Read Online Mercy's Danger: Montgomery's Vampires Trilogy (Book #2) (Montgomery's Vampires Series) by Sloan Archer - Free Book Online Page B

but it didn’t stop her from looking frightened. Her brow was pinched so that a solid vertical line ran down the center of her forehead. When she lifted one of the pages from her file, her hands were quaking so badly that she dropped it.
    Leopold touched Shelia’s shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Please don’t be afraid,” he said. “We will not blame the messenger.”
    Shelia’s posture relaxed substantially. She let out a shaky exhale and her full lips quivered, as if she’d been holding her breath from the moment she entered the room. “That’s great to hear. I’m afraid the results aren’t encouraging.”
    Robert’s palm crushed against mine and I yelped. He released my hand and demanded of Shelia, “Explain what you mean.”
    “I . . . I . . .” Shelia stammered.
    Robert snatched the file from Shelia and she recoiled. I’d never seen him behave so rudely. He must have really been freaked.
    “Dear friend . . .” Leopold began.
    “I can’t made sense of any of this!” Robert snarled, thrusting the file back at Shelia.
    “Robert,” I said. “Please.”
    He gazed at us with blazing eyes, and it was then that he seemed to realize how erratically he was acting. “Forgive me,” he apologized. “This is very difficult for me.”
    Shelia was a good sport. “Don’t worry about it. This is serious stuff.” She held up the file. “And, yes, it’s very complicated. Vampire blood isn’t my area of expertise, but I will try to outline this to you the simplest way that I can.”
    “I’m not doubting Robert’s word, but for my own peace of mind I must ask you this,” Leopold said. “Did you share your results with anyone else?”
    “Absolutely not. I gave Robert a promise and I stuck to it,” Shelia said with vehemence. “And before you get a chance to ask, no, l did not utilize outside help during testing. This was all strictly confidential, between the test tubes and me. I destroyed all the samples and tools when I finished. Slides, needles, tubes—it’s all gone. Incinerated.”
    “Okay, okay. I believe you,” Leopold told her. “Vampires can never be to careful.”
    “And neither can I,” Shelia said gravely. “I’ve got a family to worry about. I can’t afford to go around pissing off vampires.”
    Leopold nodded. “Fair enough. We’ll have to prove our trust to one another, then.”
    We all moved in closer to get a better view of the charts Shelia began to explain. I regarded myself as a relatively intelligent person, but it looked like gobbledygook to me. I was glad when she simplified in layman’s terms.
    “The problem originates in Mercy’s blood, which Robert drank roughly two months ago,” Shelia said, aiming the last detail at Leopold in order to fill him in.
    “Great. What am I, like patient zero?” I grumbled.
    “Sure, we could look it like that,” Shelia said. “Though that seems extreme. You don’t have a virus, exactly, but there is something very, very unique in your system—an enzyme perhaps—that attacks vampire blood. But attack isn’t the best word; filter would be more suiting.”
    “What do you mean?” Robert said. “You mean ‘filter’ as in purify?”
    Shelia said, “Precisely.”
    “How?” Leopold asked. “And am I in danger? As a vampire, I mean.”
    “Have you sampled Mercy’s blood?” Shelia questioned.
    Leopold shook his head.
    “Then you shouldn’t be in danger,” Shelia said. “Mercy’s blood only seems to have an effect if you take it into your system—drink it or mix it directly with your own blood. When I combined Mercy’s blood with vampire blood under a microscope, it initially reacted the same way a human’s blood does when it’s mixed with the wrong blood type.”
    “I’m guessing that’s bad,” I interjected. “For instance, if a doctor accidentally gives a type A patient blood from a type AB negative donor, they could shut their system down—maybe even kill them—since the patient’s