When a scientific procedure has unexpected results, Rory tries to make the best of a bad situation and ends up becoming an accidental superhero.
Medical scientist Rory is working in his top secret underground laboratory in Central London when a procedure has unexpected results. Far from curing his patient, a monkey called Arnold, of an unpleasant disease, he manages to turn the animal invisible! In his panic, Rory accidentally gets some of the serum he injected Arnold with into his own bloodstream, rendering himself invisible, too.
With disbelief and confusion filling his brain, Rory finds it impossible to think straight, much less to figure out what precisely happened, and what on earth he’s going to do about it. So, after stripping off his clothes—which remain visible and therefore would give him away—he heads out into the London night for a walk to try to clear his head. Soon, a series of events lead him into a situation where he takes heroic action to protect somebody from hurting themselves, or someone else. And, just when Rory thinks things can’t get any weirder, he’s found, completely naked, in the home of the man he’d helped the previous evening. How can he explain his way out of this?
Publisher's Note: This book has previously been released as part of the I Need a Hero anthology with Pride Publishing.
General Release Date: 15th August 2017
Rory carefully placed the empty syringe into a kidney bowl on a wheeled metal table at his side then snapped off his latex gloves and put them next to the bowl. When he turned back to his workstation, though, the monkey he’d just injected had disappeared.
He blinked, as though his eyes were not functioning correctly and that closing and opening them again would do a hard reset. Like doing a restart on his PC when it acted up. Unfortunately, in the case of his eyes, it didn’t help. He tried again, just to be sure. No such luck. The monkey was still not there.
Shaking his head, he looked around the laboratory. It wasn’t very big, and there was nowhere to hide. Not for a creature the size of Arnold, anyway. Even an escaped mouse would be pretty easy to locate. Rory wondered if perhaps he was asleep and dreaming—vivid and bonkers dreams were a constant in his life. A swift pinch of his arm answered that question. Muttering, he rubbed the afflicted area, the cotton of his lab coat soft beneath his fingers.
He frowned, then frowned some more as a thought occurred to him. A thought so unbelievable, so ludicrous that he couldn’t understand why it had even popped into his brain.
Because it’s the only possible explanation.
He shook his head. No, it wasn’t. There was a perfectly rational explanation for Arnold’s sudden disappearance. He wasn’t where he’d left him, but although he was smart, there was no way in hell he could have escaped the lab. It was impossible. Rory reached into his pocket and clasped the hard plastic of his security pass between his fingers and heaved a sigh of relief. The very idea of a monkey—albeit a tame, friendly one—wandering around the City of London didn’t bear thinking about. And neither did the consequences.
Determined to disprove his silly idea, Rory began searching in earnest for Arnold. It took all of five seconds—he wasn’t underneath the workstation, or behind the large storage unit at one end of the long room. All of the cupboards were closed and locked, and the keys still hung securely on a lanyard around Rory’s neck. There was nowhere else the animal could have gone.
Rory scratched his head, the scientist in him still desperate not to resort to believing the thought that was now flashing on and off in his mind in strobe lighting, unwilling to be ignored any longer.
Invisible. You’ve turned Arnold invisible.
No. No way. He was trying to cure a lethal disease, not create some Harry Potter-esque potion for invisibility. But it was a cloak that made them invisible in Harry Potter, wasn’t it, not a potion? He tutted and sighed, then shook his head. I’m losing the fucking plot, here. I need to go home and get some rest. Maybe I’m overdoing it.
There was one small problem, though. Before he could leave, he had to find the damn monkey. Arnold had been injected with some potent drugs, and although Rory wasn’t expecting him to experience any further side effects, he certainly wasn’t going to risk having the creature anywhere near the general public. He was trying to save lives, not put them at risk. Plus, Arnold himself would be in danger out there—he could get hit by a bus or a car. Which would be highly likely, given the drivers of said buses and cars wouldn’t be able to see him.
Oh fuck, this is really happening, isn’t it?
Returning to his workstation, Rory then leaned forward and gripped its cold, metal edges, taking a couple of deep breaths to calm his racing heart and mind. In this state, he could barely comprehend what had quite clearly taken place, never mind try to work out exactly how. All he could do for now was deal with the fallout.
Exhaling heavily, Rory tried hard to force himself into a mindset where he was able to cope with the situation. Right. Come on. Find the bloody monkey.
“Arnold?” he said tentatively. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? The animal was more than intelligent enough to know his own name and to respond to it. Louder, he said, “Arnold, are you here?”
At the same time, a distinctive chirruping noise came from directly in front of him, and something warm and furry touched the back of his hand.
With a yelp, Rory snatched his hand back, then swore loudly as he inadvertently smacked the wheeled cart next to him. Everything went flying—bottles, paperwork, the kidney dish containing the syringe. In a state of utter panic, Rory flailed around, trying to rescue the items before they crashed to the concrete floor. Unfortunately, the panic had strangled any semblance of common sense—Rory was just reacting to what was in front of him, without thinking. So when he managed to catch the discarded syringe, it was already too late to stop himself. The sharp needle pierced the skin of his palm. Once again, he snatched his hand away with a yelp, and let the instrument tumble to the floor.
Muttering and cradling his fist, Rory opened it up to see the damage. The tiniest pinprick showed where it had penetrated his skin, but there was nothing else untoward happening. Fortunately, Arnold’s disease wasn’t contagious.
But what if…?
No. The contents of the syringe had been completely used up, and all he’d done was grab it and accidentally stab himself—he hadn’t depressed the plunger. If anything had managed to get into his system, it would be the most miniscule amount. Negligible. Hardly even there. Naturally, if he started to display any side effects, he’d get checked out immediately, but there was no point worrying about something that would never happen. He had enough on his plate right now. Like his missing monkey, which apparently wasn’t missing at all, but was still sitting on the workstation where Rory had last seen him. Except, Rory could no longer see him, but knew he was there because he’d heard where the sound came from, and had felt the warm monkey hand touch his.
Turning back to the workstation, he sighed. Of course, after all that commotion, there was a chance Arnold had freaked out and had actually run off this time. Or not. There was only one way to find out. Reaching out with his right hand, he aimed it in the direction of roughly where he thought Arnold had been.
Rory frowned as the sleeve of his lab coat came into view. It didn’t look right. Mainly, he realized after several seconds, because there was no hand peeking out from the end of it. He gasped, then lifted his other arm. A sleeve, but no hand. He did the blink-for-a-hard-reset thing again. And again. It made no difference.
Slowly, with his heart pounding faster and faster, he tried to touch his face with his non-existent hands. To his surprise, he succeeded. It felt the same as it always did. And, more importantly, just as his hands could feel his face, his face could feel his hands. So they were there, he just couldn’t see them. He lowered them and reached out for Arnold once more—tentatively, since he didn’t want to accidentally poke the monkey in the eye or something. After a moment, he felt soft fur beneath his fingertips.
Lucy Felthouse is the award-winning author of erotic romance novels Stately Pleasures (named in the top 5 of Cliterati.co.uk’s 100 Modern Erotic Classics That You’ve Never Heard Of, and an Amazon bestseller), Eyes Wide Open (winner of the Love Romances Café’s Best Ménage Book 2015 award, and an Amazon bestseller), The Persecution of the Wolves, Hiding in Plain Sight and The Heiress’s Harem series. Including novels, short stories and novellas, she has over 170 publications to her name. Find out more about her writing at http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk, or on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/cw1985) or Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/lucyfelthousewriter). Join her Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/lucyfelthousereadergroup/) for exclusive cover reveals, sneak peeks and more! Subscribe to her newsletter here: http://www.subscribepage.com/lfnewsletter
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