Basics of Blood slides, and he’d sent post-docs to handle the tutorial classes. Quinn hadn’t answered his emails, either.

  Short of visiting the lab, Brandon hadn’t any idea how he’d get some answers. So he grasped the door handle, expecting a locked door. It opened easily.

  Inside the lab, Quinn froze at the counter, test tubes of blood in his gloved hands. But what grabbed Brandon’s attention was the clothespin on his nose.

  “The hell are you doing?” Brandon asked. He smelled nothing, save for stale air-conditioned air.

  “Experimenting.” Quinn looked back at the test tubes, his voice nasally. He wasn’t wearing his contacts. “The lab is closed right now.”

  “You didn’t lock the door. That means it’s open.”

  Quinn narrowed his eyes. “I told you my hours at the beginning of this semester.”

  “You haven’t answered my emails.”

  “I’m busy.”

  Brandon locked the door behind him, stepping closer. At 7 PM, racks of test tubes were sprawled across the counters, various pipettes lay in a row to one side. Sheets of papers were spread across another counter. When Brandon had visited for his project earlier this week, the counters had been clear, the students each with just one rack of test tubes.

  The lab now was cluttered; he’d never thought about what a professor’s research would look like.

  “You didn’t have to lock the door,” Quinn said. “You’re not staying long.”

  “I wasn’t going to. But you probably should lock the door anyway.”

  Quinn shrugged. “The cleaners come and go. They don’t bother me.”

  “How late are you staying up?”

  “Are you inviting me to bed?”

  Brandon froze. So maybe he’d kind of thought that, except he was here for answers. “You don’t have a bed here.”

  “I don’t sleep.”

  Not as though they needed a bed to fuck, and why did his thoughts derail so badly with Quinn? Brandon frowned. “Why the clothespin?”

  Quinn sighed, slotting the test tubes into a rack. “Are you going to leave?”

  “No.”

  “You came all the way here to get in my hair?”

  “I have questions.”

  Quinn closed his eyes for a moment, then sighed again. His nose was pink from the clothespin. “Two minutes. Spit it out.”

  “Just wondering about my project,” Brandon said. “You gave me a thing on blood transport. That’s got nothing to do with Basics of Blood.”

  Quinn glanced at his notes. “You asked to join the group. Whatever project I assign is the one you’re stuck with. Deal with it.”

  “That isn’t gonna help me study—”

  “Could you leave?” Quinn drew a sharp breath and shivered, his canines pushing out. They were still blunt at the tips. “Damn it.”

  Quinn glanced at the test tubes, different volumes of blood sitting in them. He licked his fangs. Brandon wasn’t surprised; the scent of blood did that to vampires. Over the past two weeks, the blood they’d dealt with in the lab had been artificial, and Quinn hadn’t worn the clothespin on his nose.

  Subconsciously, Brandon picked at the scab on his forearm. Quinn hissed. “Stop that.”

  Brandon paused, looking down. He’d cut himself with his knife when Seb and the other human were in this lab, and the wound had been pretty deep in places. Stitching it up had helped most of the wound heal in a week, though. “You can smell that?”

  “You came here to tempt me?” Quinn asked, his eyes flashing.

  “No.” Well, maybe a little.

  “I’m in the middle of something important here, Brandon. I need to not breathe.”

  “Why?”

  “Enough questions!” Quinn glared, stalking off to the far end of the room, the edges of his lab coat flapping around his legs. Then he braced himself against a counter, six yards away from his test tubes. He tugged the clothespin off, rubbing his nose with his bent wrist.

  Brandon remembered the professor who had explained the basics of a microscope, and the man who had curled up into his office chair, his eyes shadowed with regret. He looked at Quinn now, gold eyes flashing, his lips a thin line. This research was important to Quinn. Brandon knew that. And maybe he shouldn’t have bothered coming here at all.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  Quinn sighed, his nostrils flaring. “I’m just... dealing with a volatile specimen right now. I can’t risk breathing its scent too much.”

  “Human blood?”

