A Caress of Wings Read Free

weight, seeing his face filled out and restored to its former beauty.
    Finished with shaving, she set to work on scrubbing his body. She emptied and refilled the tub three times before she felt certain he was as clean as the mortal bathing process allowed. Then she wrapped him in a towel and carried him out to her sofa.
    Since she didn’t require sleep as mortals did, she had no bed, so she made him as comfortable as possible with what she had, bundling him in as many blankets as she could find. Then she pulled a chair next to him, set up an IV line, and transfused a pint of her powerful angelic blood into him.
    Trevor began healing before her eyes. A healthy flush spread across his alabaster skin, erasing his scars in the process. His flesh began to pump, his breathing becoming deeper and more even, his heartbeat becoming stronger and steadier.
    She surprised herself by reaching out to touch his jaw. “I’m very sorry it took us so long to find you.”
    His head turned as if he was responding to her, pressing his cheek into her palm. She reached gently into his mind, dulling the recollections of his ordeal. She sealed them behind a haze, like a song you know you’ve heard but can’t remember where. Later, she would take the memories from him completely, but for now it was best not to. It was bad enough to be emotionally empty; it would only make it worse if he felt mentally empty as well.
    Satisfied that he was on his way to a full physical recovery, Siobhán started a saline drip to provide him with necessary fluids. Then she stripped out of her blood-soiled clothes and showered. By the time she left to begin cataloging the new infected intakes, Trevor was looking almost healthy and she felt the strangest sense of deep-seated relief.

Chapter 3
     
    With one last look at the rows of occupied hospital beds and endless stretches of hanging intravenous lines, Siobhán left the infirmary and headed to the lab to call Adrian Mitchell, captain of the Sentinels.
    She sat at her desk and hit the speed dial for Adrian’s home office, her mind turning to thoughts of her leader and the trials he was presently facing, many of which came because of his forbidden love for a once-mortal woman named Lindsay. It was an affection that Siobhán—and every other Sentinel—couldn’t relate to; they all remained as emotionless as they’d been created to be. Only Adrian had been changed enough by his time on earth to grow a heart.
    “Mitchell,” Adrian greeted her on the fourth ring.
    “Captain. Siobhán here.” Adrian had tasked her with studying the disease ravaging the vampire ranks and she’d been working ceaselessly on that assignment for weeks.
    She was the one who’d inadvertently discovered that Sentinel blood cured the illness. Considering the tens of thousands of vampires in North America alone and the less than two hundred Sentinels left in existence, it was information they couldn’t afford to have the vampires discover before an alternate cure was found. When panic about the disease spread faster than the disease itself—which would definitely happen, it was only a matter of time—Sentinels could be hunted to extinction for their healing blood.
    “How are you progressing?” he asked.
    “Slowly but surely. I’ve got a dozen infected in stasis now. We can keep them alive with steady blood transfusions, but they have to stay anesthetized or they’re impossible to control.” She didn’t have to elaborate; Adrian knew how mindlessly violent they were. When he’d come to visit her here in the lab, he had seen them in action firsthand.
    “How quickly do they lose higher brain function?”
    She was intrigued by the question. “How far do you want me to go to find out? They’re already infected by the time I get them. If you want a play-by-play of what happens from exposure to illness, I’ll need to deliberately infect healthy subjects.”
    “Do it. Our blood is a cure, so we can reverse the damage.”
    It was a