by J. R. Ward
“It’s killing him—”
“There’s too much risk—”
“How the hell is he going to operate like this?”
There was a long silence. And then all of a sudden, the pain lifted as if it were a veil drawn back, all that pressure gone within the blink of an eye. In its place, memories flooded his mind.
Jane’s patient. From back at St. Francis. The man with the goatee and . . . the six-chambered heart. Who had shown up in Manny’s office and taken the files on that cardiac anomaly of his.
Manny popped open his lids and lasered in on that nasty-looking face. “I know you.”
“You get him out of the car,” was the only response from Goatee. “I don’t trust myself to touch him.”
Hell of a welcome wagon.
And there was someone else behind the big bastard. A man Manny was one hundred percent sure he’d seen before . . . Must have been only in passing, though, because he couldn’t call up a name or remember where they’d met.
“Let’s go,” Jane said.
Yeah. Great idea. At this point, he needed something to focus on other than all this say-what?.
As Manny’s brain struggled to process what was happening, at least his feet and legs got with the program. After Jane helped him out of the car and onto the vertical, he followed her and the Goateed Hater into a facility that was as nondescript and clean as any hospital: Corridors were uncluttered, fluorescent lights were in panels on the ceiling, everything smelled like Lysol.
And there were also the bubbled fixtures of security cameras at regular intervals, like the building was a monster with many eyes.
While they walked along, he knew better than to ask any questions. Well, that and his head was so scrambled, he was pretty fucking sure ambulation was the extent of his capabilities at this point. And then there was Goatee and his death stare—not exactly an opening for chitchat.
Doors. They passed many doors. All of which were closed and no doubt locked.
Happy little words like undisclosed location and national security hopscotched through his cranial park, and that helped a lot, making him think maybe he could forgive Jane for ghosting out on him—eventually.
When she stopped outside a pair of double flappers, her hands fidgeted with the lapels of her white coat and then the stethoscope in her pocket. And didn’t that make him feel like he had a gun to his head: In the OR, in countless trauma messes, she’d always kept her cool. It was her trademark.
This was personal, though, he thought. Somehow, whatever was on the other side of these doors hit close to home for her.
“I’ve got good equipment here,” she said, “but not everything. No MRI. Just CAT scans and X-rays. The OR should be adequate, however, and not only can I assist, but I’ve got an excellent nurse.”
Manny took a breath and reached down deep, pulling himself together. By force of will, he shut off all the questions and the lingering ow-ow-ow in his head and the strangeness of this descent into 007-land.
First thing on his to-do list? Ditch the pissed-off peanut gallery.
He glanced over his shoulder at Goatee. “You need to back off, my man. I want you out in the hall.”
The response he got in return was . . . just fang-tastic: The bastard bared a pair of canines as long as his arm and growled, natch, like a dog.
“Fine,” Jane said, getting in between them. “That’s fine. Vishous will wait out here.”
Vishous? Had he heard that right?
Then again, this boy’s baby mama sure hit the nail on the head, considering that little dental show. But whatever. Manny had a job to do, and maybe the bastard could go chew on a rawhide or something.
Pushing into the examination room, he—
Oh . . . dear God.
Oh . . . Lord above.
The patient on the table was lying still as water and . . . she was probably the most beautiful anything he’d ever seen: Hair was jet-black and braided into a thick rope that hung free next to her head. Skin was a golden brown, as if she were of Italian descent and had recently been in the sun. Eyes . . . her eyes were like diamonds, both colorless and brilliant, with nothing but a dark rim around the iris.
“Manny?”
Jane’s voice was right behind him, but he felt as if she were miles away. In fact, the whole world was somewhere else, nothing existing except for the stare of his patient as she looked up at him from out of her immobilized head.
It finally happened, he thought as he burrowed under his shirt and took hold of his heavy cross. All his life he’d wondered why he’d never fallen in love, and now he knew: He’d been waiting for this moment, this woman, this time.
The female is mine, he thought.
And even though that made no sense at all, the conviction was so strong, he couldn’t question it.
“Are you the healer?” she said in a low voice that stopped his heart. “Are you . . . here for me?”
Her words were heavily accented, gorgeously so, and also a little surprised.
“Yeah. I am.” He wrenched off his suit’s coat and threw it into a corner, not giving a shit where the thing landed. “I’m here for you.”
As he approached, her stunning icy eyes slicked with tears. “My legs . . . they feel as though they are moving, but I suspect they do not.”
“Do they hurt?”
“Yes.”
Phantom pain. Not a surprise.
Manny stopped by her side and glanced at her body, which was covered with a sheet. She was tall. Had to be at least six feet. And she was built with sleek power.
This was a soldier, he thought, measuring the strength in her bare upper arms. This was a fighter.
And, God, the loss of mobility in someone like her took his breath away. Even if you were a couch potato, life in a wheelchair was a bitch and a half, but to somebody like this, it would be a death sentence.
Manny reached out and gathered her hand into his own—and the instant he made contact, his whole body went wakey-wakey on him, as if she were the socket to his inner plug.
“I’m going to take care of you,” he said as he looked her right in the eye. “I want you to trust me.”
