“What’s wrong with your arm?” she asked.
“I’m healing faster than the muscles can keep up.”
She gave me a disbelieving glance. There was enough predawn light for me to see her expression now.
Lorenzo said, “You’re hurt more than you let on, Blake.”
I shrugged, and just concentrated on breathing through the pain of my arm being at war with itself.
It was Raborn who tramped back through the trees, “They’re not here, Blake.”
“Probably not,” I said.
He put his gun over one shoulder so the barrel was pointed up at the sky. “That kind of twitching means you’ve damaged nerves. You need to go to the hospital when they take Newman.”
“You bully Newman into passing out, but me you’ll send to the hospital? Why, so you can say, ‘See, she’s just a wimpy girl’?”
I watched Raborn’s expression by the cold, white light of dawn, but I couldn’t decipher it. He looked down at my arm. It was shivering, a continuous dance of muscles. The pain was mind-numbing and only pride kept me from making small noises, or bigger screams.
“I didn’t know you were this hurt, Blake.”
“You didn’t ask,” I said.
“The EMTs are almost here; go with Newman to the hospital. No one will think less of you.”
“I told you, Raborn, I don’t care what you think of me.”
Now I could read his look; it was angry. “You just won’t give an inch, will you?”
Edward came up behind Raborn and said, “It’s not her best thing.” Raborn moved so he could see all of us. “She might get along better if she were a little more flexible.”
Edward nodded, smiling his Ted smile, as he tipped his hat back from his forehead, his P90 pointed one-handed at the ground. “She might, but if she were more flexible she’d be screaming from the pain, instead of watching the woods, doing her job.”
Raborn seemed to think about that for a second, then just shook his head. “All you old-time hunters are stubborn bastards.”
I smiled at that. Raborn had to have me by at least a couple of decades, but I was an old-time hunter. Then my muscles tried to form a fist inside my arm and tear their way out. The pain broke me out in a light, sick sweat.
“You just went pale,” Stavros said.
I nodded, not trusting what my voice would sound like.
Matt and Julie, our EMTs from earlier, were carrying a stretcher sideways through the trees. Apparently they’d had to wait for us all. I’d actually expected the shift to have changed or something.
Edward said, “We’ve searched the woods. They’re not here.”
“Tell your partner here to go to the hospital,” Raborn said.
He gave Ted’s smile again and just shook his head. “I’ll take Anita where she lets me take her, but I doubt that will include the hospital.”
“There’s stubborn and there’s stupid,” Raborn said, “but she’s your partner.” He walked away from all of us, apparently too disgusted to stick around and see who went to the hospital.
Stavros looked at me, gun pointed at the pale light of the sky. “Too-rapid healing causes pain? I thought it just healed if you had lycanthropy.”
“It can,” I said, in a voice that was thin with strain, “but sometimes it does this.”
“Is the healing worth it?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
The EMTs were here. Edward and I walked Newman to the ambulance. Edward also talked to me about the arm and the muscle twitching. “If it scarred that badly and you were human, I’d be worried you’d lose mobility.”
“That’s what they said about my left arm and the scar tissue at the bend, but as long as I hit the weights regularly I’m fine.”
He stepped on top of the log, not over. When you’re in the woods long enough you step on logs, not over, in case of snakes. It just becomes automatic so you can look before you step.
“The new one is a longer scar and involves more muscles and tendons.”
“What are you wanting me to do?”
“See if the doctors can do anything for it.”
“The EMTs said they’d cut it open and stitch it to keep it from scarring.”
“If you do that, then you can feed the ardeur and it’ll be all better.”
I gave him an unfriendly look as we followed the stretcher onto the road, and the morning light was suddenly more serious without the trees blocking it.
“I don’t like stitches,” I said.
He grinned at me. “No one does.”
“If I wimp out you’ll never let me live this down, will you?”
He grinned wider and shook his head. “Not if you lose mobility in the arm, and get us killed because of it.” The grin faded, and his eyes went serious. “I’ll hold your hand.”
I glared at him. “Oh, that’ll make it all better.”
“I don’t offer to hold hands with the other marshals.”
We had a moment of looking at each other, a moment of years of guarding each other’s backs, of being friends. I nodded. “Thanks.”
He smiled, but his eyes were still too serious for it. “You’re welcome, but save the thanks until after you finish cursing me.”
“Why will I curse you?”
“The rapid healing means drugs go through your body faster than normal, right?”
My arm chose that moment to spasm so hard it almost dropped me to my knees. Edward had to catch me, or I would have fallen. When I could talk, I said, “Yeah.”
“Is this the worst injury you’ve had since you got lycanthropy?”
“Without preternatural healing, yeah,” I said. My voice still sounded breathy.
“So you don’t know if painkillers still work for you, or if like all lycanthropes drugs run through your system too fast.”
I stared up at him. I was already sweating and pale; I couldn’t pale anymore without passing out. “Fuck,” I said.
“See, I told you you’d curse.”
Edward drove me in the SUV with its new scorch marks on the back. We followed the ambulance to the hospital, where we’d find out if painkillers still worked for me. I was betting they didn’t. Fuck.
