Thank you, Sir.
Twenty minutes later, Zander sat in a chair beside the bed, his laptop on the bed so he could watch the digital whiteboard change as Lucien updated it.
The hunt was organized, with enough perks and prizes so every guest vampire had sent in their RSVP stating they would attend. The next goal was to get every vampire companion upstairs as well. They were showing the camera feeds of the hunt in the theater, and had lots of tantalizing foods on the menu…
He felt Emerald’s brainwaves alter. He couldn’t get inside her shields, but he could sense whether she was awake or asleep, so he was already to her when she struggled to sit, her face pale and slick with sweat.
“Bathroom,” she gasped.
Zander lifted her, carried her quickly to the toilet, and set her on it. He didn’t leave to give her privacy, though. He wanted to be near in case she fell. He didn’t stare at her, but organized things on the shelf, giving himself busy work to keep him occupied while he was close enough to catch her before she hit the floor, if she passed out or fell.
He’d seen a lot of sickness in his thousands of years on this planet, and he could only describe what Emerald went through as brutal. Violent.
When it felt like this round might be finished, he handed her the baby wipes, and for this, he did step away, his back to her, and pretended to look at his phone.
He lifted her and carried her back to bed when she finished, ignoring her nudity. She’d had the shirt on at one point, but it’d come off during her last round of being too hot.
He sat her up a little, with the wedge behind her, and then told her, “Let’s get some ice chips in you.”
Before she could argue, he reached into the mini-fridge for the cup.
She accepted them without speaking, too exhausted for words.
Zander watched her while she held the ice in her mouth — reallylookedat her. The purple shadows under her eyes. The way her skin had gone sallow. The tremor in her hands that wouldn’t stop.
All those months of avoiding her, and now she’s in my bed.
The irony wasn’t lost on him.
He removed the wedge once she’d had a few ice chips, and went back to his laptop, messaging Lucien as necessary when he saw activity requiring intervention or closer watching.
Twenty minutes later, he was back in the bathroom with her, then more ice chips once he had her back in bed. At leastthe fever wasn’t tormenting her — for the time being, anyway.
He got a few sips of broth in her, but then twenty minutes later, he was holding the small bucket for her to puke in while she was still in bed, her entire body convulsing as she vomited up the few sips of broth she’d managed. He gathered her hair in one hand, his other palm on her shoulder, steadying her.
When she finished, he wiped her mouth with a cool cloth and offered her some mouthwash, which she swished in her mouth and spit into the bucket.
A few more ice chips, and Emmy’s gaze met his, glazed with pain and exhaustion, but still that fierce intelligence burning beneath. Stillher, even this sick and weak.
He settled her back against the pillows, arranged fresh ice packs around her head since the old ones had gone warm, and returned to his laptop.
He’d ordered more meat to be flown in right away, and had set up security details for the food storage areas as well as the kitchen. Cameras, too. It pissed him off he had to protect the flock’s fucking food, and that brought him back to who had done this, and what the fuck he was going to do to them to make a motherfucking example of them that wouldn’t be forgotten for centuries. Maybe longer.
He lifted his hand from the mouse before he accidentally destroyed it, and went over the facts as he knew them. Again.
Someone in the silo had used topical poisoning to start, and had escalated to poisoning the food supply, focusing on mammals first, then reptiles.
He figured only the truly ancient had access to the recipe for the poison to kill dragons, or to at least make them really sick.
