Predatory (Immortal Guardians #3.5)(79)

Sheldon peeled back one of the bandages. The wound beneath was a few inches long with ragged edges held together by butterfly closures. A dark, ugly bruise surrounded it. “Is this how it looked when you cleaned it?”

She nodded. “Should it have healed by now?”

He replaced the bandage and straightened. A full minute passed while he stared down at Richart. “You know what?” he said finally. “Screw protocol. Screw the rules.” He met Jenna’s gaze. “Yes, it should have healed by now. All of them should have at least partially healed by now, especially if you . . . I mean if he . . .”

She raised her eyebrows. “Drank my blood?”

Heavy pause. “Yes.”

“He didn’t.”

Sheldon spun on his heel and left the room. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he called over his shoulder. A moment later the front door opened and closed.

John brought the dagger out from behind his back and slipped it in the bedside table’s drawer. “This just keeps getting more and more surreal.”

Jenna nodded and sat on the bed. “It was weird hearing him confirm it.”

“Actually he said Richart wasn’t a vampire.”

“Then he asked me if Richart drank my blood and said his wounds should have healed by now.”

“Yeah. I don’t get it either.”

Sheldon returned in short order. Rapping his knuckles on the front door, he let himself in, then strode into the bedroom carrying a cooler and a duffle bag.

Jenna’s stomach sank when he opened the cooler and drew out two bags of blood.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” John muttered. “He’s going to drink that?”

“No.”

While Jenna watched in silence, Sheldon set up an IV and began siphoning blood into Richart’s vein.

“Why don’t you just . . . use his fangs?” she asked.

Sheldon gently peeled back Richart’s upper lip enough to show her that he no longer sported fangs. “Can’t use them if they aren’t there.”

A frown creased John’s face as Sheldon exchanged the already empty bag with a full one. “Shouldn’t it take longer for those bags to empty?”

“Honestly?” Sheldon put the empty bag back in the cooler. “I’ve never done this before, so I don’t know.”

Jenna stared at Richart, willing him to open his eyes and let them know this was helping. “Has this never happened before?”

“The injuries or the not waking up thing?”

“Both.”

Sheldon sat in the chair John had carried in earlier from the breakfast nook. “He’s been injured like this, but . . .”

“He didn’t lose consciousness?”

“No.”

“What’s different this time?”

Sheldon sighed and dragged a hand down over his face. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”

“No,” she agreed. “Richart should. But he can’t. So I need you to do it for him.”

“We think he may have been drugged.”

“Who’s we?”

“That one would take too long to explain.”

John’s frown deepened. “Vampires can be drugged?”

“He isn’t—” Sheldon broke off, muttered something under his breath. “Until tonight, no drugs affected him. At all. Period. If he drank five gallons of vodka and swallowed four bottles of sleeping pills, nothing would happen. He wouldn’t get drunk. He wouldn’t get loopy. He wouldn’t get sleepy. And he sure as hell wouldn’t die. He would feel exactly the same afterward as he did before. He would just need a little blood to replace what he lost while his body repaired the damage. But tonight . . .” He shook his head. “He was hit with several darts carrying an unknown substance. The others hit with the same drug—”

“There are others?” Jenna asked, not knowing why that surprised her.

“Yes. They were transfused hours ago, right after it happened, and should have awoken immediately, but . . .”

“What?” she asked.

“They haven’t stirred. This drug is something we’ve never encountered before. We don’t know if it was a tranquilizer, a poison, or what. We don’t know why it affects them when nothing else does. And . . . we don’t know how to help them.”

Jenna swallowed hard. “Are you saying you don’t know if Richart is going to wake up?”

“He will,” Sheldon said, voice filled with determination. “He has to.” He replaced the second empty blood bag with another full one.

“Are you really his nephew?” she asked. Richart had withheld a lot of information from her. Had he lied outright, too?

“No, though I may as well be. He treats me like family because I’m a descendent of his first Second. Damien was my great-great-I-don’t-know-how-many-greats grandfather and was like a brother to him.”

Holy crap. “How old is Richart?”

He grimaced. “Old enough and mellow enough I hope to forgive me for not knowing how to keep my damned mouth shut. I’ll let him tell you his age.”

No wonder Richart hadn’t cared about the age difference. He must have inwardly laughed his ass off when she had asked him if it bothered him that she was older than him.