Spence moved a padded table into the curtained area, but Emmy held onto Felix. His back was a mess from the whips, but he didn’t seem to notice them. Only his arm.
A female vampire was next, draped in rubies. She’d whipped him when he was on the wooden pony but hadn’t actually touched him.
The next, also female, had ridden his cock while he was flat on his back on the bondage table. She’d bitten his neck to deny him an orgasm, and she’d probably had her hands all over his upper body, but she hadn’t done anything to create this burn.
Another panicked scream tore through the ballroom, and she followed Spence and Zander out of the curtained area to see Toby in a pillory, screaming, “My shoulder! God, it burns! Fuck, someone help me!”
Emmy’s gaze snapped to his shoulder and she saw the same lowercasee, red and raised, just like Felix’s.
Zander took control, having him released, bringing him back into the curtained area, and then another scream came.
Zander looked at Spence. “Lights on. Music off. Take a team to see who this is and get them in here.”
She walked back into the curtained-off room, still holding Felix, and a few minutes later, Maren was brought in.
Emmy’s brain catalogued that the three were mammals, and were affectedin the order of how sensitive their nervous systems are — hare, deer, wolverine. The latter, being basically a weasel, might be fierce, but it was still more susceptible to poisons than hardier mammals. This didn’t bode well, and she explained it to Spence.
Zander came through the curtain and met her gaze with a nod. No emotion this time. They were in a crisis, and he was acknowledging her contribution.
Rhea had come in, and she was talking Toby through deep breaths. Spence went to Maren and held her while she sobbed.
Emmy kissed Felix’s forehead, and held her cheek to it while she tried to figure out what was going on.
Lucien stepped in a few minutes later, walked to her, and leaned in to smell Felix’s arm. He turned to Zander and said, “Fucking wolfsbane!? What the fuck?”
Everything clicked into place. Someone was targeting the mammal shifters, but why?
She glanced at Toby, then Maren, their screams quieter now, but their bodies shaking. The ballroom’s decadence felt sour, now. Someone had turned this playground into weaponized betrayal.
She looked at Zander, and when his gaze turned to her, she told him, “We need to know whether it’s safe for them tochange, or whether we get them to the showers and wash off what we can with soap and water.”
“Changingwon’t help,” Lucien said. “It’ll have to work out of their system. Soap and water is good, to get whatever is still on their skin off, but most of the damage is done at this point.”
Zander nodded toward the staircase. “Go. Take him to the shower. I’ll see to it the rest get cleaned. We’ve never needed an infirmary before. I’ll have something set up in the theater. Bring him there once he’s clean and dressed. The vampires in here need to feed, and then the evening is over.”
“Let Maren get a sample from her own arm,” she told Zander. “She’ll know what she needs, and what to do. If you happen to have a good microscope on the premises, I’d like a look. If not, get the plane to fly the sample to Anchorage. We need to know how this was delivered.”
It came out like an order, but she didn’t apologize and didn’t stop. “Unless Lucien is certain it’ll be fine, don’t let the vampires feed from someone with a rash.”
Zander nodded, and she walked out with Felix still in her arms, sobbing. Zander hadn’t blocked his pain, and she agreed with his reasoning, even though he hadn’t explained.Pain is an important indicator. If it grew worse, or spread, they needed to know.
Felix’s breaths were shallow, his scent a sour agony she hated. “Hang on,” she told him on the way down the steps, since there was no way to slide down the pole with him in her arms. “Try to take deeper breaths. Do you think ice might help? If so, I’ll get some from the cafeteria on the way back up, after we get you cleaned up.”
“Maybe.Fuck, it hurts, and I think I might need to puke.”
Chapter 22
Zander stood at the center of the curtained enclave, the air thick with sweat, blood, and every sexual scent possible.
And pain.
The pain of his people.
His entire body tightened in fury. He valued every being who oathed to him, who promised to serve him and his coterie. They served; he protected.
Someone had hurt his people, and if Emmy was correct, the other mammal shifters might all be feeling the same pain in another couple of hours.
He breathed in and let it out. There would be time to unleash his wrath later, to peel the skin off whoever had dared harm one of his people, but for now, he needed to focus on finding them, and on taking care of everyone, not just the injured.
