by Lucy Leroux
Finished, she pushed past him impatiently. “Jason! Glove me up. Now.”
The OR nurse scrambled to obey. He tied the surgical mask around her in a rapid, practiced move, then he threw open the door for her.
The surgical team was waiting, wide-eyed. Two exchanged knowing glances as she stalked in instead of Matt.
Ignoring the charged atmosphere, she stepped up to her patient and held out her hand. “Scalpel.”
The nurse hesitated for a fraction of a second. He blinked, but then rushed to hand her the instrument.
Nina stared down at Dmitri. Her team had done a decent job of cleaning him up. She could see every wound clearly now. He’d been struck twice. The one high on his chest was in an extremely dangerous place. In any other man, she’d give him a one in a hundred chance.
But this wasn’t a man, was it? Stop that. You’re not just any doctor.
Bending her head, she pressed the scalpel to his chest. When she spoke, her voice was flat and hard. “Let’s get to work.”
Dmitri should have died—his wounds were that severe. Everyone in the operating suite knew it, but no one dared to say a word. Her fingers flew as she worked. Only the hum of the machinery broke the silence.
Her OR was a bright place. Nina liked to play music while she operated, and she encouraged the rest of the team to talk and make observations. True they held a person’s life in their hands every time they worked, but she’d learned long ago that maintaining a heavy and oppressive attitude was not conducive to an efficient team. She wanted these people to enjoy working with her. It was a critical factor in their success.
But now the only words they spoke were acknowledgments to her commands. She didn’t even lift her head when she gave them. All her energy was focused on Dmitri, open on the table in front of her.
She’d been shocked when she went to recover the first bullet. The path was no longer clean. It was as if his flesh had begun to close and knit over the wound. She took it out easily before beginning to work on the second.
I heal faster as a wolf. The words reverberated in her head as she was forced to cut the thin threads of healing tissue to access the bullet—once and then again. The wolf might heal fastest, but the process was still swift as a man.
A sudden intake of breath on her left distracted her, but she didn’t lift her head.
“Focus, Jason,” she muttered, aware that on some level, the nurse had realized something was not right.
There it is. Clamping her forceps around the bullet, she swore. It hadn’t pierced his heart or a major artery, but the fucking piece of metal had shattered into more than a half a dozen pieces that Dmitri’s body seemed determined to absorb.
Methodically, she removed each one. It was a race against the unnatural, and a test of endurance she hadn’t expected.
The surgery taxed her skill, pushing her to her limits, but she managed to clear his body of the foreign metal, every last damn piece.
Repairing the damage they had done was another story. Nina struggled, suturing and cauterizing, but she had to work against Dmitri’s body to do it.
Stop fighting it. Sucking in a breath, she took a step back.
“Is everything all right, Dr. Briggs?” Jason asked.
“Yes.” She moved back to the operation table. “Everything’s fine.”
She’d just been doing everything wrong. It was one thing to cut away the crazy magical healing tissue to remove the bullets—those had to come out. But now she’d removed them, she needed to work with his body to finish.
That was the moment everything changed. Within minutes, the staff had rallied, sensing the shift.
“Turn on the radio. I need some Beyoncé,” Nina ordered, using her elbow to turn off the monitor that allowed everyone to see a magnification of what she was doing.
No one commented about the monitor as the music began to play, but someone started humming along as Nina bent over her patient.
This time, she worked in concert with Dmitri’s supernatural healing ability instead of against it—realigning vessels and ruptured veins, letting them reknit themselves whenever possible. She sutured sparingly, helping only when it was clear the damage was too great for him to overcome on his own.
An hour later, she put the last stitch in place, closing him up. His prognosis was still serious, but he was going to make it.
A wave of exhaustion crashed over her as she put her instruments down.
“We’ll take him to recovery suite C,” Cathy, the junior nurse, said. “It’s the nicest.”
Too drained to respond, Nina nodded, tossing her gloves and surgical mask aside as she exited.
Dr. Ryan, the co-chair of surgery, was waiting for her outside. He didn’t look happy.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Nina leaned forward in her seat. Now that the surgery was over, she’d allowed the numbness to creep over her—residual shock over the shooting no doubt. Nevertheless, something like outraged disbelief was starting to crack the icy shell.
In the main surgical conference room, she sat across from a hastily assembled panel of her superiors. She should have expected this, but these things usually took time. There was only one reason they would assemble the board to reprimand her for performing surgery on a loved one literally minutes after she’d finished.
I’ve just given them cause. She knew it the moment she took her seat.
They had been searching for an excuse not to give her the job, but hadn’t been able to come up with a legitimate one. Not until today.
“I’d do it again,” she said aloud.
The comment wasn’t directed to them, but Dr. Ryan exchanged a speaking glance with Dr. Carlson before answering as if it was.
The only words she caught were ‘a serious infraction’. Nina tuned him out, staring into space.
Of course she’d do it again. Dmitri was worth whatever this cost her career. A formal reprimand was nothing compared to getting him back in one piece. No other doctor would have stood a chance. They wouldn’t have understood what needed to be done because they hadn’t seen the wolf.
