Midnight Awakening (Midnight Breed 3)

Just our normal protocol for making certain our patients are comfortable at all times.

You weren't able to talk to him at all? Elise asked, ignoring Kuhn's bluster to focus on Tegan.

A minute after I got in there, he was barely conscious. We've got shit so far.

Then we'll come back tomorrow. Elise turned to the facility head. I'm sure Director Kuhn can see to it that he's more lucid when we return. Won't you, Director?

To reduce a patient's medication is an enormous risk. We won't be responsible for any harm that comes to either of you if that is your request.

Elise glanced to Tegan, who gave her a nod of agreement. That's fine. Expect us tomorrow evening at this time, and have Petrov Odolf awake and clearheaded when we arrive.>Tegan ignored the gaping of the clinic employees he passed. He vaguely registered the hasty scrambling of civilian feet all around him-- both the ones getting the hell out of his way and those few daring souls who came out from behind their monitoring stations or meeting-room doors to have a look at the dark, dangerous stranger stalking through their midst.

The facility director led Tegan and Elise deeper into the place, through one after another set of secured doors. Finally, they turned down a long concrete hallway and stopped in front of a heavy steel door marked Treatment Center. The director punched a code into a wall-mounted keypad, then put his face in front of a scanner and waited as a light took a quick read of his retinas. This way, he said, sniffing almost imperceptibly down the length of his nose as he held the door open for Elise and Tegan to enter yet another hallway.

The space inside was dimly lit and quiet except for intermittent moans and feral-sounding growls not quite masked by the soft classical music piped in through overhead speakers. Closed doors lined either side of the hallway, some with small windows that looked in over the room's occupant. A few of the rooms were empty, but others held Rogues in various stages of consciousness, all of them strapped into full body restraints. Heavy steel bars equipped with electronic locks held the doors closed, sealing the patients inside their rooms.

Tegan glanced into one of the windows as he passed, taking in the pathetic sight of a drooling, blood-addicted Breed vampire, its limp body stuffed into a soiled white jumpsuit, head shaved bald and still sporting tiny contact pads from a recent bout of electroshock therapy. The Rogue's fiery amber eyes were at half-mast, rolled back into its skull from whatever sedative it had been given.

So, this is the Darkhavens' version of Betty Ford, eh? Tegan gave a humorless chuckle. And you people have the balls to say the Order has no mercy.

Elise shot him a quelling look, but Kuhn ignored the jab completely. He walked them toward the last of the holding cells, pausing to enter an access code. As the admittance light blinked green above the door, the director said, Since the feeding is still under way, we will have to wait in the observation room until they finish. It should only be another few minutes.

Tegan followed Elise inside the vestibule, and was there to hold her steady as she physically recoiled the instant she got her first glimpse of the procedure taking place on the other side of the shaded one-way glass.

Good Lord, she gasped, one hand coming up to her mouth.

In the adjacent room, the Rogue named Petrov Odolf was strapped down on a custom- rigged examination table like a specimen under a scope. He was naked except for the multiple sets of thick metal clamps that held him at each limb, around the torso and neck, and across the width of his brow. His shaved head was wrapped in a leather-and-wire-mesh mask that held his jaw and massive fangs stationary for the tube that was running fresh blood into his mouth from the Host who had the unpleasant task of feeding him. The Rogue had pissed himself at some point during the procedure, leaving a puddle of urine beneath the table that only added to the degradation of the whole thing.

And then there was the woman.

Tegan exhaled a ripe curse as his gaze followed the blood-filled tube running from the Rogue's mouth to the inner forearm of a young woman lying on another exam table a few feet away from him. Garbed in a white clinic jumpsuit without sleeves, she lay very still on her back, calmly in fact, but her freckled cheeks were stained with tears.

You sent a female in there with that beast?

She's his Breedmate, Kuhn replied. They'd been together for many years before he succumbed to Bloodlust and turned Rogue. She's been coming in every week to feed him, and to take her own nourishment from him as well. She must keep her own health and longevity in order to continue to care for him. Truly, he's lucky to have her devotion. Most of our other patients have no Breedmate to look after them, so they must be fed from human donors.

Elise inched closer to the glass now, obviously as transfixed by what she was seeing as she was repulsed. How do you find those other donors, Director Kuhn?

He shrugged when she glanced back at him over her shoulder. We never have to look far. University students willing to join medical studies for a little money, prostitutes, the homeless...drug addicts, if we're desperate.

Well, shit, Tegan drawled, full of sarcasm. This is a real class operation you got here.

No harm done to anyone, generally speaking, Kuhn said with an annoyed smile. The procedures are very closely monitored and none of our recruited Hosts maintain a single memory afterward. We simply return them to their lives with a little cash in their pocket that they wouldn't have had otherwise. A little time spent here is the best thing to happen to some of the unfortunates we collect as donors.

Tegan was ready to spit a cutting remark at the pompous Darkhaven male, but it had been less than twenty-four hours since he himself had been hunting for blood on Berlin's darkened streets. He'd killed, even though he could justify it with the knowledge that there was one less human criminal around to violate a defenseless woman. But that didn't make him a saint by any stretch. At heart, all of the Breed were self-serving, ruthless predators. Some just attempted to hide the fact behind sterile white walls and a fleet of clinical equipment.

There now, the facility director announced when a small beep sounded on the console near the viewing window. The feeding procedure is complete. As soon as the patient is alone and resting, we can go in.

They waited as Odolf was disconnected from his feeding tube. The vampire fought the removal, his insatiable blood addiction making him snap and growl behind the wire-mesh face mask as the attendants cut off his supply. He struggled against his body restraints, but the effort was sluggish and ineffective, no doubt from the sedatives Kuhn had mentioned earlier.

The Rogue's dermaglyphs were still seething from deep purples to red to black, the colors of ferocious hunger traveling along the pattern of markings that ran up his bare chest and over his shoulders.

His huge fangs flashed bone white with his sudden roar of protest. His pupils were fixed into vertical slits, the irises throwing off a blast of amber light every time he tried to raise his big head up off the table. Even though he was drugged, the taste of blood had inflamed him to the point of madness--as it did all Rogues.

Tegan ought to know. He'd lived a similar thirsting, angry as hell himself. He hadn't progressed as far Rogue as this male, thankfully, but he'd come damn close. Seeing this blood- addicted male up close was a strong reminder of what those dark months Tegan had fought to shake off his own weakness had been like.

As Petrov Odolf rattled his bonds in futility, his Breedmate got up off the table beside him and cautiously approached where he lay. She kept her hands at her sides, even though it was clear from the anguish in her eyes that she longed to touch her mate. She said something too quiet to be heard over the cell's audio monitors, then she turned away and walked toward the door of the observation room, wiping tears from her freckled cheeks. Kuhn opened the door for her, and she seemed startled to see that she'd had an audience. Her face flamed red, and her downcast gaze said it was in shame. Pardon me, she murmured, trying to make a beeline for the outside hallway.

Are you all right? Elise asked gently.