by J. R. Ward
He was the last person to put the share/care card on the table, yet here he was, slapping it down. The thing was, though, he wouldn’t stand for anything hurting this female.
“Fine.” She threw up her hands. “If I tarry up north, I cannot supply all of you with what you need for blood. Therefore I go unto the Sanctuary for my recovery and I wait to be summoned. Then I come unto this side and service you and after that I must needs return. So no, I cannot go to the mountains.”
“Jesus . . .” What a bunch of users they were. They should have anticipated this problem—or Phury should have. Unless . . . “Have you talked to the Primale?”
“About what, precisely,” she snapped. “Tell me, sire, would you be in a hurry to present your failures on the field to your king?”
“How the hell are you failing? You’re keeping, like, four of us going.”
“Exactly. And I am serving you all in a very limited capacity.”
Layla burst up and walked over to the window. As she stared out, he wanted to want her: In that moment, he would have given anything to feel for her what she did for him—she was, after all, everything his family valued, the social pinnacle for a female. And she wanted him.
But when he looked inside, there was another in his heart. And nothing was going to change that. Ever . . . he feared.
“I do not know who or what I am, exactly,” Layla said, as if she were speaking to herself.
Well, looked like both of them were on the same train to nowhere with that question. “You won’t find out unless you leave that Sanctuary.”
“Impossible if I am to service—”
“We’ll use someone else. It’s just that simple.”
There was a sharp inhale, and then, “But of course. You shall do as you wish.”
Qhuinn stared at the hard line of her chin. “That’s supposed to help you.”
She glared over her shoulder. “It does not—for then you would leave me with nothing. Your choice, my repercussion.”
“It’s your life. You can choose.”
“We shall not speak of this anymore.” She threw up her hands. “Dearest Scribe Virgin, you have no idea what it is like to desire things you are not fated to have.”
Qhuinn let out a hard laugh. “The fuck I don’t.” As her brows popped, he rolled his eyes. “You and I have more in common than you think.”
“You have all the freedom in the world. What could you possibly want for?”
“Trust me.”
“Well, I want you and I cannot have you. That is not of my choosing. At least by servicing you and the others, I have a purpose other than mourning the loss of something I dreamed of.”
As Qhuinn took a deep breath, he had to respect the female. There was no pity party going on over there at the window. She was stating the facts as she knew them.
Shit, she really was precisely the kind of shellanhe’d always wanted. Even as he’d been fucking anything that walked, in the back of his mind, he had always seen himself with a female, long-term. One with impeccable bloodlines and a lot of class—the kind his parents would have not only approved of, but might have respected him a little for getting.
That had been his dream. Now that it had shown up, however . . . now that it was standing across his bedroom and looking him in the face . . . he wanted something else entirely.
“I wish I did feel something deep for you,” he said roughly, meeting truth for truth. “I would do almost anything to feel what I should for you. You are . . . my fantasy female. Everything I always wanted, but thought I could never have.”
Her eyes got so wide they were like two moons, beautiful and shining. “Then why . . .”
He rubbed his face and wondered what in the fuck he was saying.
What the fuck he was doing.
When he took his palms away, there was a slickness left behind, one that he refused to think too much about.
“I’m in love,” he said hoarsely. “With someone else. That’s why.”
THIRTY-ONE
Commotion out in the hall. Scrambling footsteps . . . low cursing . . . the occasional dull thud.
All the noise woke Manny up, and he went from out like a light to fully conscious in a split second as the parade of sound passed by in the corridor. The disturbance continued onward before it got cut off sharply, as if a door had been shut on the show. Whatever it might be.
Straightening from where he’d put his head down on Payne’s bed, he looked at his patient. Beautiful. Simply beautiful. And sleeping steadily—
The shaft of light smacked him right in the face.
Jane’s voice was strained as she stood in the lee of the doorway, a black cutout of herself. “I need another set of hands in here. Stat.”
No asking twice. Manny shot for the door, the surgeon in him ready to go to work, no questions asked.
“What we got?”
As they rushed along, Jane brushed at her red-stained scrubs. “Multiple traumas. Mostly knives, one gunshot. And there’s another being driven in.”
They broke into the exam room together, and God . . . damn . . . there were wounded men everywhere—standing in the corners, propped on the table, leaning down on the counter, cursing while they paced. Elena or Elaina, the nurse, was busy getting out scalpels and thread by the dozen and the yard, and there was a little old man bringing water to everyone on a silver tray.
“I haven’t triaged yet,” Jane said. “There’re too many of them.”
“Where’s an extra stethoscope and BP cuff?”
She went over to a cabinet, popped a drawer, and tossed both over. “BP is much lower than you’re going to be used to. So is the heart rate.”
Which meant that, as a medical professional, he had no true way of judging whether they were in trouble or not.
He put the equipment aside. “You and the nurse had better make the assessments. I’ll do prep.”
“Probably better,” Jane agreed.
Manny stepped up to the blond nurse who was working efficiently with the supplies. “I’m going to take over from here. You help Jane with the readings.”
She nodded briefly and got right to work taking vitals.