  Quinn hesitated, his eyes weary. “Yes. I’m this close to testing an antidote. It would’ve been nice to be uninterrupted.”

  Brandon winced. It happened to him sometimes, hunting vampires. When he studied maps so he missed out on a hunt, or when he paused to stop an ordinary mugging. And he was doing the same to Quinn now. “Antidote? You don’t have any papers on poison.”

  Quinn glanced up, surprise darting through his face. “You’ve read my work,” he said slowly.

  “To get a better idea what I’d learn from the course, yeah.”

  “Not because I’m a vampire?”

  “I read them again after I found out.” Brandon frowned. Most of Quinn’s published research had nothing to do with prey blood at all. Every single article revolved around artificial blood synthesis. “Have you made blood you can drink?”

  Quinn looked away, cheeks darkening. “Not yet.”

  Guilt whispered down Brandon’s spine. He shouldn’t be picking open any wounds of Quinn’s, especially not something Quinn had spent twenty years researching. But that made Quinn human, didn’t it? Quinn wasn’t like the other vampires. He had a goal he’d been working toward, even if he hadn’t succeeded.

  Like that morning in Quinn’s office, when Quinn had spoken about his sister, Brandon wanted to pull him close. Offer some comfort, because Quinn looked like he needed it.

  Except Quinn was a vampire. Brandon swallowed. “So this.” He waved at the test tubes. “This is for your artificial blood? There’s poison you need to get rid of?”

  “Why do you have so many blazing questions?”

  “Because—” Because he wanted to learn more about this man. Because Brandon couldn’t help that nagging itch to know. They were similar, Quinn and him. They had lost family. And Quinn was a man with regrets. Brandon couldn’t imagine how heavily his sister’s death weighed on his hands.

  “Because I want to help,” Brandon finished lamely.

  “I don’t need your pity.” Quinn gritted his teeth, glancing at the blood at the counter, then at Brandon’s scab.

  “I’m not offering pity.” Brandon picked at his scab again.

  “Stop that.”

  “This?” He rubbed his fingertip over the scab, tracing down the rest of the healed, silvery skin. “You want to lick it?”

  “No.” But Quinn’s eyes lingered on Brandon’s forearm, then his throat, his gaze darkening.

  “I’ll let you lick my blood if you finish your experiment,” Brandon said. That’s it, I’m insane.

  Quinn rolled his eyes, his lips twitching. “Are you the professor, or am I?”

  “I have some authority on self-care,” Brandon said. And he did; he ate healthily and kept busy at the car shop. “Do you?”

  Quinn smiled. “Maybe.”

  “That’s probably a no.”

  “Bossy, aren’t you?”

  “If that’ll get you to answer my qu
estions, then yeah.”

  Quinn glanced away, humor sparkling in his eyes. “I’m almost done with this experiment. I’ll just need you to leave so I won’t endanger you.”

  Brandon’s skin prickled. “Endanger me how?”

  Quinn hesitated. Then he picked up the clothespin, fiddling with it. “The blood I’m working on—it’s from a human. It has some addictive elements to it. I’m working on an antidote, and... I’m going to have to test it.”

  “Addictive blood?” Dread pooled in Brandon’s stomach. He’d never heard of that before. For a vampire who seldom drank human blood... it sounded like a bad idea. “You’re gonna drink that?”

  Quinn grimaced. “I’m not supposed to. But I don’t want to try the antidote on someone else without knowing its effects. I mean, I’ve run tests on it. The results seem to be positive. I just... need to test it on a subject.”

  “And that’s gonna be you.”

  “Remember the couple you attacked here?” Quinn waved at the lab door, where Brandon had run into Seb and the blond guy. “The people who wanted a family? The hu—Oriel’s blood is dangerous. Seb can’t drink a lot from him without losing his mind. I don’t want to inject either of them with an untested antidote.”

  “So you’re going to be the lab rat,” Brandon said, his stomach sinking.

  That was all levels of wrong: Quinn drinking blood that could control him, Quinn trying out an antidote he didn’t know the full effects of. This was what Quinn had been working on every day after class, what he’d been stressed about. Quinn was risking his life so some other people could have a family.

