Apollo was the first to step forward, his attention on the human lying completely still.
Yep, and opposite Khari was Oliver Calazans. What was left of him, anyway. The human’s eyes were closed, his arms lax at his sides, but his chest continued to rise and fall with even breaths.
“What’s the word, Healer?” Eclipse prompted, moving to stand beside Apollo.
There wasn’t a word spoken as Apollo began checking Oliver’s vitals: heart, lungs, pulse, temperature. All the good stuff.
A few minutes later, they received a nod, though Kaj didn’t know what it meant.
“I need to move them both to rooms,” Amethyst noted.
Good idea? No, probably not but made more sense than continuing to congregate out here in the hallway.
“I’m staying with Khari,” Bijou stated.
Confused, Kaj walked over to his daughter. It was then he noticed the male was definitely awake.
Holy fuck.
Those eyes were ice blue and pinned on Bijou. His canines had descended, longer than any Kaj had ever seen.
“He’ll need to feed,” Mirakel noted, his voice traveling from behind Kaj.
Ya think?
“Can we borrow one of the Fae?” Kaj asked Obsidian.
“No,” Bijou insisted, her gaze locked on Khari. “Not unless he chooses to. Is that what you want?”
Khari shook his head ever so slightly, those arctic eyes never shifting from Bijou’s face.
“I’ll feed him,” she whispered softly.
“No.” It was Kaj’s turn to put his foot down. “Not in his current condition. We can’t risk him killing you by taking too much.”
“He won’t.”
“No,” he repeated. “And that’s final. And not only am I saying this as your father, but also as your Alpha. Right now, he needs to be assessed.”
Bijou’s head snapped in his direction, her eyes spitting fire. He could see she was gearing up to pelt him with whatever was on her mind—and he suspected it wasn’t pretty—but Apollo spoke up first.
“We have blood on hand. We can give him that until he’s steady. Then we’ll decide how to proceed.”
Kaj ground his molars together.
Bijou nodded at the healer, returning her attention to Khari. “That’s fine. For now. They’re going to move you,” she told the vampire. “I’ll be right here with you. But you have to remain calm.”
The vampire nodded.
Kaj had yet to hear him say anything more after he’d acknowledged that Bijou had stayed with him. He could only assume whoever had been prevalent in Oliver’s body had been successfully transferred to Khari since he recognized Bijou. Granted, he sounded nothing like the human, his voice far too deep. As for what he remembered, that was still the question of the hour.
And until Oliver came around, they really didn’t know what they were dealing with.
“I’d like you to give us some space,” Apollo announced. “I’ll allow two guards. One vampire, one angel. That’s it. The rest of you can head out.”
Kaj glanced over at Huracan, nodded. The male responded in kind. He would stand guard for now.
“Reidar, you stick around here. I’ll have you relieved in a couple of hours,” Obsidian stated.