24
THEY GAVE ME a local directly into my arm, and then Dr. Fields cut open the scar. Apparently he’d attended the same seminar as Matt, the EMT, so it was Dr. Fields’s first time seeing if the theory worked in practice. He was very honest about it. “I’m not a hundred percent certain it will leave you scar free, but it will probably make the muscle and tendon issue better.”
“So we could do all this and I could still scar and still have some mobility loss,” I said.
“Yes.”
I think I started to get off the examining table, but Edward was there, and he put his hand on my shoulder. He just shook his head. Damn it. Edward made me lie back down and held my hand like he said he would. Double damn it. An hour later, I was cut open, and the local had worked for that. It wasn’t pleasant, and the shots were a bitch, and I really hated feeling my skin part under the scalpel, but it was nothing to feeling my skin being tugged into place with a needle and stitches. That was always a creepy feeling even if it didn’t exactly hurt. Matt, the EMT, had forgone sleep to watch, and so had a lot of other doctors and interns. No one had seen the practical application of the theory and they wanted to, though everyone was in face shields and full gear just in case blood spread. It was technically contagious, though my variety seemed not to be up to this point. I was medical miracle enough to excite the med students all to hell.
Fields and I had already discussed that it needed to be the kind of stitches that dissolved, just in case my body tried to grow over the stitches. “You heal that well?” he’d asked.
“I’ve seen other people with lycanthropy do it. I’d rather not risk your having to operate on me to remove stitches below my skin.”
He’d just agreed.
We were about halfway through the stitches when the loca
l began to wear off. “Painkiller is wearing off,” I said.
“We’d have to wait for the shots to take effect again, and you’re healing, Ms. Blake. I might have to cut more of the wound again and start over, or I can stitch ahead of the healing.”
Edward said, “Anita, look at me.”
I turned and he was on the side opposite the doctor. He gave me calm eyes and I nodded. “Do it,” I said.
I held on to Edward’s hand, gave him some of the best eye contact I’d given anyone in a while, and Dr. Fields tried to stitch me up ahead of my body’s healing. Even with the ardeur days from being fed I was healing too fast for normal medical help. Fuck.
Edward talked low to me. He whispered about the case, tried to get me to think about work. It worked for a while, and then the painkiller was all gone and I was still being stitched up. I couldn’t think about work. He talked about his family, about what Donna was doing with her metaphysical shop, about Peter in school and in martial arts. He was working on his second black belt. Becca and her musical theater, and the fact that he was still taking her to dance class twice a week, that amused me enough for me to say, “I want to see you sitting with all the suburban moms in the waiting area.”
He’d smiled Ted’s smile for me. “Come visit us and you can help me pick Becca up from class.”
“Deal,” I said, and then I just concentrated on not screaming.
“It’s okay to yell,” Dr. Fields said.
I shook my head.
Edward answered for me. “If she screams once, she’ll keep screaming; best not to start.”
Fields looked at Edward for a blink or two, and then went back to racing my skin up the cut. He had to tell me that he was finished. My arm was one mass of pain. It was on fire, or . . . I had no words for it. It fucking hurt from the start of the wound to the bottom, and past to my fingertips. I was nauseated with it all. I had only two goals: not to scream, and not to throw up.
Fields gave us some pills. “This should put her out for a little bit, let her body catch up with the damage.”
“How long?” Edward asked.
“An hour—two, if we’re lucky.”
“Thanks, doc,” he said. He took the pills, but I didn’t see what he did with them. The world had narrowed down to the piece of floor I was staring at. I was concentrating on my breathing, on just being and trying to ride the pain, or at least endure it.
“We’ll get a chair to take her to the door,” someone said.
I didn’t say I didn’t need one; I was afraid if I opened my mouth I’d lose the food I hadn’t eaten today. When I didn’t argue, neither did Edward. So I left the hospital in a wheelchair, pushed by one of the many medical personnel who had watched my treatment. It turned out to be a male nurse who tried to be chatty, and turned out to have all sorts of questions about lycanthropy. I didn’t have any answers, not right then.
Edward made me take one of the pills before he put me in the SUV. I didn’t argue. I couldn’t remember what Dr. Fields had said the pills were, but whatever they were they were strong, because the last thing I heard before I fell asleep, or passed out, was the purr of the engine, and Edward at the wheel.
When I woke I was in a bed, in another generic hotel room with Edward handing me another pill and water. I started to protest, and he said, “Take it,” in that tone of voice that said I could take it voluntarily or he could make me take it. Of all the people I knew, I knew Edward would do exactly what he threatened, which would be undignified if I couldn’t stop him from force-feeding me a pill, so I took it without an argument and sleep rolled over me before I could really feel how much my arm hurt, which was probably a good thing.
I didn’t so much wake as become aware that there was a man wrapped around me. For a moment, I cuddled his arm closer around my waist, wrapping him around me like a favorite coat, and then the extra closeness let me know he was nude, and since the only man I knew in the room when I went to sleep was Edward, that was a problem. My eyes were suddenly wide open, and my whole body tensed.