Hell. Her boyfriend was a werewolf. That was the right term, wasn’t it?
It was almost too insane to believe, but Nina was a scientist and she trusted what her eyes told her.
The world suddenly opened up, a myriad of endless possibilities running through her mind. If werewolves existed, then what else was out there? Vampires? Ghosts?
She should have been afraid, but her curiosity was engaged now. She needed answers—and one of the first questions she was going to ask her secretive lover was why the hell he’d just been shot. Because the idea that it was a random drive-by was out of the question.
She glanced at her watch. Dmitri wasn’t due to come out from under the anesthesia for hours yet, but there was so little she knew about his physiology. His metabolism had to be off the charts. At least you know why those readings from his earlier medical tests were so weird.
“Are you even listening to us?”
Nina blinked, surprised to see Matt glaring at her from behind the line of office chairs where the board was sitting.
“What are you doing in here?” she asked, taken aback.
“Dr. Lawrence reported the incident,” one of the board members said.
“Of course he did.” She sighed, crossing her arms. “Telling tales.”
Dr. Carlson cleared her throat. “If Dr. Lawrence hadn’t, someone else would have. That was a rather serious breach of protocol, not to mention the language you used…” The woman sniffed, tucking a strand of grey hair behind her ears.
Nina’s lip quirked, but she wasn’t tempted to smile. “I did what was necessary.”
“Dr. Lawrence could have taken the surgery. You should have stepped aside and let him do it.”
She shook her head. “No. I couldn’t have.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was beyond his skill.”
Matt scoffed, and she narrowed her eyes at him.
“We both know it’s the truth,” she said softly. “No donation by your father is going to change that, no matter how much money he throws at this hospital.”
“Really, Dr. Briggs, there’s no need for that sort of thing,” Dr. Strickland said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
“You wouldn’t be chastising me for that comment if I had a penis.” she pointed out.
It was no less than the truth. Surgeons were notorious for having big egos, but most of the braggarts were male. Not all, but most. Matt had been relatively modest by comparison.
Nina had decided long ago to let her work speak for itself. She’d obviously miscalculated because now these people felt like they could walk all over her.
She let her gaze sweep over the assembled group. “It seems some of you are still in denial over the fact I am the best surgeon in this hospital. I may, in fact, be the best in the state, although Dr. Lahor at General is right up there as well. However, since she’s also a woman, I doubt anyone else here will acknowledge that fact.”
She leaned forward. “But Dr. Lahor wasn’t here. I was. My fiancé had been shot multiple times in front of my face. In fact, he saved my life today. There was no fucking way I wasn’t going to repay the favor. I sure as hell wasn’t going to let anyone else operate on him.”
“You were there when he was shot? Jesus, Nina.” Matt rubbed his face.
“That was all the more reason to let Dr. Lawrence do the surgery,” Dr. Ryan exclaimed. “You operated on your own fiancé!”
“So, let me get this straight? I was supposed to let my ex-fiancé operate on my current one?” Nina’s brow drew down.
“Yes,” Dr. Simmons pronounced, but her eyes were sympathetic. “Witnessing something so traumatic and then having to perform surgery on that amazing specimen of a man—” She broke off when the person next to her gave her a hard nudge.
“What?” she muttered. “We’ve all seen him.”
Dr. Ryan snorted derisively. “The point is anything could have gone wrong, and your mental state could have been cited as the reason. That’s why we don’t operate on family. We can let that slide for minor surgeries, but with something so major, we’re left exposed to a lawsuit from Mr. Ivanov’s family.”
“I’m his only family,” she said flatly. “So that’s a moot point.”
Well, there was the mysterious Cass. I need to find a way to get in touch with her. She would want to know what had happened.
Dr. Strickland coughed. “Yes, well, regardless. Normally we would have to suspend you for something like this, but under the circumstances—the stress of the shooting and your subsequent state of mind—we’re content to let you go with a reprimand. However, I am afraid it will go in your file. Of course, it may affect any future decision the committee makes regarding the Downey fellowship.”
And there it is. Matt had the grace to turn away.
Dr. Phelps scowled at the others. “Excuse me, this isn’t the fellowship committee. Nothing is decided yet,” he said before launching into a full-blown argument, detailing her many victories in a vain attempt to acknowledge how lucky they were to have her.
Nina tipped her head back, trying to listen to her mentor. It was kind of him to fight for her, but after today, she knew it wasn’t necessary anymore. She was beyond it.
“No,” she interrupted.
“What?”
“I said no.” She frowned at the assembled doctors. “I think—or rather, I know—that I don’t want to work here anymore.”
“Nina, don’t do anything rash. Losing the fellowship is a minor career setback at best,” Matt interjected.
Nina shrugged. “That’s not it. Don’t get me wrong. I get it—politics are politics. We all have to play the game to some extent. It’s the nature of every profession. What I’m no longer willing to do is work in a place that buries talent in favor of money and the old boy’s network.”
She narrowed her eyes at Dr. Ryan. “Lisa Pope should be head of Obstetrics, and everyone knows it.” Nina turned to Dr. Kelso. “And you know Maria Daughtry should be running the morgue. She’s a far superior death diagnostician than the current guy. As for the two of you, I personally think it’s long past time you retired. Your misogyny is holding the hospital back.”