She swallowed hard as one crystal tear slipped out to trail down her temple. On instinct, he reached forward and caught it on his fingertip—
The growl that percolated up from the doorway was the countdown to an ass-kicking if he’d ever heard it. Except as he glanced over at Goatee, he felt like snarling right back at the son of a bitch. Which, yet again, made no sense.
Still holding his patient’s hand, he barked at Jane, “Get that miserable bastard out of my operating room. And I want to see the goddamn scans and X-rays. Now.”
He was going to save this woman even if it killed him.
And as Goatee’s eyes flashed with pure hatred, Manny thought, Well, shit, it might just come down to that. . . .
SIX
Qhuinn was out alone in Caldwell.
For the first time in his frickin’ life.
Which, when he thought about it, was nearly a statistical impossibility. He’d spent so many nights fighting and drinking and having sex in and around the clubs downtown that surely one or two had to have been solo flights. But nope. As he walked into the Iron Mask, he was without his two wingmen for the very first time.
Things were different now, however. Times had changed. People, too.
John Matthew was now happily mated, so when he had a shift off, like this evening, he was staying home with his shellan, Xhex, and giving their bed one hell of a workout. And yeah, sure, Qhuinn was the guy’s ahstrux nohtrum and all, but Xhex was a symphath assassin more than capable of watching out for her male, and the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s compound was a fortress not even a SWAT team could break into. So he and John had come to an agreement—and kept it quiet.
And as for Blay . . .
Qhuinn wasn’t going to think about his best friend. Nope. Not at all.
Scanning the inside of the club, he put h
is fuck filter on and began weeding through the women and the men and the couples. There was one and only one reason he’d come here, and it was the same for the other Goths in the place.
This was not for a relationship. This was not even for companionship. This was all about the in and out, and when that was over, it would be a case of, Thank you, ma’am—or sir, depending on his mood—I’m ghost. Because he was going to need someone else. Or someones else.
No way this was going to be a one-shot deal tonight. He felt like peeling his own skin off, his body all but chattering from the need to release. Man, he’d always liked the fucking, but in the last couple of days, his libido had gone Godzilla on him—
Was Blay even his best friend anymore?
Qhuinn paused and briefly looked for a plate-glass window to put his head through: For fuck’s sake, he wasn’t five years old. Grown males didn’t have best friends. Didn’t need them.
Especially if said male was banging someone else. All day long. Every single day.
Qhuinn marched over to the bar. “Herradura. Double. And make it the Selección Suprema.”
The woman’s eyes heated up behind her heavy liner and fake lashes. “You starting a tab?”
“Yeah.” And going by the way she ran her hand down her tight stomach and over her hip, clearly he could have ordered a shot of her as well.
When he held out his black AmEx, she breast-iculated wildly to accept the damn thing, bending over so far she might as well have been trying to pick a swizzle stick off the floor with her nipples.
“I’ll be right back with your drink.”
What a surprise. “Great.”
As she hipped her way off, she was so wasting her time: not at all what he was looking for tonight—not even close. Wrong sex, for one thing. And he wasn’t going for anything dark haired. Matter of fact, he couldn’t believe what he wanted.
Being color-blind had its limitations, but when you only wore black and worked at night, it wasn’t a big deal most of the time. Besides, his mismatched eyes were so acute and sensitive to variants of gray that he actually perceived “colors”—it was all about the gradient. For example, he knew who the blondes in the club were. Knew the difference between the brunettes and the black-hairs. And yeah, he might misread it if one of the fidiots had gotten a whacked-out dye job, but even then, he could usually tell something was up because the skin tone never looked right.
“Here you go,” the bartender said.
Qhuinn reached over, picked up the shot glass, downed the tequila, and put the empty back on the bar. “Let’s try that a couple more times.”
“Right away.” She flashed her double-Ds again, no doubt hoping he’d do a grab. “You’re my number one customer. ’Cuz clearly you can handle the juice.”
Uh-huh. Right. Like the ability to gullet up four ounces of liquor on a oner was a BFD. God, the idea someone with that value system was allowed to vote made him want to look for that sheet of glass again.
Humans were pathetic.
Although, as he turned back to look at the crowd, he thought maybe dialing down the attitude might be a good call. He was pretty fucking pathetic himself tonight. Especially as he caught sight of two men off in a corner, the pair of them separated only by the leathers they were wearing. Naturally, one was blond. Just like his cousin was. So naturally, hypotheticals of Blay with Saxton played through his inner polo field, marking up his proverbial grass with hoofprints and horseshit.
Except they weren’t hypotheticals, were they: At the end of every night, as the table at the Brotherhood’s mansion broke up after Last Meal and people went off to do their thing, Blay and Saxton always discreetly headed for the grand staircase and disappeared down the upstairs hall to their bedrooms.
They never held hands. Never kissed in front of anyone. And there were no covert hot glances, either. But then again, Blay was a gentleman. And Saxton the Classy Slut put on a good show.
His cousin was a straight-up whore—
No, he is not, a small voice pointed out. You just hate him because he’s balling your boy.
“He is not my boy.”
“What did you say?”
