“I don’t know, Blake, maybe you’re just projecting things on him. But I don’t see it with Oliver. He’s just trying to find his way. Give him a chance. Don’t suffocate him. Nothing good will come of it.”

“You didn’t see him tonight. He wasn’t himself. He was like a wild animal, ready to rip my throat out.”

Cain lifted an eyebrow. Blake was probably exaggerating a bit. The human certainly had that tendency. “I’ve gotta go and do my job. I’ll be late for my patrol.”

“You don’t believe me? Listen, Cain, what if Oliver flips and does something stupid? And what if you and I had the power to prevent it, but we didn’t? How would you feel then?”

Cain sighed. He hated it when somebody tried to appeal to his conscience. He knew he had one, but for some reason it felt like an old unused muscle that had difficulty reacting. As if he had put that particular part of himself on ice for way too long. Almost as if he hadn’t been allowed to have a conscience in his former life. But now, it reared its ugly head.

“Fine, we’ll go look for him.”

But he didn’t have much hope of finding Oliver. A vampire who didn’t want to be found was as good as invisible.

6

Oliver yanked the entrance door open before Maya had even reached the top of the stairs that lead up to it. Wearing a white doctor’s coat over her jeans and T-shirt and carrying a small black bag, she rushed inside, barely glancing at him. Surprised at her outfit, he let his eyes wander over her. Maybe this was exactly what Maya wore when she performed her medical duties. Not that he would know. He’d never visited the little medical office she ran from the basement of her home.

“Where?”

He motioned to the living room. “In there.”

Oliver followed her as she walked inside. When she reached the sofa and dropped down next to the girl, Maya turned her head to him.

“A girl? Figures! What did you do this time?”

She didn’t wait for an answer and opened her bag, pulling out her blood pressure kit.

“I didn’t do anything to her. She was like that when I found her.” Well, not exactly. She had been conscious at first.

She tossed him a scolding look as she wrapped the sleeve of the blood pressure kit around the girl’s upper arm and pumped air into it. “Don’t lie to me. I’m not blind.”

Maya pointed to the girl’s neck where two puncture wounds were still clearly visible. Blood had crusted over them after he’d put pressure on them earlier.

“I didn’t do that!” He huffed angrily. “You don’t think I did that, do you?”

Her eyes narrowed before she turned back to her patient and placed the stethoscope at the bend of her elbow. “I don’t want to hear any of it now. Not in front of her. You and I will talk afterwards.”

“But I didn’t—”

“Another word out of you now and I’ll call Gabriel and have him deal with you. You want that?”

Shit! Not only did Maya not believe him, she was going to rat him out to Gabriel—for something he hadn’t even done! But he knew better than to argue with her now. He needed her to stabilize the girl. And once she was awake, she could confirm his story and tell Maya that she’d been running from another vampire, not from him.

“I thought Gabriel was in New York.”

“He is, but it won’t take long for him to come back.”

Oliver clamped his jaw together. “When she wakes up, she’ll tell you it wasn’t me.”

“If she wakes up.” Maya removed the stethoscope from her ears and unwrapped the blood pressure device. “Her blood pressure is dangerously low. What did you do to her? Drain her?”

Had the other vampire taken too much of her blood? “What if somebody took too much blood? What would you do?”

Maya glared at him, clearly not liking the way he’d framed his question. But he’d be damned if he admitted something he hadn’t done.

“Maya, damn it, what would you do?”

“A blood transfusion. What’s her blood type?”

Oliver shrugged. “How should I know?”

“After two months you still can’t tell what a human’s blood type is after feeding from one?”

“I didn’t . . . ” Feed from her, he wanted to say, but thought of it otherwise. Maya wouldn’t believe him anyway. “I couldn’t tell.”

“Fine. Then we’ll have to give her O-Neg. Every human, no matter the blood type, tolerates it. Is there any left in the pantry?”