  Brandon wanted to kiss him, suddenly.

  “I’ll need you to leave,” Quinn said, turning back to the racks of blood. “All of this is potent. If it goes well, I’ll have an antidote by tonight.”

  “If it doesn’t?”

  Quinn glanced at him, his smile mirthless. “Then I’ll be locked in here alone. Why do you think I’m working on this at 7 PM?”

  Brandon eyed the vials and test tubes. This sounded like a huge risk. “Are you going to be okay?”

  Quinn shrugged. “All that matters is the antidote.”

  “What about yourself?” Quinn looked blankly at him. A chill ran down Brandon’s spine.“Don’t you care if it kills you?”

  He remembered Quinn standing in his office doorway, remembered Quinn saying, I was waiting for you to kill me.

  “What is my worth?” Quinn asked, scorn flashing through his eyes. And Brandon realized that the disdain he’d glimpsed on Quinn’s face... It was all was directed at himself. If Quinn thought he was worthless... then who else did he have around, who believed in him?

  “You hate yourself,” Brandon said, his gut clenching. All this time, he’d thought Quinn hated him.

  “I hate you, too,” Quinn said, his tone dry.

  Well. Brandon swallowed. Maybe those words shouldn’t hurt, but they did. “How long will you be addicted? If the antidote doesn’t work.”

  “Hours? I don’t know. Maybe days.”

  “People will be worried if you don’t show up for class.” And someone would call up campus security, wouldn’t they? The security guards would unlock the Blood Synthesis lab. If they found Quinn here, his teeth and claws extended, his eyes golden...

  They would realize that Quinn was a vampire, be forced to acknowledge it. They would kill Quinn, too. And that thought made Brandon’s gut clench. “Look, I can’t leave you alone. The students or guards might find you.”

  Quinn narrowed his eyes. “I don’t want to endanger you. You’re my student.”

  “I’m the only one who knows you’re a vampire,” Brandon said. “And I know how to defend myself. I have a knife.”

  Golden eyes flickered down to Brandon’s waist, where his shirt hid the knife holster. “I won’t—I won’t be myself,” Quinn murmured. “If the antidote doesn’t work, it... won’t be pretty.”

  “I don’t care if you’re pretty,” Brandon said, then flushed. “That came out wrong. Forget it.”

  Quinn’s eyes gleamed. “Am I pretty?”

  “Do your experiment,” Brandon snapped, his heart thudding.

  Yes. Yes, Quinn was.

  Quinn seemed to hear it anyway. Smile still on his lips, he clipped the clothespin back on his nose. He emptied the blood into some vials, locked it all into a plastic box. Then he slid the box deep into the fridge, leaving just one test tube of blood, and a glass vial of colorless fluid.

  When he’d cleared the counters and made notes on his papers, Quinn pulled the clothespin off his nose, sucking in a deep breath.

  “Gods, this blood smells like liquor. Bittersweet,” Quinn murmured, fangs gleaming. “It smells delicious. Addictive.”

  Envy curled through Brandon’s gut. “Mine doesn’t?”

  Quinn glanced at him, his gaze raking over Brandon’s body, lingering on the pulse point at his throat. “Do you want it to be?”

  “Hell no,” Brandon said, so Quinn knew there was nothing between them.

  “For a moment there, I thought you wanted my mouth on you.”

  “Drink that blood.” Brandon nodded at the test tube.

  “Aren’t you bossy?” Quinn turned, sliding the blood sample out of the rack. When he tilted it, the blood coated the side of the test tube, leaving a smear of red on glass. Brandon’s skin prickled.

  Quinn stared at the blood—2 ML, more than he’d licked off Brandon’s throat—and shivered, his nostrils flaring. “You don’t know how much this frightens me,” he murmured. “It’ll turn me into a killing machine.”

  Don’t drink it, then. You don’t like human blood. Brandon held his breath, his pulse thudding loud in his ears. Quinn would throw himself away as a lab rat, because he didn’t see his own value. And Brandon didn’t know how to solve that.