Manny threw open drawers and took out surgical kits, lining them up on the counters. Pain meds were in an upright cupboard; syringes were down below. As he rifled through everything, he was impressed by the professional quality: He didn’t know how Jane had done it, but everything was hospital-grade.
Ten minutes later, Jane, he, and the nurse met in the middle of the room. “We’ve got two in bad shape,” Jane said. “Rhage and Phury are both losing a lot of blood—I’m worried that arteries have been nicked because those cuts are so damned deep. Z and Tohr need X-rays, and I think Blaylock’s got a concussion along with that nasty gash on his stomach.”
Manny headed for the sink and started scrubbing up. “Let’s do this.” He glanced around and pointed to the mammoth blond son of a bitch with the puddle of blood under his left boot. “I’ll take him.”
“Okay, I’ll deal with Phury. Ehlena, you start getting pictures of those broken bones.”
Given that this was a field situation, Manny took his supplies over to his patient—who was stretched out on the floor, right where he’d collapsed earlier. The big bastard was dressed in black leather from head to foot, and he was in a lot of pain, his head kicked back and his teeth gritted.
“I’m going to work on you,” Manny said. “You got a problem with that?”
“Not if you can keep me from bleeding out.”
“Consider it done.” Manny grabbed a pair of scissors. “I’m going to cut off your pant leg first and ditch the boot.”
“Shitkicker,” the guy groaned.
“Fine. Whatever you call it, it’s coming off.”
No unlacing—he cut through the latticework at the front of the damn thing and slipped it off a foot the size of a suitcase. And then the leathers sliced easily up the outside all the way to the hip, falling open like a set of cha
ps.
“What we got, Doc?”
“A Christmas turkey, my friend.”
“That deep?”
“Yup.” No need to mention that the bone was showing through and blood was pumping out in a steady stream. “I’ve got to rescrub. I’ll be right back.”
After he hit the sink, Manny snapped on a pair of gloves, sat back down, and went for a glass bottle of lidocaine.
Big, Blond, and Bleeding stopped him. “Don’t worry about the pain, Doc. Stitch me up and treat my brothers—they need it more than I do. I’d take care of it myself, but Jane won’t let me.”
Manny paused. “You’d sew yourself up.”
“Done it for more decades than you’ve been alive, Doc.”
Manny shook his head and muttered under his breath. “Sorry, tough guy. I’m not running the risk of you jerking right when I’m working on your leak.”
“Doc—”
Manny pointed his syringe right into the stunningly handsome face of his patient. “Shut it and lie back. You should be put out cold for this, so don’t worry—there’s going to be plenty to suck up and be a hero about.”
Another pause. “Okay, okay, Doc. Don’t get your thong in a wad. Just get through me . . . and help them.”
Hard not to respect the guy’s loyalty.
Working fast, Manny numbed the area as best he could, pushing the needle into the flesh in a controlled circle. Christ, this took him back to medical school and, in a strange way, brought him alive in a manner that the operations he’d been doing lately didn’t.
This was . . . reality with the volume turned way up. And damn him if he didn’t like the sound of it.
Grabbing a stack of clean towels, he shoved them under the leg and rinsed the wound out. As his patient hissed and stiffened, he said, “Easy, big guy. We’re just getting it cleaned.”
“No . . . problem . . .”
The hell it wasn’t, and Manny wished he could have done more in the pain-control realm, but there was no time. There were compound fractures to deal with: Stabilize. Move on.
As someone moaned and yet another string of curses rang out over on the left, Manny took care of a minute tear in the artery; then he closed the muscle and moved on to the fascia and the skin. “You’re doing great,” he murmured as he noticed those whiteknuckled fists.
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Right, right . . . your brothers.” Manny paused for a split second. “You’re all right, you know that.”
“Fuck . . . that . . .” The fighter smiled, flashing fangs. “I’m . . . perfect.”
Then the guy closed his eyes and lay back, his jaw so tight it was a wonder he could swallow.
Manny worked as quickly as he could without sacrificing quality. And just as he was swiping down his line of sixty sutures with a gauze cloth, he heard Jane cry out.
Jacking his head around, he muttered, “Fucking hell.”
In the doorway to the exam room, Jane’s husband was draped in the arms of Red Sox, looking like he’d been run over by a car: His skin was pasty, his eyes had rolled back in his head, and . . . holy hell, his boot—shitkicker—was facing the wrong way.
Manny called out for the nurse. “Could you bandage this?” Glancing at his current patient, he said, “I’ve got to go look at—”
“Go.” The guy slapped his shoulder. “And thanks, Doc. I won’t forget this.”
As he headed for the newest arrival, Manny had to wonder whether that goateed big-mouth was going to let him operate. Because that leg? It looked utterly destroyed even from across the damn room.
Vishous was lapsing in and out of consciousness by the time Butch got him to the exam room. That knee and hip combo of his was beyond agony and into some other kind of territory, and the overwhelming sensations were sapping his strength and his thought processes.
He wasn’t the only one in bad shape, however. As Butch lurched weakly through the doorway, he knocked V’s head against the jamb.
“Fuck!”
“Shit—sorry.”