The sleepy voice behind me mumbled, “You smell good.”
I didn’t recognize the voice. Good news, bad news; good news, Edward wasn’t naked in bed with me, so that awkward moment had passed, but bad news, I had a naked stranger in bed with me. What the hell?
I tried to scoot away, but the arm tightened, and he drew me into the bow of his body, his head bending over and nuzzling the top of my head. I propped myself up on my elbow, turning so I could see who was cuddling me. White-blond hair with a streak of deep, dark red, and then soft, gray eyes blinked up at me. As Ethan raised his face up, I could see more of the gray highlights in all that pale hair, and all of it was a mass of little curls in a sleepy disarray.
He kept his eyes rolled upward so he could watch my face as he kissed my back. It reminded me of the way you never let your gaze leave your opponent in the fight ring, because they’ll beat your ass if you do. He laid that well-shaped mouth, with its deep dimples above and below his lips, against my skin, and watched my face. It was as if he expected me to be angry at him.
I frowned. “Where’s Edward?”
“He’s off with the police.”
I tensed, and again his arm tightened around me. “Was there another killing?”
“He doesn’t discuss ongoing police investigations with civilians.”
“You’re quoting him,” I said.
He nodded, and again he laid a soft kiss on my bare back. He kept his eyes upward, as if he really were afraid I’d hurt him. “What did you do that you feel guilty about?” I asked.
He blinked at me, and moved his mouth far enough back so he could speak. “I don’t feel guilty.”
“You look it.”
“You look and feel angry; I’m trying not to piss you off more. Tell me what expression you want on my face and I’ll try to give it to you.”
I smiled, a little, and sighed.
“Well, at least you’re not angry,” he said.
I realized I was propped up on my wounded arm. I looked down at it. The wound was a yellow and pink line of scabs. It looked days old. “How long have I slept?”
“Not that long,” he said.
I sat up, and he just let me go so I could do it. I kept one hand on the sheet, so I covered my breasts at least a little bit. From the way the wound looked, I knew we’d been sleeping naked for days, but I hadn’t known we were naked and I hadn’t been asked about it, so I preferred to be covered. It was just one of my little peculiarities, and I’d stopped fighting it.
I held my arm out to him as he lay back against the bed. “This is really close to healed and I wasn’t healing like normal. This is days of healing.”
One of his arms was spread out behind me, so if I lay back I’d be able to cuddle in against him. I wasn’t sure I was going to be cuddling anybody. I wanted answers. “It’s been a day, just a day. Alex and I have been taking turns sleeping with you so that our energy helped you heal.”
“If a wereanimal of the same flavor sleeps with any of us, we heal faster, yeah.” I frowned. “Wait, with a whole clan of weretigers, why is it just one of you at a time? I’d heal faster if I had two of you sharing your energy.”
“The Red Queen will not risk more of her males with you. You’ve had only two of us near you and we’re both smitten.”
“Smitten?” I said.
He smiled, and nodded. “Yes, smitten.” He rubbed the back of his head against the pillow, and the movement went down his spine, so that he writhed in pieces, as if someone were petting his back, until the writhing vanished under the sheet that was still pooled at his hips.
I seemed strangely fascinated with the way the covers were angled across his hips. His legs trembled under the sheet as the writhing spilled out the last of his body. The movement pulled the sheet a little lower over his hips, so that one side of the covers showed almost all of his hip, but only on the one side. The covers were pinned under his other hip, so they were held in place.
/> He gave a small deep chuckle. It made me look at his face and ask, “What?”
“I love the way you look at me.”
I frowned at him.
“What did I say that was wrong?”
I frowned a little harder, and then just shook my head. I made myself look away from him, pulling my knees to my chest, so the front of me was covered, though it left the back of my body completely bare, but nothing was perfect.
“May I touch your back?”
I almost said no automatically, and then made myself be reasonable. I was going to have to feed the ardeur. I couldn’t afford to be this hurt again. The Harlequin were in town. I needed all the metaphysical help I could get. If Alex wasn’t here, then Ethan was going to have to be food. But I so didn’t want to add a new person to my life. Yes, hopefully he wouldn’t be coming home with me, but still . . .
“Oh,” he said, “your friend left this for you.” He stretched out one arm, and the nightstand between the two beds in yet another generic hotel room was so close he didn’t have to move his body at all, just his arm. He handed me a folded piece of white paper.
I unfolded the paper and recognized Edward’s precise printing. He almost always printed. The message was short and direct. “No more fast food. Eat a good meal. I need you at my back, Ted.” The “Ted” was an actual signature, small and strangely sloppy. When he signed “Edward” it was neater; his two personas had different signatures as if they were each real people.
I reread the note. Edward acted like I just needed a good steak dinner as opposed to fast-food burgers. It wasn’t like that; it wasn’t like that at all. But Edward was out there without me. He was out there hunting the Harlequin without me at his back. What would I say to Donna and the kids if he died because I wasn’t there? What would I say to myself? Fuck.
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