  He forced himself to stay still, forced himself to let Quinn lift the test tube to his lips. Brandon wanted to grab it, wash that blood down the sink.

  “I have thirty seconds before it consumes me,” Quinn said. “If you feel it’s too dangerous, please leave.”

  Brandon rolled his eyes. Quinn tipped the blood into his mouth. He purred, tongue flicking over his lips, his throat working. Brandon’s nails bit into his palms. But Quinn didn’t drop the glass, didn’t screech in pain. Instead, he rinsed the test tube out in the sink, setting it back in its rack.

  “You’re still fine,” Brandon said.

  “Are you counting the seconds?” With deft fingers, Quinn unscrewed the antidote vial. Then he tipped it down his throat, swallowing.

  Brandon watched him, his shoulders tight, his hand clenched around his knife handle. Nothing happened.

  Quinn brought the vial over to the sink. Then he shuddered, slamming the vial against the counter, glass shards skidding across polished stone. “Shit. It’s supposed to... supposed to work.”

  What happened? Brandon’s lungs filled with ice. He edged past the benches, his heart thumping. “Quinn?”

  And Quinn shuddered, claws piercing through his gloves, the ends of his fangs sharpening. His pupils constricted, leaving his eyes bright discs of gold.

  Except Quinn’s gaze skimmed right over him, like he was invisible.

  The vampire’s throat worked. He sniffed at the air, glancing first at the rinsed test tubes in their racks—they’d only been washed once, blood a trace contaminant in them.

  “Quinn?” Brandon tried again.

  Quinn’s nostrils flared. “More,” he rasped, claws scraping over the counter, scattering glass. “Need more.”

  He glided through the lab, his movements fluid—more graceful than the professor was—and Brandon realized that this was no longer Quinn. The creature in front of him was a vampire, like the tens he’d hunted and killed.

  Kill him, his instincts roared.

  Brandon held his fists by his sides, his heart pounding. Quinn wasn’t himself.

  The vampire glanced over at his chest, but stepped away, sniffing at the sink, th
en the centrifuge. He curled his claws into the wet test tubes, his nails scraping against the glass. Then he stepped around the benches, passed within five feet of Brandon, and Brandon’s hair stood on end. Kill him.

  Quinn turned toward the fridge, his gaze sharpening.

  Brandon’s stomach plummeted. Inside the fridge, there were at least ten times that same blood Quinn had swallowed. He hadn’t realized Quinn had drawn that much from the blond guy, didn’t know how much more blood there was in the fridge.

  And if all it took was 2 ML for Quinn to lose his mind... Any more would ruin him. Brandon was certain of it.

  He sprinted forward. Quinn grasped the fridge handle, pulled the door open. A shudder rippled through Quinn’s body, and a soft, hungry sound emerged from his throat.

  Not the fridge. Brandon threw himself forward, slamming Quinn into the fridge, forcing the door shut with the weight of their bodies. For a second, he felt relief.

  Then Quinn hissed, twisting around to face Brandon, his eyes blank. He lashed at Brandon with his claws. Brandon grasped his wrists, but not before those talons scratched thin, bloody lines down his forearms, sending pain and blood blooming across his skin.

  Quinn struggled against him, strength in the thin bones of his wrists. Then he shoved Brandon backward, hard enough that Brandon staggered back five feet, throwing his hands out to keep his balance. Through the two weeks he’d known Quinn, Brandon had not felt such strength in Quinn’s grasp. That new blood had given Quinn strength, made him lethal.

  Quinn leaped at him, snarling, fangs gleaming. Brandon spun to his side, shoving Quinn hard against the wall. Quinn rebounded, claws outstretched.

  Brandon twisted away from Quinn’s hands, grasping the collar of his coat. Then he heaved Quinn across the lab, away from the fridge. Quinn shrieked, claws scraping paint off the walls as he stumbled forward. Brandon released him and backed away. Quinn spun around, his eyes locking with Brandon’s.

  Instead of a professor or a man, Brandon saw violence in his eyes. A creature bent on attacking him.