Evermore

Michael would know why.

Once the sun had dropped to the midafternoon position in the sky, Alex eased out of bed, dressed, and decided to stash her supply of tranquilizer where she could get to it without Phillipe or Michael being the wiser.

After pocketing the keys to the infirmary that Phillipe had given her, Alex grabbed her medical case, walked out, and tried to retrace her path to the guards' hall. The empty corridors indicated that none of the Kyn were early risers, although she spotted a number of security cameras set up in discreet corners, and what appeared to be motion sensors set into the door frames of some of the chambers.

Setting off an alarm wouldn't make her a popular girl, so when Alex found the guards' hall she took the right turn she remembered and followed another hall to the castle infirmary.

Over time Alex had discovered that, unlike Michael, the majority of the Kyn had little use for doctors or medical treatment. Part of it was due to the barbaric state that medicine had been in during their human lives in the Middle Ages. A doctor might be the village barber, a crazy old woman, or whatever quack decided he understood the healing arts. After Michael had described some of the standard treatments of the day for open wounds—irrigating them with urine, packing them with poultices made of dried grass and manure, or adding third-degree burns to them with a heated poker—Alex didn't blame them.

The other factor was the Kyn's ability to heal spontaneously. If a vrykolakas were healthy and well fed, any wound someone managed to make in them would close over in a matter of seconds and disappear. The pathogen infecting them had completely replaced their immune system, attacking and destroying any benign or hostile organism that entered the body, which meant they never fell ill. The Kyn were difficult to hurt, and almost impossible to kill.

Despite the prejudice against medicine, Byrne had a fairly decent setup in his infirmary. Alex saw that copper, the only substance that could pierce a healthy Kyn's flesh, coated all the instruments. Suture kits with dissolving thread were stacked neatly next to various splints and bandages. Alex opened one heavy steel door and found a refrigerated walk-in, its shelves filled with several thousand bags of whole blood, plasma, and saline.

"Good God Almighty." Alex left her medical case on one of the counters and went inside the chilly room. She began checking labels; according to the dates not one of the bags was more than a few weeks old. "Somebody knock over a hematology research lab?"

"They were given to us freely," Jayr said from behind her. "Good afternoon to you, my lady."

"Freely, huh." Alex eyed the seneschal and the towering hulk standing next to her. His size should have made him intimidating, but his pink vest, red trousers, and the yellow jacket draped over his shoulders spoiled the effect. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Rainer, my lady."

The man bowed. "Delighted to make your acquaintance, my lady. I will not interrupt your reverie—"

"Sit down," Jayr ordered. To Alex she said, "Rainer's arm was broken last night and has healed wrong. I was hoping you could advise me on how to properly set it."

Alex waved toward a gurney. "Have a seat." She sucked in a breath when Jayr removed the man's jacket, "Jesus Christ." She glared at Rainer. "You let it heal like this? Why didn't you get help when it happened?"

"I was tied up," he told her.

Alex went to work, with Jayr assisting. An hour later, she finished wrapping Rain's arm and tucked it in a sling.

"That should do the trick, but keep the arm out of commission for at least a week," she told him. "Come find me in a couple of days so we can do a follow-up. Or I'll find you."

"You cannot miss me." He grinned at her. "You have but to look for the most stylish fellow in the Realm."

"Break that arm again," she warned, "and next time I'll put your butt in a sling."

Rainer left, but Jayr stayed behind to help Alex tidy up. "I thank you, my lady. Rain is very dear to us."

Alex nodded. "Then why did someone do that to him? Don't bother repeating his story about slipping and falling. He'd have to fall down sixty flights of stairs to sustain that many breaks, and they wouldn't all be on the same arm. Someone tortured that man."

"I am of the same opinion." Jayr grimaced. "But he will not tell me who did it."

"Look for a real sadist." Alex went back into the refrigerated room to retrieve some plasma. "There are labels here from a dozen different hospitals and blood donation centers. You in big with the AMA?"

"Blood donated by humans to their hospitals and collection centers is tested before it is entered into inventory and used for patients," Jayr said as she joined her. "If the blood is found to be diseased, it is removed and destroyed as a biohazard."

"Which is why this stash of yours is really bugging me," Alex said. "Getting people to voluntarily donate blood is like asking them to pull out their own teeth. There's enough blood here to supply a major surgical hospital for a couple of months."

