Chapter 22
Zander stood at the center of the curtained enclave, the air thick with sweat, blood, and every sexual scent possible.
And pain.
The pain of his people.
His entire body tightened in fury. He valued every being who oathed to him, who promised to serve him and his coterie. They served; he protected.
Someone had hurt his people, and if Emmy was correct, the other mammal shifters might all be feeling the same pain in another couple of hours.
He breathed in and let it out. There would be time to unleash his wrath later, to peel the skin off whoever had dared harm one of his people, but for now, he needed to focus on finding them, and on taking care of everyone, not just the injured.
He scanned the shivering, sobbing shifters, their rashes red and angry, their scents leaning toward nausea now, not just pain.
As much as he wanted to send Emmy to her room and away from him, his cold logic told him she was a tool he couldn’t afford to ignore.
Emmy had been a child genius, and now she was an adult genius.
Her biology degrees gave her insight into what the poison was doing, and her strategic mind was sharp enough to figure things out faster than anyone else in the room.
Including him.
So he’d keep her close and ignore how her presence made him feel.
He briefly remembered the spark in her eyes while on the bondage table earlier, challenging him, and then defiant yet wounded when he’d declined the offer. He shook his head and focused on the present.
Zander’s jaw clenched as he turned to Lucien, whose face was grim. “Set the theater up as an infirmary. The bondage tables we use for feeding frenzies made up with sheets and blankets, as beds. Talk to the cafeteria about what we can feed them. Some kind of soup, maybe.”
“Yes to liquids,” Maren said. “Chicken broth though. Nothing more.”
Lucien gave a curt nod, left, and Zander flew up and out of the curtained area and sat on a platform near the ceiling.
“No one leaves this room without being scanned or questioned. Vampires, if you’re with a reptile or bird shifter, drink your usual, send them to the eastern end of the room, and you should go to the western end and make yourself comfortable.
If you’re with a mammal shifter, look them over carefully for the old ezret symbol. ”
A collective gasp went through the room, and he continued.
“If you see it, have them come to the curtained section. If you do not, and if they feel okay, and you can’t scent anything off, drink your usual, and then both should go to your proper side of the room.
There are no mythologies I’m aware of about wolfsbane harming vampires, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. ”
He telepathed his head of security to personally scan the shapeshifters’ brains for the planning of this event, or the knowledge of it ahead of time, and then he made his way to the western end to begin questioning vampires who’d paid millions to be here and were going to take great offense, but it couldn’t be helped.
Wolfsbane wasn’t an accident; it was a message, and he’d find the sender.
His thoughts went to Emmy, her submissive friend in her arms, and his determination hardened even more. He’d find a way to soothe the bruised egos who took offence, because finding the perpetrator wasn’t optional.
And how the fuck had Emmy escaped two vampires who wanted to hold her? Shifters are never as strong as vampires older than a century or two. Ever.
But she’d proven stronger than two ancient ones, dripping with power.
He put a damper around him and the first already-fed vampire he came to, and asked questions. Then the next. And the next.
Someone in his silo had turned pleasure into poison, and he’d rip whoever it was to bloody pieces when he found out who it was.
Seven hours later, the wolves, bears, cats, and other mammals were also showing marks.
Not all, but too many. In total, seventeen of forty-eight flock members were sick.
Unable to hold food down, horrible diarrhea, and hurting.
Emmy’s idea of ice stopped the surface pain, but it was in their system now, making them fevered and, scariest of all, sending their hearts into dangerous arrhythmia.
Emmy had gone into drill sergeant mode when she’d returned with a clean Felix, dressed in shorts and no shirt because he’d felt hot.
She’d added sugar and salt to the powdered electrolyte mix they kept on hand, and had everyone sip it slowly so they didn’t puke it up, telling them to hold it in their mouth to let some of it soak in sublingually before swallowing.
Those who wanted chicken broth could have it, but she didn’t give them a choice with the electrolyte mix.
She was gentle but firm with the sick, and just plain old firm with everyone else.
And Zander saw her in a new light. The adorable child, sure, but she was all grown up. Not just sexually, but mentally, too.
