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“They’ll think I’m crazy if I start feeling the air around someone in the hospital. Besides, I was sensing the differences with a part of my brain separate from the clinical observational part of my mind. I don’t think I can use that at work.”

“Probably not, and that’s okay,” Dev told her. “The hospital has all kinds of equipment to see into the body. Before all that equipment, though, this was a valuable part of a healer’s abilities.”

“So when people say they clear out someone’s aura, can that help the physical body?”

“Sometimes,” Dev told her, “but that isn’t the focus today. We need you to understand that the way you’re feeling now isn’t a physical issue. It’s your energy field, your power, your aura. There are lots of ways to think of it, lots of words and definitions. Whatever works for you, we’ll use.”

Dev looked at Elijah, seemed to get an idea, and looked back to Genie. “Remember how when you were learning to drive, there was so much to keep track of? Keeping the car on the road,watching for other cars, and then handling turns at a million kinds of intersections and remembering all the rules for each. At first, just driving without the other cars was more than you could handle. Eventually, you had to add cars into the mix on back roads, and you ultimately had to drive on the interstate, which was terrifying at first, right?”

Genie swallowed the bite of biscuit and jelly in her mouth. “You would’ve learned to drive before the interstate, before traffic.”

“I’m not talking about me; I’m talking about you. I’ve taught people to drive. I know how it works.”

“Okay, yeah. When I first started, a twenty-minute drive left me an emotional wreck. It’s nothing now.”

“Exactly, and when the twins and I were hit with the same energy as you, we’re experienced drivers and we understood how to incorporate it into our own energy field and keep the effects of it from fucking us over. You’ve never had to experience it before, and it’s throwing you for a loop. I promise you, it’s something you can handle. Please trust us to help you with it. That means believing us when we tell you something. In this case, Ezra found a way to prove it to you, but I’m not certain we have time to stop and find a way to prove every little thing.”

Chapter Eighteen

Dev loved running on his property. He’d watched the tigers, gazelles, deer, and wolves run in their animal forms, but his snake didn’t have the same feel when it moved. In human form, though, he felt alive when he ran in a way he rarely did, other than during sex. He was in the lead, Genie just behind him, and the twins following her, all of them zooming over the trails his feet knew so well. The crisp December afternoon was rich with the scents of the trees around them, the earth beneath their feet, the water forty yards to their left, and the clear sky above them.

Brooke let Dev see what she was sensing of Genie’s energy field while the foursome ran. It was a chilly winter day, the seventh of December, but forty-five degrees was perfect for a long run.

The boys had been given limited trips outside since they’d arrived, and Brooke telepathed Dev to tell him they were going to have to send them on runs through the forest path more often. Dev agreed they needed more time outdoors, but the twenty-five foot tall stone-and-concrete walls wouldn’t hold a mountain lion determined to escape. This meant Dev would need to hold onto their willpower if Brooke was down for the day so she couldn’t monitor their minds to make certain they didn’t mount an escape attempt, as she was doing now. It was less intrusive for Brooke to handle it.

Their little owl held up fine the first three miles, but she began to flag near the end of the fourth mile. Brooke decreed they’d need at least seven miles, possibly ten before they had her where they needed her. She was in much better physical shapethan most avian shapeshifters who onlychangedoccasionally, and who rarely flew, so it was going to take more miles to properly drain her energy.

It’s because she’s a nurse,Brooke told him sometime in their sixth mile.She spends twelve hours a night constantly moving, with only brief periods sitting down to handle computer entry. Most computer entry is done standing in the patients’ rooms. Did you know this?

I did not,he told her. It looked like he needed to spy on a hospital to see exactly what nurses did in this day and age.

Technology has made it so ninety percent of the time is caring for patients and less than ten percent of the time is documentation. It means the nurses do a lot more of the work they were trained for. She can handle as many as nine patients with critical status at the same time, running from room to room as needed. She’s an RN and at the top of the nursing ladder, so there are lesser nurses who handle the more basic needs like fetching water and changing the linens, and checking temperature and blood pressure on a schedule, but she’s kept nearly constantly moving with medical issues.

Brooke paused a few seconds and added,She cares for her patients as people. She spends time listening to them and getting to know them a little, when she doesn’t have other patients in dire need of her assistance. She understands she’s seeing them on their worst days, and always tries to assume they are better when they aren’t feeling so bad.

Dev knew that sometimes it was easy for Brooke to see the worst in humanity, and he sensed that she’d just gained a fascination for their owl that might completely change how the child-who-is-not-a-child vampire viewed Genie.

How are the twins holding up?He asked her.

Their physical conditioning was guaranteed when I purchased them, and we’ve kept up their exercise. The indoorrunning track and the treadmills have done the job, but we need to figure out a safe way for them to exercise out of doors, even if it means we put them in a cage outside with treadmills when they can’t be monitored to run the paths. They need the fresh air. They are more cat than human, Devansh.

I know, and caged outdoors while running on a treadmill will only frustrate them. I hate to use the shock collars, because we want them to view themselves as humans on their way to freedom. How about using the location bracelets so we’ll know if they get within twenty yards of the walls, and then giving them a path to run that keeps them closer to the center?

That would only work if they could wear a location bracelet on one arm, and a charmed bracelet to keep them fromchangingon the other. Also, you wanted to begin giving them more time with those off to see how they do.

Right, because — as Brooke had pointed out — they are more cat than human, and blocking them from their cats wasn’t healthy for them. The cats needed the fresh air too, possibly more than the human portion of them. They were on their honor not to shift while running today, and with Brooke in their heads, she could knock them unconscious when they started thinking of it, or soon after thechangewas complete — before they had time to climb a tree and then leap over the top of the wall to another tree.

What if we bring Clive to run with them?Dev asked.They seemed pretty wary of him.

As long as I’m up for the day, that could work. He could telepath me if he loses control of them, which isn’t likely, but they’re smart so I won’t rule it out. Once he telepaths me, I can take control of them, so I wouldn’t need to monitor them so closely.

They both knew the problem with that — Clive worked hard to keep in control of himself. Asking him to oversee the twinswas a risk, but Dev thought the giant honey badger was up to the challenge, and he thought the responsibility might be good for him. Once upon a time, Dev’s control had been so shaky it was all he could do to control his snake, and now his primary job was training others to control their out-of-control other natures.

* * * *

Genie thought she might die by the time Brooke told her she had another half mile and then the steps leading downstairs to the meditation room. Her legs were shaky, her lungs burned, and her heart beat at what had to be its maximum.

And yet she felt alive in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. The energy overburn, which was what she’d decided to call it, was no longer hurting her. The run had eaten it up, maybe.