Page 102 of Hospital for Immortal Creatures

Which made him wonder sometimes where he belonged.

Yet, yielding to the animal was a blissful experience. Only then did his thoughts crystallise, free from any emotional burden. The animal was simple. It had primal needs. Food. Reproduction. Survival. It never pondered or speculated. When it and Mikhail became one, his reasoning transformed through the prism of the beast. That was why every time he lost his way or started doubting himself, he turned to the beast.

He returned to the Hospital through a secret passage and changed to his human form, his anger dissipating. Getting dressed, he took out a little vial from his jeans pocket.

Perfume with the scent of a vampire. The same kind Amelia had used in her pointless attempt to run away. Because of the recent events – Mary Clare’s murder, Viktor’s berserk mode and the communication with the Tribunal, Mikhail hadn’t thought much about her.

At first, he had been enraged with her actions, but now the memory of her almost successful escape curled his lips. He should not underestimate Amelia any longer. There was something inside her – a little beast, if he were to compare it to the immortal species—one that wouldn’t succumb to him so easily.

On his way to the top floor, he stopped in the staff room where Mary Clare had been murdered. “Don’t mind me,” he told the creatures sitting on the couch.

They only stared at him in return. Mikhail had expected such a reaction, so he aimed to be as quiet as possible while he rummaged through their supplies in the fridge. Digging through boxes and wrappers of food, he wasn’t sure he knew what he was looking for. When he lifted his head out of the fridge, the three creatures in the room were observing him with a mixture of shock and curiosity.

“I had a sudden craving for human food,” he said. “I’ll take this”—he grabbed a box labelled Kate and reached for two apples next—“and these.” As he closed the fridge, he noticed that one of the creatures on the couch had frozen with her hand in mid-air, clutching a fork. Cutlery, of course! “Where can I find a fork? A spoon, perhaps?”

One of the women pointed to a kitchen drawer by the fridge. He slid it open and took a spoon, a fork, a knife, and a pack of napkins. “These will do.” A box of chocolates caught his attention and he snatched it on his way out. “Tell Kate and all the others whose food was taken to report to their superior and they will be compensated. Good day.” He left the three bewildered staff members behind and continued heading upstairs.

Amelia’s door was still closed, so he knocked and waited. The last time, he had been too harsh with her, so he wasn’t surprised her response was not immediate.

A while passed with no answer until he walked in, uninvited. She was sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to him. Beside her on the sheets was a closed book she must have taken from his library.

Amelia gave no sign she was aware of his presence, but her pose stiffened at the sound of his approaching steps. He dropped the food on the bed and positioned himself face-to-face with her. “You haven’t eaten in over two days.”

Her features were stone when her gaze fixed on him. He stared at her dark blue irises and found it suddenly hard to look away. There was something in those eyes that he hadn’t paid attention to before.

After her failed escape, he’d expected her to be frightened – despondent even – but that was nowhere close to what he read in her. A flicker of determination lurked beneath the surface, a resolve that piqued his interest.

The beast inside him stirred with anticipation. After their last encounter, something had shifted inside Amelia’s head, and he was eager to decipher it. Had she merely masked her defiance? Was she biding her time until the perfect moment to escape came?

Mikhail pulled the vampire perfume vial from his pocket and passed it to her. “You know what this is. I want you to put it on again.” She furrowed her brow in confusion. “I promised to take you to the OR, and I will. But I want you to go in as a vampire.”

Amelia blinked a few times and her pupils widened. “What?”

“I said, I will take you to the OR, but you’ll go as a vampire. And before you even put this on, I want you to eat.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the food.

She had to be starving. Preoccupied by everything else that had happened, Mikhail had forgotten that humans needed food to survive.

Amelia drew the box on her lap. “Kate,” she read the note out loud. “Who’s Kate?”

Mikhail unpeeled the note from the container and crumbled it up. “The cook.”

Amelia removed the lid. “Pasta?” When he said nothing, she dug in with the fork.

Then she ate like an animal that had been starved for days while Mikhail watched her. She devoured the two apples and half the box of chocolates in seconds. Yet despite her obvious hunger, she still took a moment to tell him that she didn’t like chocolate.

***

“What’s the surgery we’ll be observing?” Amelia asked as they exited the lift in a lobby, similar to all others she had seen before.

Mikhail guided her through the double doors to their right. The scars on his face from the other day had healed, but a slight limp marked his walk, as if he was careful not to strain his right side.

“We’re not observing. We’re operating,” he said.

Her heart skipped a beat. “We will be operating?”

Standing in the hallway, he turned to her. “You want to be a surgeon, right?”

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