Page 98

Lukas slowly lifted himself from the floor and bent over the bed, lifting Blaire’s limp form, avoiding disrupting Riley’s efforts to keep Blaire from bleeding out. He slipped behind Blaire on the bed and pulled her into his arms. He buried his face against her shoulder, rocking her. “Please don’t leave me… oh gods… please don’t leave me.” His shoulders shook as he sobbed into her hair.

“Who could have done this?” Seth murmured, still holding the shirt over his face.

Aiden came back into the room and shut the door. “I told Professor Velastra the situation. She’s on her way and said to make sure we keep the door closed to anyone but her.” He gripped his hair. “Fuck. The hallway’s filled with students. They can smell her.”

After several minutes of anguished silence, a knock sounded on the door. Aiden peeked out, before opening the door, and allowing the professor to step inside. Two staff members, one man and one woman dressed in scrubs, followed her carrying a large case that looked like a cooler and a tote bag, rolling a metal stand behind them as they entered.

“By the gods!” Professor Velastra exclaimed, her usual prim and stoic demeanor slipping as she rushed over to Blaire.

“Did things get out of hand between you two?” she asked, checking Blaire’s pulse at her throat.

Lukas lifted his bloody face, his narrowed eyes meeting the professor’s over Blaire’s shoulder.

“I… did… not… do this,” he reiterated through gritted teeth. “I found her like this.”

He struggled desperately with his thirst and hadn’t done a single thing to Blaire in this situation. What made anyone think he could have gotten her to this state if he was resisting now? He didn’t understand it. The anger helped him keep his senses now that he wasn’t alone with Blaire. He wasn’t sure what he would have done to her if Aiden and Seth hadn’t arrived when they did.

The professor lowered herself to her knees and motioned for Riley to move. Riley stood on shaky legs and moved toward Aiden and Seth. When she reached them, she slumped to the floor, unable to stay on her legs any longer.

Professor Velastra reached out for Blaire as the two members of staff began sorting through the items they’d brought into the room. Lukas growled at her, pulling Blaire tightly to his body. He didn’t want anyone else to touch her. It had been hard enough having Riley so close, but a rational part of him knew she would never hurt Blaire. He wasn’t letting Blaire out of his sight again if this was what happened when he did.

“I won’t hurt her, Lukas. I only wish to help,” she whispered softly, enunciating her words slowly as if trying to calm a feral animal, as one of the staff members passed her a pair of latex gloves that she snapped on her hands.

Lukas squeezed his eyes shut as he clung to the limp body in his arms, the faint heartbeat his only grounding point.

The professor sighed. “Lukas… Blaire needs blood; she’s lost too much. The nursing staff and I are only here to help.” She glanced over at the others in the room. “Can you please gather towels and a wet washcloth so we can clean her up and assess the situation? We need to see if she’s still bleeding.”

Seth rushed to the bathroom to get the supplies needed. He returned moments later and approached the bed, his shirt held high over his face as he handed everything to the professor.

Reaching out and taking Blaire’s arm, the professor began cleaning away the blood despite Lukas’s growls of protest as he stayed wrapped around Blaire’s body, lost to the hunger and worry clawing at his insides.

The professor gasped. “She wasn’t bitten.”

The large male nurse moved over, putting on latex gloves, and knelt beside her, examining Blaire’s arm.

Lukas snapped his head up, his head clearing at the professor’s words, taking in the grim look on the nurse’s face.

“What do you mean?” Aiden demanded, helping his sister to her feet.

The nurse’s calm baritone was impervious to the severity of the situation. “While she’s no longer actively bleeding, she’s missing a chunk of skin from the inside of her forearm.”

The professor pressed her lips into a firm line and stared down at Blaire’s forearm.

“And it’s obvious by the marking here”—the nurse pointed out a spot on the crook of Blaire’s arm to the professor—“that someone used a needle, and they did a pretty poor job with it.” He frowned as the professor cleaned the blood from Blaire’s arm. He then secured a tight binding around the area where the chunk was missing to staunch the bleeding.

Riley glanced over toward the professor, swallowing hard. “W-what do you mean?”

“Based on Blaire’s medical history, we’re aware she has some sort of condition that makes it difficult to heal, and she bruises easily, so the bruising that has spread over her forearm hidden by the blood is quite bad, but it likely wouldn’t have been this severe if whoever did this knew what they were doing.”

The professor moved aside so the nurse could get a better look at her arm.

“But why is there so much blood? Why would someone take her skin?” Aiden asked, stepping out of the way of the other nurse as she rolled up the soiled rug and moved across the floor with a towel to clean up the blood Lukas had trailed from the bed when he crawled away from Blaire.

“Generally, skin is taken for testing, or I also suppose for consumption,” the male nurse said matter-of-factly.

Riley recoiled. “What? Why would someone want to eat her?”

He gave Riley a flat look as Lukas tightened his hold around Blaire.