“Drop . . . in the bucket,” V gasped as his temple started screaming, the fucker harmonizing an a cappella version of “Welcome to the Jungle.”
To shut out the concert from hell, he opened his eyes and hoped for a distraction.
Jane was right in front of him, a suturing needle in one bloody, gloved hand, her hair pulled back by a headband.
“Not her,” he groaned. “Not . . . her . . .”
Medical professionals should never treat their mates; it was a recipe for disaster. If his knee or hip was permanently fucked-up, he didn’t want that on her conscience. God knew they had enough problems between them already.
Manny stepped in front of his shellan. “Then I’m your only option. You’re welcome.”
Vishous rolled his eyes. Great. What a choice.
“Do you consent?” the human demanded. “Or maybe you’d like to think about it for a while so that your joints heal up like a flamingo’s. Or the leg goes gangrenous and falls the fuck off.”
“Well, if that . . . isn’t a . . . sales pitch.”
“And the answer is . . . ?”
“Fine. Yes.”
“Get him on the table.”
Butch was careful with the layout routine, but even so, V nearly threw up over both of them as his weight was redistributed.
“Motherfucker—” Just as the curse was leaving his lips, the surgeon’s face appeared over his own. “Word up, Manello—you don’t want . . . to be that close to me . . .”
“You want to punch me? Okay, but wait until after I’ve worked on your leg.”
“No, sick . . . to stomach.”
Manello shook his head. “I need some pain control over here. Let’s get some Demer—”
“Not Demerol,” V and Jane said together.
V’s eyes shot over in her direction. She’d gone across the way and was down on the floor, leaning over Blaylock’s stomach, stitching up a mean-looking slice. Her hands were rock-steady and her work was absolutely perfect, everything about her the very picture of professional competence. Except for the tears running down her face.
With a moan, he looked up to the chandelier above him.
“Morphine okay?” Manello asked as he cut through the sleeve of V’s biker jacket. “And don’t bother being tough. The last thing I need is you woofing all over yourself while I’m poking around down there.”
Jane didn’t answer this time, so V did. “Yeah. That’s cool.”
As a syringe was filled, Butch stepped up into the surgeon’s grille. Even as incapacitated as the cop was from the inhaling, he was straight-up deadly as he spoke. “I don’t need to tell you not to fuck my buddy. Right.”
The surgeon looked around his little-glass-bottle-and-needle routine. “I’m not thinking about sex at the moment, thank you very much. But if I was, it sure as shit wouldn’t be with him. So instead of worrying about who I’m tapping, how’d you like to do us all a favor and have a shower. You stink.”
Butch blinked. Then smiled a little. “You have balls.”
“And they’re made of brass. Big as church bells, too.”
Next thing V knew, something cold was rubbing on the juncture of his arm; then there was a prick, and shortly thereafter, he went on a little ride, his body turning into a cotton ball, all light and airy. From time to time, pain broke through, rocking up from his gut and nailing him in the heart. But it wasn’t connected to whatever Manello was doing to his injury: V couldn’t take his eyes off his mate as she treated his brothers.
Through the wavy pane of his vision, he watched as she dealt with Blay and then worked on Tohrment. He couldn’t hear what she was saying because his ears weren’t really working all that well, but Blay was clearly grateful and Tohr seemed eased just by her presence. From time to time, Manello asked her something, or Ehlena stopped her with a question, or Tohr winced and she paused to calm him.
This was her life, wasn’t it. This healing, this pursuit of excellence,
this abiding devotion to her patients.
Her duty to them defined her, didn’t it.
And seeing her like this made him rethink what had happened between her and Payne. If Payne had been hell-bent on taking her own life, Jane would undoubtedly have tried to stop her. And then when it became apparent she couldn’t . . .
Abruptly, as if she knew he was staring at her, Jane’s eyes flipped to his. They were so shadowed he could barely tell their color, and she momentarily lost her corporeal form, as if he’d sucked the will to live right out of her.
That surgeon’s face got in the way. “You need more pain relief?”
“What?” V asked around his thick, dry tongue.
“You groaned.”
“Not . . . about . . . the knee.”
“It’s not just your knee.”
“. . . what . . . ?”
“I think your hip’s dislocated. I’m going to take the pants all the way off.”
“Whatever . . .”
As V went back to staring at Jane, he was only vaguely aware of scissors going up both sides of his leathers, but he knew exactly when the surgeon got all the cowhide off of him. The guy let out a sharp hiss . . . that was quickly covered up.
Sure as shit the reaction was not about the tattooed warnings in the Old Language.
“Sorry, Doc,” V mumbled, not sure why in the hell he was apologizing for the mess down below his waist.
“I’ll, ah . . . I’ll cover you up.” The human shot off and returned with a blanket that he put on V’s lower abdomen. “I just need to look your joints over.”
“You . . . do that.”
Vishous’s eyes returned to Jane and he found himself wondering . . . if she hadn’t died and been brought back as she had, would they have tried to have young? It was doubtful he could sire anything other than an orgasm with the damage his father had done to him. And he’d never wanted kids—still didn’t.
She would have been a stellar mother, though. She was good at everything she did.
Did she miss being alive?