Diamond (Rare Gems #2)(17)
Thad knocked on the open door, and Blair was shocked at how badly he did look. And if he looked like that, he was glad now that he’d not left the house. Christ, the man looked like he’d been shot.
“I’ve been trying to get here for five days. If it wasn’t the weather, it was the car I rented. Then I got a bout of food poisoning and was…it doesn’t matter. I’ve come to see Diamond please. I’d like to talk to her.”
“She won’t see you. Not just you, but none of us. She’s in her room.” Blair wanted to beg him to take her as his mate, but because of the promises he’d made Diamond, he couldn’t do anything like that. “I’d very much like it if you got the hell out of my life. I don’t want you here.”
“According to what I’ve read, you can pull her wolf to make her shift. Why haven’t you done that?” Blair was shocked that Thad had bothered to find out any information on them, but he continued before Blair could say anything. “There have been incidents where the she-wolf is strong enough to resist the alpha, but not if she’s hurt badly. Also, it says that you can heal her if she won’t do it herself.”
“She’s been shot, did you know that? And by one of your men you sent out here to take care of us. Did you know that he had everything all written out and what to do to harm this family?” Blair was shaking his head at him. “You’re saying you didn’t mean for him to shoot us in cold blood?”
“I didn’t send him out here.” Blair sat back in his chair as Thad continued. “I didn’t know until…when she was hurt, so was I. Jane told me that it wasn’t possible since we didn’t mate, but I felt her shot in the belly.”
Blair had to think, but his thoughts weren’t going in any direction that made sense to him. Then something occurred to him. It had been Morton. He didn’t know why he knew it, but he looked at Thad and asked him.
“Morton sent them out here to stop this deal from happening, didn’t he?” Thad nodded. “Why? Does he think that we were going to…I don’t know, roll over and let you f*ck us up over this?”
“I don’t know what he thought, and as of almost a week ago, he’s dead.” Blair started to ask what happened when Thad stood, pacing. “She wouldn’t tell me what she did, and I really didn’t want to know. Jane, I mean. Did you know she was a vampire? I didn’t. Apparently, more than half the people working for me are some sort of paranormal. But she went to his office, and no one has heard or seen him since. She simply told me to hire someone else.”
Blair knew she was a vampire, not a full blooded one but close enough. He also knew that she was a great deal older than she looked. Maybe as much as five hundred years more than she looked. But he let Thad pace and mumble while he reached for Sapphire.
“Thad is here in my office, and he’s had a great shock. He’s also more bonded with Diamond than we’d thought. He felt her pain when she was hurt.” Blair knew his wife was at her office and wondered for a second if she was getting any work done either.
“Are you going to let him see her? I don’t know if I would or not. She needs something to pull her out of this even if she were to shift to kill him.” Blair laughed a little, and Thad stared at him before continuing on his trek across his carpet. “I’d let her see him, I think. Just to see if she has any feelings for him.”
“Do you think she does?” He’d tried talking to her several times over the past week, but all she’d done was tell him to go away. Then yesterday she’d told him that if they all didn’t stop bothering her, she’d go to New York now and not contact them at all. If she did that, he knew she’d let herself go and die without anyone knowing until it was too late.
“I think if she didn’t have feelings for him, she’d have shifted and been on her way to recovering by now. And if it’s simply hatred and she kills him, well, I can live with that too.”
Blair watched Thad pace, and when he finally sat down, he put a book on his desk. Every part of him froze when he saw the title and he looked up at the man to ask him where the hell he’d gotten it when he answered his unspoken question.
“Jane said that someone gave it to her years and years ago. I didn’t ask her where, but she told me to read it. When I was hospitalized, I had to do something since I didn’t have the strength to do much else, so I read it. From cover to cover, making notes on some of the things I didn’t understand.” He pulled out a tattered notebook and opened it. “Like this part about changing your mate to a wolf. It says that she has to cause me a mortal wound. Why?”
“So that her essences enter your body quickly. Sometimes the human dies when this happens, but for the most part, in a few days to a week the human lives because he’s been changed to wolf.” Blair picked up the book with trembling hands. “Do you know what this book could do for my kind if it were to fall into the wrong hands?”
“They would hunt you down and kill you all. I would imagine that over the years someone had gotten this book. There’s a whole section at the end of it that’s been added by hand. They told of the massacre in which thousands of your kind were killed and a great many humans that they thought werewolf just to get rid of you.” Thad looked at his notes. “I would never say a word to anyone, and I want you to have the book. Jane said I was to do with it what I wanted. You are the only person I trust with it.”