He opened the top notebook to look at the first page. It was written in the same neat hand that had created the file labels. “I would want to know how a cure would be tested,” he remarked. “And where, and on whom.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps a big medical facility with a focus on research might take it on, like Johns Hopkins University. There might be enough Vampyres who are unhappy enough that they would be willing to take some risks, but there has been no code of ethics developed for clinical trials because there’s nothing that has been successfully developed enough to test.”
“What are the other issues that need considering?” he asked.
She regarded him for a moment, as if collecting her thoughts. Then she said, “What are the consequences of a potential cure? Could a ‘cured’ Vampyre be turned again, and if so, what would be the results? Or would it be irreversible for a Vampyre, like Vampyrism is now for humans? Would a Vampyre simply revert back to being human? What would be the state of their health when they reverted? Would they become as they were before? Some Vampyres were terminally ill from other diseases before they were turned. Or would there be other complications such as, for example, advanced or accelerated aging, or a compromised immune system? And would those complications increase in severity according to the age of the Vampyre involved?”
He shook his head. “In those scenarios, the cure would quite literally kill you.”
“Yes.” Carling gathered her long dark hair together and twisted it into a long rope that she wound into a knot. She pinned the knot into place with two pencils from the desk, her movements fast and economical.
Rune’s gaze lingered on the heavy sable-colored twist of hair lying on Carling’s elegant neck. He wanted to see her pin her hair up again, and he fought a sudden puerile urge to pluck out the pencils. Her hair would spill down that hourglass back, the silken ends splashing like midnight water against the womanly swell of her trim, shapely ass. She would give him that quick annoyed look of hers, or maybe she would be angrier. Maybe she would try to slap him again, and he would catch her wrist and yank her to him . . .
Arousal sank sharpened claws into him and dug in deep. His body hardened and he turned away to hide it.
Walking over to the French doors, he opened the top notebook and flipped through it then took a quick look at the others. There were perhaps two hundred and fifty pages, all told, which was concise, given the amount of time and effort she had put into the research. She had called it a “distillation,” which would have meant at some point she had gone through it all and stripped out everything extraneous.
He went back to the first notebook and read a few lines. He tapped a finger on the page and murmured, “This is not light reading.”
“I could summarize verbally for you,” said Carling. “But I don’t recommend it.”
He didn’t want to listen to any verbal summary before he’d had a chance to look at the details of her research and come to his own conclusions, but he was curious about her reasoning, so he asked, “Why not?”
She gave him a bitter smile. “I no longer trust my mind and neither should you.”
The pain in her dark eyes was terrible. He noted the stiff way she held herself and knew better than to offer a physical gesture of comfort. He took a deep breath and let it out slow and easy. “Fair enough,” he said after a moment. “Do you want me to read it here?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. Her gaze flickered and fell away. She looked out the window at the small courtyard. “We have the island to ourselves. You may read wherever you are comfortable.”
“All right.” He willed her to let her rigid spine relax, for the pain to ease away. More to distract her than from any real sense of hunger, he said, “Got any more of that chicken you cook for the dog?”
Rune was just too . . . something.
In the kitchen, Carling shoved several large pieces of cooking flesh around in the skillet and glared at them. For the second time that day, the warm scent and sizzling sounds of browning chicken filled the air.
He was too what? What were the words that should go next?
She glanced over her shoulder at him. Just by sitting at the massive country-style table in the industrial-sized kitchen, he made the room and furniture look almost normal. With those long legs and wide shoulders, that lean torso and his typical quick strong, confident stride, he dominated every room he entered.
He was definitely too large. Check.