“Hurry back,” she murmured, and dropped her head onto his pillow, hugging it to her chest.
Zach brushed a hand over her hair, then donned a pair of pants and slipped from the room.
Across the hall, Roland Warbrook eased from the bedroom he and Sarah shared, his feet bare like Zach’s, his hair tousled from sleep.
The two men shared a look.
Roland had never apologized for choking Zach with a piano wire when he, Sarah, and Lisette had captured Zach and interrogated him. But Zach didn’t hold it against him.
“Infirmary?” Roland asked. Apparently he had been summoned for a different purpose.
Zach shook his head. “David’s study.”
They headed upstairs.
Roland continued on to the infirmary. Zach turned into David’s study.
Darnell waited within. “Hey.”
Zach nodded.
When Darnell motioned to one of the chairs in front of David’s desk, Zach sank down in the comfortable leather and unashamedly eavesdropped on the infirmary.
“What’s up?” Roland asked.
“David and I need to meet with Chris. Would you sit with Ami and feed her healing energy until one of us returns?”
“Of course. Has there been any change?”
“No. Get some blood in you first to strengthen you.”
“Do you want me to bring some for you and David?”
“I’ll take some,” David said.
“None for me, thanks,” Seth refused.
Several minutes later, Seth and David strode into the study.
David looked as he always did, but walked with slower steps and bore an air of fatigue.
Seth . . . looked like shit. His shoulders slumped with exhaustion. Dark circles had once more found a home beneath his eyes. Lines of strain bracketed his mouth. His skin bore a sickly pallor. His cheeks seemed hollower.
“Zach,” Seth greeted him. He even sounded tired.
“How long do you intend to keep this up?” Zach asked. Unlike David’s, Seth’s strength and energy couldn’t be restored with a simple blood infusion.
“As long as I can.” Seth sank into the chair beside him.
Sighing, Zach held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
“I’m fine.”
“Bullshit. You’re expending energy like there’s no tomorrow. Teleporting all over creation to rescue your precious Immortal Guardians on top of that will totally deplete you.”
David paused beside Seth’s chair and rested a hand on Seth’s chest.
Seth gasped and gripped the arms of his chair. The lines in his face smoothed out. The dark circles vanished. Color returned, not quite healthy, but certainly healthier.
Relaxing once more, Seth stared up at David. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
David shrugged and patted Seth’s shoulder. “Neither did I. I really didn’t expect it to work.” He started around the desk and staggered.
Seth jumped up and gripped David’s arm to steady him. “Darnell.”
“I’m on it.” Darnell hurried from the room.
Zach watched Seth guide David to the comfortably worn chair behind the desk.
David boasted more power than Zach had realized if he could replenish so much of Seth’s energy that soon after losing his own and needing blood.
Darnell rushed back into the room, bearing bags of blood he piled on David’s desk.
Chris entered on his heels, a battered-all-to-hell leather briefcase in one hand and a cooler in the other. He frowned when he saw David sink his fangs into a bag of blood. “Everything okay?”
Seth nodded. “What’s in the cooler?”
Chris set the cooler on the desk and opened the top. Zach and the others leaned forward to peer inside.
Lined up in neat rows were over a dozen plastic bags, each roughly the size of a soda can, full of white liquid.
“What’s that?” Darnell asked.
“Breast milk,” Chris replied.
Seth’s eyebrows rose. “Whose breast milk?”
“Jasmine Harris donated it. She works in medical at the network.”
All stared at him.
“And she just happened to have some breast milk on hand?” Zach asked.
“Of course not. A couple of months ago I consulted her about newborn babies’ needs. She’s a doctor and a mother, so I figured she would know best. Turns out she’s still breastfeeding her toddler. I like to prepare for every possibility. So I asked her if she would be willing to donate some milk. She said yes without even asking for whom. So”—he waved a hand over the cooler—“voilà. And there’s more where that came from, should you need it.”
Zach looked at Seth. “He really does think of everything.”
Seth nodded.
Chris turned to the door. “Linda?”
Linda, a friend of Melanie’s and another doctor from the network, poked her head in. “Yes?”