Qhuinn shot a glare at the kibitzer—and then pulled back on the hard-ass. Bingo, he thought.
Standing next to him was a human male, about six feet-ish tall with great hair, a good face, and very nice lips. Clothes were not totally Gothed out, but he had some chains on his hip and a couple of hoops in one of his ears. But it was the hair color that really did it.
“I was talking to myself,” Qhuinn murmured.
“Ah. I do that a lot.” The smile was brief and then the guy went back to nursing his . . .
“What are you drinking?” Qhuinn asked.
A half-empty glass was held up. “Vodka-’n’-tonic. I can’t stand the fruity shit.”
“Neither can I. I’m tequila. Straight up.”
“Patrón?”
“Never. I’m HD.”
“Ah.” The guy pivoted around and stared ahead at the crowd. “You like the real stuff.”
“Yup.”
Qhuinn wanted to ask whether Mr. V&T was checking out the guys or the chicks, but he kept that one on ice. Man, that hair was amazing. Thick. Curled at the ends.
“You looking for someone in particular?” Qhuinn said in a low voice.
“Maybe. You?”
“Definitely.”
The guy laughed. “Lot of hot women here. You can have your pick.”
Mother. Fucker. Just his luck: a hetero. Then again, maybe they could share something and take things from there.
The man leaned in and offered his palm. “I’m . . .”
As the two looked at each other full-on, the guy let the sentence trail off, but that didn’t matter. Qhuinn didn’t give a shit what the name was.
“Are your eyes different colors?” the man asked softly.
“Yup.”
“That’s really . . . cool.”
Well, yeah. Unless you were a vampire born into the glymera. Then it was a physical defect that meant you were genetically broken and therefore an embarrassment to your bloodline and utterly unmate-able.
“Thanks,” Qhuinn said. “What color are yours?”
“You can’t tell?”
Qhuinn tapped the tattooed tear underneath his eye. “Color-blind.”
“Ah. Mine are blue.”
“And you’re a redhead, aren’t you.”
“How do you know that?”
“Your skin tone. Plus you’re pale and have freckles.”
“That’s amazing.” The guy glanced around. “It’s dark in here—I wouldn’t think you could tell.”
“Guess I can.” To himself, he added, And how about I show you some of my other tricks.
Qhuinn’s new buddy smiled a little and went back to checking out the crowd. After a minute, he said, “Why’re you looking at me like that.”
Because I want to fuck you. “You remind me of someone.”
“Who?”
“Someone I lost.”
“Oh, shit, sorry.”
“It’s okay. It was my fault.”
Little pause. “So you’re gay, huh.”
“No.”
The guy laughed. “Sorry. I just figured . . . Guess it was a good friend, then.”
No comment. “I’m about to get a refill. Why don’t I hook you up, too.”
“Thanks, man.”
Qhuinn turned around and signaled the bartender. As he waited for her to hopscotch over, he planned out his approach. Little more liquor. Then add some females to the mix. Step three was to go back into one of the bathrooms and fuck the girl(s).
Then . . . more eye contact. Preferably when one or both of them were inside a woman. Because as much as this redhead with the great hair appeared to be into chicks, the SOB had felt the connection when the two of them had looked at each other—and hetero was a relative term.
Kind of like virgin.
Which made two of them, didn’t i
t. After all, Qhuinn never, ever nailed redheads.
But tonight was going to be an exception.
SEVEN
As Payne lay on her metal slab beneath the odd chandelier of illumination, she couldn’t believe her healer was a human.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” His voice was quite deep and his accent was strange to her, but not one she hadn’t heard before: Her twin’s mate had the same intonation and inflection. “I’m going to go in and . . .”
While he spoke to her, he leaned down into her field of vision, and she liked when he did that. His eyes were a brown color, but not that of oak bark or old leather or the coat of a stag. They were a lovely reddish shade, like mahogany that had been polished—and just as luminous, she would venture to say.
There had been such a flurry of activity since his arrival, and one thing had become clear: He was well versed in the giving of orders and very confident in his job. Actually, there was something else, too. . . . He didn’t care that her brother had taken an instant hatred to him.
If Vishous’s bonding scent got any stronger, it would be visible upon the air.
“Do you understand?”
“Her ears are just fucking fine.”
Payne glanced over as far as she could toward the doorway. Vishous had returned and was baring his fangs like he was of half a mind to attack. Fortunately, by his side, a male stood tight upon him, rather like a leash with stout legs: If her twin were to lunge for it, that male with the dark hair was obviously poised to encompass Vishous bodily and drag him from the room.
This was good.
Payne refocused on her healer. “I understand.”
The human’s eyes narrowed. “Then tell me what I said.”
“Whatever for?”
“This is your body. I want to make sure you know what I’m going to do to it, and I’m concerned about a language barrier.”
“She knows what the fuck you’re say—”
Her healer glared over his shoulder. “Are you still here?”
The dark-haired male beside her twin locked an arm around Vishous’s chest and muttered something on a hiss. Then he addressed her healer, speaking with a slightly different accent. “You need to chill, my man. Or I’m going to let him turn you into beef jerky for taking that tone. Capisce?”