And when Toby’s heartbeat went into dangerous territory, she soaked rags in saltwater, draped them over him, and talked him through slow breathing exercises while rubbing his feet.
It helped, and Zander was happy to have her taking care of his people.
Relieved she had it under control, he left to figure out who the fuck had done this.
Three days later, everyone affected was well enough for Emmy to leave them so she could change and fly.
It turns out, the dye didn’t wash off, so she was still red and orange. Everywhere. The other shifters could change to their animal and back in their rooms, but Emmy’s dragon was too big for that.
Her breath puffed white as she left the Aurora Ballroom and made her way through the short tunnel.
Toby had told her it was nine degrees outside, and he’d expressed worry over her flying, but she’d assured him the denser air would be easier to fly in, not harder.
But even if that weren’t the case, no way in hell was she staying on the ground without at least testing things out. She hadn’t flown in nine damned months, because it’d been that long since she’d been to Faerie.
Toby wasn’t back to one hundred percent, but he was better, and he insisted on tracking the overhead satellites to find a window when it’d be safe to change aboveground. It wouldn’t do to give the humans proof of a dragon flying around Alaska.
The Arctic wind sliced through her sweatpants like a thousand tiny blades. She’d worn them with boots she could easily slip on and off, along with a coat and a hat, and nothing else. Once she started stripping, she wanted to be naked as quickly as possible so she could change.
She walked forty yards from the building, stripped her hat off, dropped the coat, pushed her sweatpants down and stepped out of the boots as she pushed the sweats off each leg.
It was so cold it hurt, and she shivered violently for the few seconds it took for her to release the muscles that held her human shape.
Much as it feels to open one’s clenched fist, she allowed her other form into being, and then opened her wings wide and leapt into the air, beating her leathery wings against the frigid air, taking off and gaining speed easier than ever.
Icy wind rushed past her underbelly, but oh, the freedom of being airborne once again — the sheer, bone-deep rightness of it.
She flicked her tail and banked, going low over the dome and then in a circle around it, for all the shifters who’d gone aboveground to see the dragon fly.
She blew a torrent of fire for them and realized it gave her a few moments of warmth, flying through the heat, so she did it again.
And then she turned away from the water to explore the inland, as she’d wanted to do since she’d flown over it in the plane, looking out the window.
Early November’s sun hung low, a pale gold disk skimming the horizon, gilding the snowfields in honeyed light that lasted only these precious hours before the long night would swallow it.
She soared low over the alien landscape, her wings slicing the wind with a resonant whoosh, each downstroke propelling her over endless snowfields.
The Arctic sprawled beneath her like a living tapestry, tundra rolling out in undulating waves of white and frost-kissed brown, punctuated by thermokarst lakes frozen into mirrors that fractured the landscape.
She banked left into a joyous barrel roll that sent her heart thundering, and dove toward distant movement — a massive polar bear, lumbering along the edge of a low ridge.
Emmy trumpeted a deep resonant call that echoed across the landscape, and the bear reared up, paws splayed, before dropping to all fours and vanishing into a snowdrift.
She rose above a squat willow thicket with frost sparkling like crushed glass.
The wind carried the tang of brine and frozen earth, and she breathed it in.
Nine months too long, she thought, exhilaration bubbling through her veins.
She spiraled upward again and then leveled off, wishing for thermals to play in, and watched her shadow race across the snow.
Below, in a hollow near a winding river, an arctic fox chased a lemming and then pounced on it. A mile away, timber wolves slunk through a willow thicket, their gray forms low and purposeful, yellow eyes flicking skyward as Emmy’s form blotted the sun.
Ptarmigan exploded from the underbrush in a feathered panic, white wings beating frantic against her downdraft, and a snowy owl perched on a knoll turned its head, golden eyes unblinking, as if weighing her worth.
Most likely, he’d decided he wasn’t big enough to be a meal for her, and thus he was safe.
She opened her jaw and released a controlled plume of orange and gold that licked the air, turning superheated vapor into a buoyant updraft. The warmth enveloped her, a silken glove against the eternal cold, but only for a few seconds.