When they broke apart, Rubes was kind enough to take them to the unit’s staff meeting room so that they could have a little privacy. And once they’d settled in at a circular table, Rubes had left them to go back to watch over Silas—something Ivie was grateful for. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the other nurses to come find her…it was that she didn’t trust anyone as much as she did her own blood.

“How much longer he got?” Hirah asked.

“Not much longer.” She rubbed her face. “The end has come so fast. I mean, I want his suffering to be over, but at the same time, I wish there were more nights ahead of us.”

“He seemed like a good guy.”

“He was—is,” she corrected herself. “He is a great guy.”

“Your mahmen wanted to come, but she was too choked up.”

“I’d rather her not see me cry. I’m also not too crazy that you had to.”

“You know, Ivie, I’m so proud of you.” As Hirah got hoarse, he reached for her hand. “You’re such a female of worth. And the fact that you’re not running from him? From this? When Rubes first called me, I was sad for you. But my next thought, as she told me you were staying by his side? My next thought was that’s my daughter. That’s the female I raised. You and I are alike, we always have been—hell, with the way you are right now? I think you’re stronger than me, actually.”

“No one’s stronger than you, Daddy.”

He squeezed her palm. “Look in the mirror, Ivie.”

When her dad left about forty-five minutes later, Ivie reflected that the visit was probably the nicest thing he’d ever done for her. He was not the kind of male who was comfortable in “fancy” surroundings, and God knew he hated medical anything with a passion.

Hell, he’d been known to set his own bones from time to time just to avoid going anywhere near the clinic.

Yet for her, he had overridden all of that and come here.

Sometimes just showing up in person meant everything.

And as Hirah took his leave, it wasn’t because dawn was coming, although it was, but rather because he seemed to sense that her being away from Silas was difficult.

After Ivie walked him out to one of the elevators and sent him on his way, she decided that when Silas finally passed, she would go to her parents’ and stay a couple of days. The idea of being alone in her apartment was enough to make her crazy in the hypothetical alone.

Ivie hurried back for the VIP unit, and then once again, took the family corridor instead of the back staff way into Silas’s room because it was more direct.

As she pushed the door wide, she stopped short.

Havers was in the sitting room, the race’s doctor seated on the silk sofa, his legs crossed knee on knee, his tortoiseshell glasses off as he rubbed his eyes.

He put his spectacles on as soon as her presence registered and got to his feet.

Ivie’s heart began to pound. As much as she knew they had reached the final corner, she didn’t want to hear the truth she knew in her heart. She didn’t want to know that it was time for life support to be removed. She couldn’t bear the thought that…

…the goodbye was here.

“I have an idea,” the healer said. “It’s radical and has never been tried before. But I have something that might work for him.”

Chapter Fifteen

“I’m sorry—I’m—what? I’m sorry?”

Ivie was stuttering, but that was what happened when your boss suggested he might possibly have a way out of hell for you. As well as a flashlight for the trail, some protein bars, and a CamelBak full of fresh water.

Or something like that.

“Well, I have often wondered whether a disease such as this might not respond to a bone marrow transplant. As you know, vampire immune systems are unique to us, and though there are some parallels with that of humans, they are far from identical. Our systems are far hardier, which is why we do not get cancer, but that is precisely the problem in a patient such as your mate. If we suppress immunity too much, it rebounds into even greater aggression, creating further difficulties—yet if we just let it go, it destroys his organs anyway.”

Ivie was struggling to keep up with the words, even though none of them were unfamiliar. “So what are you suggesting?”

“What if we could reboot his immunity with something evolutionarily inferior, but medically and biologically preferable.”

“I’m not following?”

“He is an aristocrat. From a Founding Family. As a result of inbreeding among the glymera, his immune system has, in effect, been compromised by a limited gene pool which allowed a recessive mutation to become a dominant one, resulting in the Crane’s defect he suffers from. What if we found a civilian donor, one of socially lesser breeding who was, for that very reason, far more hardy and healthy? We would need to find one who was a blood match and it must be a male, but it is possible that an infusion of new marrow will cause his immune system to restart and better regulate, in effect.”

Ivie looked around. “Forgive me, I must sit down—”

“Here, come here.”

She felt her elbow get taken in a strong grip and then she was escorted over to the sofa he had been on.

Good timing. The cushions came under her just as her knees went out.

“Have you ever tried a bone marrow transplant before?” she asked.

“No, I have not. This is highly theoretical. And it goes without saying, if it doesn’t cure him, it most certainly will kill him. He could die from the high-dose chemotherapy that will be required to kill his own cells. He could reject the transplant. He could have a reaction to the anti-rejection medications. The transplant itself could fail to address the immunity issues. His organs could be too far gone to regenerate themselves. Or there could be infection or one of any number of catastrophic events.”

“But it is worth trying?” she said.

Havers eased himself down beside her. Taking her hand, he looked her right in the eye. “If it were me, and I had someone like you waiting for me on the far side of an illness? I would try it. I would try it a hundred times over. It’s his only chance to be with you.”

* * *

—

It was a mobilization of staff and resources the likes of which Ivie had never seen.

Within one hour of the decision being made, and thanks to the efforts of the staff to call in their grandfathers, fathers, uncles, brothers and cousins, hundreds of male vampires showed up at the clinic, forming lines for blood samples. There was no waiting around for results, though. Because it was so close to dawn, the donors came in, were assigned numbers, and quickly had blood drawn before racing off so that they were not stuck during the day because of the sunrise.

Meanwhile, Ivie stayed at Silas’s bedside, getting updates not just from Rubes, but the other nurses.

The match required for the transplant went far beyond that of type. There had to be three other vital identicals, and Silas’s own blood provided the necessary markers.

“Stay with me,” she whispered as she smoothed Silas’s hair back. “We need more time. Listen to my voice…stay with me…”

As the ventilator pumped fresh oxygen into his lungs, his chest jerked up and down, a tire inflating and deflating in an unnatural way. And to that drumbeat, the monitoring machines added a chorus of different beeping and winking.

She hated all of it. Compared to the stillness and silence of him, everything else in the hospital room seemed loud and glaring. She just wanted it to be all turned off so he might hear her through the coma, but there was no doing that.

From time to time, she glanced at the ornate clock across the way.

Hours were slipping away.

Daylight was here.

What if they didn’t find a match? What if he died before they located someone who could help him?

And hell, even if they did find somebody, then she had to worry about all the complications and the failure of the—

“Stop it,” she told herself. “One step at a time.”

She checked the clock again. Even though that was stupid. God, when was the last time she had had anything to drink or eat? It didn’t seem to matter. Her body wasn’t hungry or calling out for water. It was as if she were in a stasis, just as he was.