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Dev met Genie’s gaze, and she was already sliding back into her dress. Supernatural hearing means everyone hears the conversation if you don’t use an earbud.

“Two minutes to get dressed and get there,” he told Remy. “Get someone to open the doors so I don’t have to fuck with them. I’m bringing a nurse. Keep him alive, Remy.”

“I don’t know if you can help or not,” he told Genie while he pulled sweatpants over his still-wet legs. She was already dressed, and neither of them bothered with shoes. She ran alongside him down the hallway. “I bit the twins. Or rather, my snake did. I’ll explain why later, but there was a good reason.Bottom line — it takes three to seven days for most shapeshifters to recover from my venom, and it can be fatal if they shift before it’s completely out of their system.”

He opened the door to the stairwell. It was faster than the elevator, and it was only one floor down. She kept up with him on the steps, which was impressive. “As long as healthy shapeshifters stay in human form, they’re almost always fine. Their animals can’t handle it, though. I don’t know why, they just can’t. We have charmed bracelets that keep shapeshifters fromchanging, but…” he shook his head. The circumstance of their birth wasn’t his secret to tell.

“My venom works on the nervous system. We have antivenom for those who immediately get into trouble, but once they flatline…” It was rare they could bring someone back from the effects of his venom once their heart stopped, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. “The infirmary is stocked slightly better than an ambulance. Claire, the vampire working on him, has EMT training, plus some extra skills taught by a vampire-friendly doctor. You can’t take a human with an artery torn open by an out-of-control vampire to an ER, so we’ve learned to handle that kind of medical emergency on our own.”

They went through doors that were held open for them, then another sixty-yard dash, another set of doors already opened, and they were in the infirmary.

Genie stopped, looked around, took a few seconds to watch Claire, who had the central line almost ready, and stepped to the vampire’s left. “I can finish faster. I’m an RN with years of emergency room and surgical experience.”

Claire moved her fingers enough so Genie could grasp the IV catheter, and her fingers flew to finish the job.

“I need the antivenom,” Genie told the room. “Also, do you have atropine? Adrenaline? If so, get me what you have, and someone stand by with the pads so we can shock him.”

Dev watched the little owl who’d been so submissive fifteen minutes earlier. Now, she ordered the bear shifter and vampire closest to her around without a second thought. She knew what needed to be done and she gave succinct orders. Less than a minute later, she’d administered the three drugs through the central line going into Elijah’s chest wall, flushed it, locked the tubing, and motioned for Remy to use the defib pads. He saw her look all around Elijah first though, to make certain no one was touching him, and she called out “Clear!” before Remy engaged them.

The pads did their job, the heart monitor showed activity, stopped, and then started again.

Dev breathed out in relief, and then watched as Genie lifted the dressing off the front of Elijah’s thigh to show the huge fang marks from the bite. His head had been so large, the two fangs had sunk into the meat of his thigh a good sixteen inches apart, and the wounds were bigger around than quarters.

“Bites from other shifters take longer to heal than other wounds,” she noted as she gently smoothed the wound coverings back around the gaping holes.

“I can control my size, to an extent,” Dev told her. “Biting two people means I need more venom, and that’s easier if I’m bigger. I usually have a slightly smaller head when I need to bind someone to me. Brooke felt it important they both went through it together, and I agreed.” Plus, he’d wanted to be larger just to scare the fuck out of them. In the supernatural world, making someone afraid of you could set the hierarchy he so badly needed the boys to feel. They needed to see him as dominant to them if he was going to help them.

Genie turned to Claire and said, “I’m Genie. Would it be possible to borrow your stethoscope? Or is there a spare one somewhere?”

“I’m Claire. It’s nice to meet you,” she said as she took the stethoscope off.

Genie put it on, listened to Elijah’s heartbeat from the front, reached for a pen-flashlight on a tray, lifted Elijah’s right eyelid and shined the light, and Elijah moaned.

“Fuck. Damn. Shit. Fuck.” The boy’s voice was breathy and barely there, and more whiny than anything Dev had ever heard from an adult big-cat shifter, but Dev stepped to the side of the bed and grasped his hand.

“You’re safe. You’re okay. Let the little owl check you over.”

“She’s seen me naked, now I get to see her naked.”

Elijah had gone partway to cat and come back, and was indeed naked on the table.

“In your dreams, catboy,” Genie said. “Can you tell me where you are?”

“Alabama. Brooke. Dev. Coterie.”

“What’s twelve plus twelve?”

“What the fuck?” He’d gotten a little louder for that, but went back to speaking barely above a whisper to finish. “Two dozen. I’m not doing fuckin’ math.”

She shot him a bird, “How many fingers?”

He’d closed his eyes, but he opened them to look.

“One.” Elijah smiled and Dev approved. His little owl had a good bedside manner, keeping things lighthearted.

Genie had him roll to his side a little, and she listened to his heart from the back before settling him back and then finding a blanket and covering him to his waist.

“The bracelet was supposed to keep you fromchangingto cat,” Dev noted.