"I must disagree on that point, my lady." Jayr nodded toward the shelves. "All of the blood we store has been discarded. It was tested and found to be diseased and unusable."

"By anyone but Kyn," Alex said slowly, "because we're immune to human diseases."

"Yes. Our supply comes from three different hazardous-waste collection companies that serve most of the medical facilities in Florida and several surrounding states. They deliver the blood to another company, one we own, which is contracted to incinerate it. Instead the company delivers the blood here." Jayr tried to look modest. "We also take a share of the disposal fee."

"Good-bye, biohazard. Hello, breakfast." Alex picked up one of the bags. A second label on the back indicated that it had been found to be contaminated with hepatitis B. "Recycling bad blood. I'd never have thought of it. It's brilliant."

"I like to think that we help humans in a small way by doing so." Jayr leaned against the doorway. "This cache, combined with the millions of human visitors who come to vacation here each year, keeps us well supplied."

Alex frowned. "You have all this and still hit up the living?"

"We hunt," she corrected, "because as plentiful as the bagged blood is, it provides only nourishment. Humans provide warmth and life."

"And lots of sex."

Jayr shrugged.

"Don't look so innocent. You drug them with l'attrait, which makes Rohypnol look like a vitamin pill, and then you can have your orgasm and eat it, too. Pardon me if I don't shake my pompoms." Miffed all over again, Alex came out of the refrigerated room and slammed the door. "I assume that you're like the rest of them, and are okay with this?"

"Blood banks came into existence only in the last century." Jayr didn't seem offended. "To survive we must have blood from humans."

"Sex, on the other hand, is optional," Alex pointed out. "You don't have to give me the speech about how few girl vampires there are, and how the guys all renounced their vows of celibacy long ago. I've heard it a million times." She thought of all the large, muscular men she'd seen around Byrne. "Bet you never have to beg for a date, though."

Jayr looked pained. "I do not… date… humans."

Alex thought of the rows of warriors who had stood around Byrne. "I guess with the way the guys around here look, it would be slumming."

"Nor the men of the Realm."

"You're kidding. Are you blind?" Alex demanded. "Or gay?"

"Neither." The seneschal looked uneasy. "I am celibate."

"Oh, so you're insane." Alex laughed as she rigged the bag she'd brought out for transfusion. "You're a better woman than I am, Jayr. If I lived here and were single, I'd make sex my personal hobby."

"The men look to me for leadership, not relief. I cannot be a seneschal and a leman." She checked her watch. "My master will be waking soon. My lady—"

"Please. After last night, no one is going to call me a lady. Make it Alex, or Dr. Keller."

"Dr. Keller." Jayr seemed anxious now. "I have already taken advantage of your kindness, and I must go, but tomorrow would you be willing to examine one more Kyn?"

"Sure, who?"

"Me."

"Why did you not come to the hall last night?" Farlae asked as Viviana finished tidying the workroom. "You missed quite a show between Locksley and this Nottingham of Florence."

Viviana had gone to the assembly with Harlech, but had slipped out as soon as Nottingham had arrived.

"I felt weary," she lied. "You have been using us like deck slaves."

"Aye, I have." Farlae's black eye seemed to pierce through her head. "Yet here you are, hard at work with the sun still in the sky."

She gathered the cording for the lord's new bed curtains and sat down well away from the window to work on it. "The work will not do itself."

"Vivi."

"Don't." She did not look up. "I have never asked why you and Rain always go to town on the same night, or come back smelling of each other, have I?"

"If you think to shame me into abandoning my regard for you," the wardrobe keeper advised her, "you will have to work harder than that. Everyone knows about me and Rain. We've been together since the British invaded for the last time."

"Forgive me." She put down the cording and rubbed her irritated eyes. "There is much I have done in my life, before I came here, that I regret. I was reminded of that last night. That is all."

"No, it is not," he said, giving her a wry smile, "but very well. You know where my ears and my shoulder are." He picked up a stack of newly hemmed table coverings and left.

Sewing had always been a mindless, soothing occupation for Viviana, but today the familiar play of needle and fabric gave her little relief from her thoughts. Her mind had become a snarled nest of fear and anger, bound tightly with despair. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">