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“I think he’s going to be down for some time, but he should make it,” Sharah said, straightening her shoulders. She probed the gash. “The infection is gone, and now it’s just going to be a matter of how quickly he can recover from the life energy loss. That’s something we can’t do anything about. It wil take time, but now he has that time.”
Camil e dropped to the floor, weeping softly. “Thank you. Thank you for helping him.” She gazed up at both Sharah and me. “Without both of you, he’d be dead.”
“Hey, my pleasure.” Sharah glanced at me over her head. “But we stil don’t know just what effect the vampire blood wil have in his system. You’l need to watch him closely.”
She nodded, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “I wil .”
As I slowly withdrew from the room, fol owed by Sharah, I felt a weird pul , like I was stretching a rope between me and . . . oh crap. Morio. A connection had been formed. What the hel did that mean?
“You get back in there and make sure he’s stil alive.” I whirled on Sharah. “Something’s going on. I feel a bond that’s been established between the two of us. He’s got my blood in him—he’s demon. I’m not sure what that’s going to do to us.”
Sharah stared at me. “What? What do you mean?”
“I mean, some link was created. When I stepped out of the room, I felt the connection stretch.
That’s not a good thing.”
She blinked, and then without another word, she headed back into the room and leaned over him. Lifting his arm, she felt for a pulse, then listened with her stethoscope, then frowned. Camil e gave her a frightened look, but Sharah reassured her before rejoining me in the hal .
“He’s alive. I don’t know what it is. I told you, I wasn’t sure just what kind of effect this was going to have on him. Apparently, it triggered a psychic connection between the two of you. But he’s alive. Without your blood, he wouldn’t be for much longer. Now, if you’l excuse me, I’ve got to get in an hour or two of sleep. I’ve been throwing myself into keeping him alive nonstop since you brought him in.”
With a weary sigh, she waved lightly and headed off down the hal . I watched her go, then slowly returned to Morio’s room. Camil e gave me a curious look, but I wasn’t sure just what to say. I didn’t know what was going on myself.
As I approached the bed, there it was again—a feeling of familiarity, of inner knowing. Morio . . .
his long dark hair was damp from his fever, but the nurses were motioning for us to move back so they could change his sheets.
I slipped over to Camil e’s side. “I think some side effect happened when she gave him my blood.”
“What?”
“I think . . . it feels like there’s some connection that’s established itself between Morio and me. I don’t know what it is, if it wil last, or anything about it, though.” I decided I’d better warn her so she wouldn’t be taken by surprise.
She nodded, pensive. “I suppose we won’t know how it’s going to play out until he regains consciousness, and then you two have to sort it out.”
Not sure how she felt, I put a light hand on her arm. “I didn’t mean for it to happen—”
Camil e let out a smal laugh. “Menol y, you saved his life. That’s worth any price. Don’t apologize. I hope that whatever it is, it’s temporary and easy to live with. But we’l find out, I guess.”
I paused, then drew her outside the room. “Listen . . . I know about Vanzir. And I won’t say anything until you feel you need to. But you can come to me if things get out of hand. Because I guarantee you, Smoky’s going to figure it out. That husband of yours is bril iant, but the temper . . .”
Her mouth formed into an O and she backed up. “I didn’t want anybody to know.” She paused, looking haunted. “It was bad, Menol y. When you took Morio topside, the ghost attacked us again.
Vanzir tried to drain it by feeding on it, and I shot an energy burst. The ghost backed off, but the residue of my magic triggered Vanzir. He . . . he yel ed at me to run and I tried to climb up but couldn’t find the gloves. My hands—the iron rungs . . .”
Shit. I could see it al too easily. In the darkness, with the ghosts and the worry, no gloves to protect her hands . . . Camil e was caught between Vanzir’s hunger and the ghost’s anger. “What happened?” I knew Vanzir couldn’t lie to me but wanted to verify what I’d heard.
“Vanzir was caught in a feeding frenzy. I was hunting for the gloves but then felt something enter my mind. Vanzir started to drink from me—it was like having tentacles hooked into my thoughts, like being drained off a spark at a time. I remembered what he’d said about the magic being like an aphrodisiac and tried to snap him out of it.”
“Did he stop?”
“He tried. He looked so tortured, begging me to run. But there was no place for me to go. I’d have to either run back into the tunnels or burn myself on the iron rungs. So I pul ed up my skirts and grabbed his hands . . . pressed them to my waist. If I could get him out of my head, I could handle anything else. I mean . . . it’s just sex. But feeding on my magic—that was so horrible.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and hung her head.
“So . . . he realized what you were offering . . .”
“Yes. Vanzir pushed me against the wal and . . . the minute he touched my body, he withdrew from my mind. It was far easier to have sex with him than let him feed off me.”
I nodded, understanding how she could think so. For Camil e, sex was sex—but her magic, her spirit was something she shared with very few.
