Pure Destiny (PureDark Ones #12) - Aja James Page 0,20
realm of Pure and human medicine,” Eveline said to Rain, looking away from the Paladin as if the sight of his helplessness pained her.
The healer nodded. “I also conferred with Jade right from the beginning. She tried to inject vampire venom into his veins to help accelerate his healing when he was brought in, but his body viciously rejected it. She also tried to send her healing energy into him, but that failed as well.”
Sophia recalled the way Dalair had contorted in a violent seizure, white foam bubbling from his mouth, blood leaking from his ears and nose. They knew immediately that his body would reject any foreign substance or influence. A vampire’s venom was the most natural and organic serum to bind with his blood. If even that couldn’t be absorbed, nothing else would be.
“By the way, Ava is working on this in the labs at Columbia University,” Eveline said.
“Are the blood samples I gave you enough?” Rain asked.
“For now. Ava will let us know as soon as she has anything. But his body is recovering, at least,” Eveline noted, glancing at the Paladin again.
“If only we knew how to fix the rest of him.”
“That’s why you’re here, my friend,” Rain murmured. “Perhaps you can find something, clues maybe, in the Zodiac Scrolls or Prophesies, that describe the separation of body and soul. Perhaps there are other ways to bring him back.”
“Ooohh,” Benji gushed in a loud whisper, reminding the women of his presence, “that sounds so cool! It reminds me of the stories Ere told me on our trip to Egypt, Sophie. The ones about mummies and gods and resurrection. Is that what we’ll try on your friend? Are we going to cast spells from the Book of the Dead?”
Rain and Eveline shook their heads at Benjamin bemusedly, indulgently.
But his words triggered Sophia’s thoughts like a soft breeze reigniting the dying embers of a camp fire.
Perhaps the ingenious little boy was on to something, after all.
Chapter Four
“Good. You’re awake.”
The warrior blinked sleep-crusted eyes and tried to keep them open. He was fully aware this time, his brain having rebooted without glitches, his senses sharpening by the second.
It was the same female that was with him before. The same female he always saw, even in his dreams. Sometimes she took a different form, but he always knew it was her. He didn’t dwell on the different versions of her; he simply knew.
“Do you think you can take in some light stew? Are you hungry?”
On cue, the warrior’s concave stomach growled and groaned, protesting its emptiness. He couldn’t recall the last time he ate.
But then, food never mattered much. It was a way to keep up his strength, nothing more. Where he was kept by the Master, he was fed regularly, and he always efficiently devoured what he was given within minutes of receiving it.
They all did. The other soldiers in the Master’s stalls, kept like animals in cages. Fed, watered, and taken out when the Master wanted to use them.
He didn’t bother to answer the female’s question. She would feed him or she would not. His body was weak. Starving. And he was still bound to a flatbed. Still half broken.
He wasn’t programmed to ask for things. Not for himself. He only received and carried out orders. This female was not his Master. She was irrelevant.
Involuntarily, his gaze stayed riveted on her face. His eyes narrowed in assessment.
No, not entirely irrelevant.
She sighed and muttered, “You know, you’ve always been the epitome of the strong, silent type, Dalair, but this is taking it to the next level.”
He heard something in her tone, but he couldn’t decipher the emotion. He sifted through the catalogue of “feelings” in his program that might describe it.
Chagrin? Affection? Exasperation?
Perhaps a mix of all of the above. Not that he understood what the words really meant even if his mind could use them as labels.
What he did know was that he needed to rebuild his strength. Food was essential. And that other thing…when she touched him and took him inside her body.
In order to complete his mission, he needed both.
“Feed me,” he rasped through his chalk-dry throat, his voice scraping across the tissues like sandpaper.
Her eyes widened at his words, and she froze. But only for a moment. Shortly, she pressed a button at his side, and the bed began to fold, raising his upper body until he sat at a sixty-degree angle.
“Some water first?” she offered, her voice soft and husky.