It wasn’t a policy Ram had always agreed with. Especially in light of how long the war had continued on. It was, he was beginning to believe, time for them to be more proactive. Especially in light of the information that had come with Tameri’s rebirth; that there were many Templars who wanted to come home, so to speak, to follow Menes’s teachings and philosophies and move free of Odjit’s mongering ways. There were Templars who, as Docia had put it, were no longer willing to drink the Kool-Aid.

“Yes, Cleo, I will leave with all due haste. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to put some clothes on.”

She drew in a little breath of surprise, then looked down at his clothing-bereft body. She laughed then, her familiar mischievousness climbing into her eyes and voice.

“Are you growing modest in your old age, Ram?”

“Hardly. But I’d rather not be arrested for public indecency.”

Cleo clicked her tongue and waved her hand at the laws of humans as if it were a pesky little fly.

“Honestly. All due respect to progress, and to colder climes, but I miss the days when we could walk in the warmth with little more than colorful beads to adorn our bodies.”

At Ram’s back, Docia snorted a laugh out of her nose.

Marissa had shouldered a great deal of responsibility in her life, but she had never felt the intensity of it the way she did while driving Jackson to safety. She didn’t like not having a game plan prepared for herself way in advance. Not that she couldn’t think on her feet. Being a psychiatrist required that constantly. But that had taken a considerable amount of training.

So the first thing she started to do was to make up a plan of action. It’s easy, she told herself. Just get him somewhere dark. Away from the sun. Like a vampire. Only, this vampire didn’t burst into ash at the touch of the sun. He merely went stiff and, when she reached out to touch his wrist to seek his pulse, he was ice cold. He had curled slightly toward the door, turned away from her as if to hide his condition from her. Probably because of some instinctive need to conceal his weakness.

“Okay, Mister, we have to start with a place,” she said aloud to Sargent. “What about Uncle Bob’s? No, wait, he’s got workmen there while he’s away. Maybe Manon’s?” Manon was her cousin and he had a very remote cabin just a few miles northwest, in Sullivan County. She took a moment to debate whether the patrol car would be able to make it down the rough drive to the house. It was a good idea to have four-wheel drive when attempting it, especially after snow or rain. It hadn’t snowed since the end of February, so it wasn’t as though she would be trying to drive through snow. It hadn’t rained in the past couple of days either, so the drive wouldn’t be pitted with thick mud.

“Sold! To the shepherd and his master,” she said, satisfied with the plan. She was talking to Sargent because if she didn’t she’d keep looking over at Jackson. There was absolutely nothing peaceful or sleep-like about the way he was just then. He was leaning awkwardly against the door, his skin as pale white as marble even though she knew he was tanned from his time training outdoors with his dog. He lay rigid, no relaxation, as though every muscle in his body was tensed to the breaking point. If he had not had color in his hair and brows, he would have looked like a marble statue. A light, misting steam lifted from him, though it didn’t fog the windows or feel like there was a great amount of heat emanating off of him. In fact, when she reached out to touch him he felt so very cold that it was unnerving and alarming to her. She wondered if he could hear or even see. My god how horrifying, to be completely paralyzed and yet able to see anything and everything that was happening to you, with nothing you could do about it. No arguments, no ability to express wishes … no chance to scream or fight to protect yourself.

“It’s okay,” she kept saying on small rapid breaths. “It’s okay. We’ll be in the dark in no time at all and you’ll be just fine. You’ll be normal again.” She couldn’t sound afraid. She couldn’t sound upset or even empathetic for him. Just like she did when dealing with a patient, she tried to project calm, support, and confidence.

When she made the turnoff onto the rugged drive to Manon’s house she felt a small wave of relief wash over her. After successfully traversing the half-mile drive she pulled up to the small cabin. It was deceptively rough-looking on the outside with its frayed log walls, but she knew it was quite beautiful on the inside.

There was an attached garage at the rear of the cabin and she pulled up in front of it. She reassured Sargent she would be right back and ran back around to the front of the house and up the steps. She glanced around before accessing the clever little hidey-hole Manon had built into the wall, a silly thing to do really with the only possible witnesses being the deer … or maybe a bear. She let herself in and raced to the back of the house. She went into the garage and hit the automatic door lift. Sunlight broke into the blackness of the garage, the lifting door creating its own sort of sunrise. She was ducking under the door as soon as it was halfway up and back in the driver’s seat an instant later. In her anxiousness she gave it a little too much gas and ended up jolting them to a stop to keep from hitting the supply cabinets in front of her. She dashed for the door lift once more and hurried to return to Jackson, pulling open the car door just enough to wedge her body in and push him upright, keeping him from tumbling helplessly to the floor.

“Jackson,” she said as soon as pitch-blackness had returned to the garage. “Jackson, we’re here. We’re safe. Can you hear me?”

How long did it take to reverse this crippling condition? She had foolishly thought it would be instantaneous, but five minutes later he still hadn’t moved. What was more, he was only taking a breath once every thirty seconds.

But at least he’s breathing, she told herself.

Leaving a hand on Jackson’s shoulder to make sure he remained upright in his seat, she reached to open the rear door, letting Sargent out. He jumped out with a very subdued amount of energy and she realized that he must be just as tired as she was. And now that the adrenaline of the past half hour was bleeding out of her, she began to feel that exhaustion. She found herself pushing Jackson’s hair back, suddenly realizing he’d let it grow without his usual fastidiousness to a short nearly military cut.

