Page 127 of Mortal Shift
“Then perhaps,” the healer said acerbically, “he should have found some way not to induce their ire.”
My mouth popped open. “He could hardly—”
“He’s right,” Tristan said, shaking his head at me. “I should have known better.”
“Good. The boy has some sense, at least.” The healer gave a curt nod, though if his face was anything to go by, he still resented the audacity of being asked to do his actual job. “Try to remember that next time you think about wasting my time. Well, come on then, lie back. I don’t have all day.”
“I’ll um…” My eyes flicked to the curtained area of their own accord and a shiver ran through me. “I’ll just head back to lessons, then.”
The healer ignored me, and Tristan had his eyes screwed tight in pain as he laid back, so I took a step away. I honestly did mean to walk straight out of the ward and back into the academy hallways…but somehow, I found my feet carrying me the other way, towards the curtain. Thaden was behind that curtain, I knew it. He had to be. He was on this ward, and every other bed was empty. And this might be my only chance to find out what had happened to him for myself.
I flicked a quick glance at the healer, but his attention was fully on his newest patient, and there didn’t seem to be anyone else around. Sucking in a quick breath, I twitched the curtain back a fraction and slipped inside the cubicle.
“Can I help you?”
I yelped and jumped half out of my skin before my eyes fixed on a small, red-headed woman standing beside the bed. She was dressed in a nurse’s uniform and her preternaturally beautiful face marked her asother—fae, most likely. The healer’s apprentice?
I swallowed hard, and ignored my hammering heart.
“Oh, er, he’s…I know him.” I nodded to the prone vampire on the bed. “I just wanted to visit.”
The apprentice clicked her tongue and glanced at the curtain. “Make it quick. Healer Marin doesn’t like his patients being disturbed.”
“Thank you.”
I turned my attention to the pale, dark-haired figure stretched out on the bed, only his neck and head visible above the blanket, but even those appeared gaunt. Shrunken, even.
“What’s wrong with him?” I whispered, trying and failing to keep the horror from my voice.Notbecause I liked him. At all. And sure as hell not because I liked any of the things he’d done to me. Just because if he died, there’d be no-one to clear Cole’s name. “Why isn’t he getting better?”
“No-one can say,” the apprentice said, giving me a sympathetic look. “Something is suppressing his desire to feed, and his body seems to be rejecting any blood we give him.”
“Is it because of his injuries?”
“His injuries?” A look of confusion passed across the apprentice’s face before she quickly covered it. “There’s no way of knowing why he won’t feed. But if he doesn’t, I fear he make not wake at all.”
I swallowed the bile that rose up my throat and nodded. It was worse than I’d thought. I’d assumed he’d get better, sooner or later. That they’d work some kind of magic like they were for Tristan, and he’d wake up, and clear Cole’s name, and everything would be fine. Shit, how naïve could I be? He wasn’t going to get better, and there wasn’t enough magic in this entire place to change that. If there had been, they’d have used it already, instead of leaving him to lie here, slowly wasting away.
“Vampires… They can’t… I mean, they can’t starve todeath, right?”
The pitying look on her face dialed up and I turned my eyes back to Thaden, unable to stomach it.
“Not to death, no,” she said softly. “But he could be left like this forever, and some would say that’s worse.”
I nodded, having no words to argue it. I’d rather be dead than comatose forever, too.
“Can I…touch him?” He looked so weak, so fragile, not at all like the vampire who’d taken my blood and made me orgasm in front of the whole academy. My heart stuttered at the memory. I tried to arrange my face into a scowl. Thaden was Cole’s friend, not mine, and I didnotown him my pity. I was here for Cole, nothing more. So why did the thought of him lying here like this for an eternity make my stomach roil?
“You can,” the apprentice said, apparently oblivious to my internal struggle. “It’s possible he may be passingly aware of what’s happening around him.”
I nodded, and, unable to stop myself, reached out a hand toward his, outlined beneath the thin blanket. I ran my fingers over it, and then nudged the thin fabric aside, squeezing his cold hand with mine.
His wrist twisted and his fingers curled around mine, yanking it to his mouth. And then he sank his fangs into me.
Chapter Forty-Two
I screamed and pulled back, but the vampire’s grip was too strong, locking me in place as my blood dripped onto his lips. His eyes stayed closed, his face expressionless, but his fingers were like a manacle digging into my flesh.
I jerked my arm again, fighting his grip, and my feet scrabbled across the slick flooring, trying to get enough purchase to wrench myself free.