Ignoring the gasps of outrage, she stood up, checking her watch again. “Consider this my notice. I’d give you two weeks, but I honestly don’t want to work here any longer than I have to. I’ll be leaving the hospital the minute my future husband checks out—and that will be quite soon, I think. I expect we’ll be leaving town shortly after.”
Matt tried to stop her. “Nina, you can’t be serious. Your family is all here. Where do you think you’re going to go?”
She paused at the door, feeling a smile stretch her cheeks. “I’m thinking Portland.”
Dmitri stirred at her touch. Nina had half been expecting him to wake early, but she was still surprised when he opened his eyes and briefly smiled at her. He reached for her hand, holding her fingers weakly as he shifted groggily.
It was unbelievable. She was right about his rapid metabolism. It certainly explained the amount of food he could put away and the rapid healing she’d witnessed in the OR.
But he wasn’t ready to get out of bed yet. Mythological creature or not, he needed the healing properties of sleep
“For now, I want you to rest—doctor’s orders. You’re going to be fine,” she whispered, aware they were visible to everyone at the nurses’ station just across the hall. Recovery suite C was coveted for that reason. Patients who stayed there did better because they were more closely supervised than other patients, but in this case, it might be a bad thing.
It was too much to hope the nurses wouldn’t take an undue interest in the recovering Russian. Her gorgeous and mysterious new man was a patient under their care. They wouldn’t be able to resist hovering and checking on him every two minutes. She could feel their many eyes on them now.
Dmitri murmured something indistinct, his eyes fluttering closed. Slowly, he released her fingers as his body grew slack in sleep.
Cathy, the night nurse, came in. “Is it true that you quit, Dr. Briggs?” She sounded aghast.
Nina was gratified by the horror in her voice. Cathy had always been nice, but distant. Nina wouldn’t have believed she’d be this upset.
“It’s true,” she confirmed with a small smile.
“Oh.” Cathy was quiet for a moment. “We’re sorry to see you go.”
“Thanks.” Nina stood, her eyes on the steady rise and fall of his chest while Cathy checked the IV drip. “Can you tell me where his personal effects are? I need his phone.”
“I’ll get it, Doctor.”
After Cathy fetched the phone, Nina went to the third floor, to the balcony that doubled as a smokers’ lounge.
The phone rang several times before a curt voice answered with a snappish, “Talk to me.”
“Cass?” she asked.
“Who is this?” the woman asked suspiciously.
“It’s Nina Briggs.”
There was a dead silence.
“Is he dead?”
“No, but it was close. He was shot. I got all the bullets out. He’s in recovery now. I expect he’ll be up way before I’m ready for him to be.”
There was a sigh that sounded like relief. “So, he’s going to be okay?”
“Yes.” Nina struggled to find the words. “Are…are you like him?”
There was an indrawn breath. “So, you know?”
“I just found out—when he was shot.” Nina checked behind her to make sure no one else had come out on the balcony. “So…are you?”
More silence. “Not anymore.”
“Oh.” Nina didn’t know what to say to that. “I know he was shot because of that job he was doing in town. Is he still in danger?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Short and to the point. Clearly, the woman had spent a lot of time with Dmitri.
“Wh
at do I do now?” Nina asked in a whisper. “How do I protect him?”
“Not sure you need to, knowing him.” Nina heard the click-clack of the keyboard. “I would send someone to watch his back—Nash is available, but if big D is going to be up and around as soon as you say, there’s not much point. He’ll take care of the problem himself,” Cass added, sounding irritated. “That won’t be good for business.”
This was too confusing for Nina’s exhausted brain. “I see… So he’s not in immediate danger?”
“He might be. I wouldn’t let your ex anywhere near him in case he’s in on it—and I don’t see how he couldn’t be. He’d have to know if he was going to use the necklace on your patients. But Edward Lawrence will probably wait and see if this attempt takes before trying again.”
“Wait, what?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dmitri knew the hand feeling his pecs wasn’t Nina. He grabbed it and opened his eyes, meeting the startled gaze of an unfamiliar nurse.
“Heeey,” the man said, an expression of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar on his face.
Not the sex Dmitri had been expecting, but he wasn’t about to make an issue out of it. Finding his mate was a priority.
“Where is Nina?” he asked, his voice extra rusty from disuse.
The male nurse reared away, adjusting the pillows to cover his copping a quick feel. “Dr. Briggs? I’m not sure she’s still here after everything that happened.”
Shit. The man had a point—a much larger one than he realized.
His memories of the shooting were pretty hazy, but he was certain of one thing. Nina had seen his wolf.
He racked his brain, trying to remember every detail of her reaction, but there wasn’t much. He’d been hurting too badly to take it all in.
Fuck me. Here he’d been waiting for the right time, the perfect opportunity, and instead she’d seen him at his most dangerous, a snarling beast writhing under a hail of bullets. He’d been cornered, fangs out, an animal reduced to his most primitive protective instincts.