“Jackson?” she said for about the thirtieth time. She could have closed the door and left him in the dark to come around in his own time, but she didn’t have the heart to leave him alone like that for however long that would be. She was running her fingers through his hair at that point, a slow touch plowing furrows through the soft, silkiness of it.

“Mar-iss-a.” Her name rasped from him in three struggling whispers, and she felt incredible relief blow through her, leaving a sting in her eyes and a lump in her throat. She shored herself up against tears and undue emotionalism.

“Jackson? Are you all right? Tell me what to do for you.”

“Dark,” he said. “Need darkness.”

“It is dark,” she reassured him. “It’s safe.”

“Inside?”

Inside the house, she realized, was what he meant. Crap. She’d forgotten about inside the house. “Are you okay to stay here while I darken the house?”

He nodded a brief, jerky nod, but she didn’t know whether to believe him or not. If there was one thing she’d learned about these alpha-male types, it was that they never admitted to their limitations very easily.

But she had to leave him otherwise they’d be spending the day in the garage. And as nicely kept as it was, she wasn’t willing to do that. She closed the car door again, so he wouldn’t fall out since he didn’t have all his strength back as yet. She then began to hurry through the house, dropping blinds and pulling curtains. She had never realized just how many windows there were in the small house. Or how sheer some of the curtains were, all for the effect of bringing as much sunlight into the room as possible. Luckily for her the large bank of sliding doors that led to the deck and ran the entire right side of the house were fitted with thick vertical blinds that covered them completely when shut. Even so, there was still a lot of light peeking in this edge or that, so she ran for towels and began to stuff them into the spaces until the entire house was as dark as she could possibly manage. Then she hurried back to the garage. She flipped on the light switch and found Jackson on his feet, gripping the door of the car with one hand and the roof of it with the other. He looked incredibly unsteady and still very pale. He’d broken out in a sweat, his forehead beaded with it.

“Jesus, you couldn’t just wait a few minutes?” she demanded of him, hurrying to lever her body against his under his right shoulder. Once he had her strength supporting him he was able to turn with her toward the door leading into the house.

And all the while Sargent had never left Jackson’s side. Even now he sat there with his head tilted, as if in concern, watching every move she and Jackson made. It was as though he knew Jackson was in trouble and Sargent was determined to oversee her actions to help him. When he saw they were moving he stood up and hurried to take up a new position beside the door. Supervising from an entirely new angle.

“You know, I think that dog adores you,” she said to Jackson, trying to inject some lightness into the moment.

“No, he obeys me. It’s you he adores. He has a crush on you.”

“Me?” She laughed the word out with incredulousness. “He doesn’t even know me!”

“Oh, he knows you.” Jackson’s words were more lucid, but it was still a struggle for him to speak. “If I had a dime for every time he’s tried to sniff or paw at your office door I’d be rich.”

“But …” She was perplexed. “Well I certainly didn’t do anything to deserve it.”

“Maybe he’s just returning your admiration for him,” Jackson theorized as they neared the door. Good thing too, because Jackson was no small amount of weight even though he was mostly on his own two feet, and she was just about at the end of her second wind. Or was it the third by now?

“Admiration?” He had to be taunting her. Surely he realized she was very uncomfortable around dogs. Especially dogs she had seen in action hurtling into men and dragging them down in a fury of huge white teeth.

“Well, I assumed that’s who you were staring at from your office window the past few weeks, since you’ve made it clear to me you think I’m something of an ass.”

Marissa’s face felt like it had gone up in flames as mortification tripped through her. All those times she’d been watching him, struggling with herself and her inappropriate urges, he’d seen her?

She was really glad it was dark so he couldn’t see the embarrassment on her face.

“I was just … it’s … very compelling, watching him do what he does,” she tried to explain with haste, trying to judge how believable her tone of voice was. “The strength … not to mention the intelligence he has. He’s quite … um …”

“Compelling,” he said.

“Well, yes.” She reached to open the door. He tried to take back all of his weight, but he nearly buckled down to the ground. “Will you please just let me help you?” she demanded with no small amount of exasperation. “God, Jackson, you don’t have to be this all-powerful man all the damn time. Maybe if you’d learn to depend on other human beings you wouldn’t invest so much of your own identity into your job and your dogs!”

Oops. She hadn’t meant to say that. She just hadn’t been able to help herself. The man just had a way of frustrating the hell out of her.

“Is that what you think I do?” he asked quietly, leaning into her once again. “I have friends you know. I have a life beyond what you see at the station.”

“Well that’s damn miraculous,” she said with irony, “because outside of your sister you never mentioned one. And the only reason I know about Leo Alvarez being even remotely close to you is because of the way he had your back when you were looking for Docia. But other than that, with the way you like to pick up double shifts, I could only assume you had nowhere special to be.”

They entered the kitchen and she headed straight for the nearest chair. Truth was, she was wiped out and was afraid of falling on her face herself. She dumped him not too gently into the chair and straightened up, smoothing her hair and her clothes as best she could in light of the fact that it had been twenty-four hours since she’d put the skirt and sweater set on.

“Now, neither of us has had anything to eat in ages and I think it would be best …”

“Are you hungry, hummingbird? Because knowing you and the way you work at top speed all the time you have to be exhausted. Frankly I can’t eat just yet and I think going to bed would be the best thing for us both.”