Im good, thank you, he said, solving the mystery as to what shed asked him. And you?
As she paused, he smiled a little, no doubt because he was fully aware that none of the nurses liked being in the same enclosed space with him, and evidently he enjoyed this fact. At least, that was how she read his controlled, hooded expression.
I asked how you were doing? he drawled.
Ehlena put his chart down on the desk and took her stethoscope out of her pocket. Im very well.
You sure about that.
Absolutely positive. Turning to him, she said, Im just going to take your blood pressure and your heart rate.
My temperature, too.
Yes.
Do you want me to open my mouth for you now?
Ehlenas skin flushed, and she told herself it was not because that deep voice of his made the question seem as sexual as a lazy stroke over a naked breast. Erno.
Pity.
Please take off your jacket.
What a great idea. I totally take back the pity.
Good plan, she thought, or she was liable to feed the word back to him with the thermometer.
Rehvenges shoulders rolled as he did what shed asked him to, and with a casual flick of the hand, he tossed what was clearly a piece of menswear art onto the sable coat hed carefully draped over a chair. It was odd: No matter what the season was, he always had one of those furs on.
Things were worth more than the house Ehlena rented.
As his long fingers went to the diamond cuff link on his right wrist, she stopped him.
Could you please roll up the one on the other side? She nodded toward the wall beside him. More space for me on your left.
He hesitated, then went to work on his opposite sleeve. Taking the black silk up past his elbow and onto his thick biceps, he kept his arm turned into his torso.
Ehlena took the blood pressure equipment from a drawer and ripped it open as she approached him. Touching him was always an experience, and she rubbed her hand on her hip to get ready. Didnt help. When she came in contact with his wrist, as usual the current that licked up her arm landed in her heart, James Browning the damn thing until the shimmy-shimmies had her sucking back a gasp.
With a prayer that this wouldnt take long, she moved his arm into position for the cuff and-GoodLord.
The veins running up through the crook of his elbow were decimated from overuse, swollen, black-and-blue, as ragged as if hed been using nails, not needles on himself.
Her eyes shot to his. You must be in such pain.
He rolled his wrist out of her grasp. Nope. Doesnt bother me.
Tough guy. Like she was surprised? Well, I can understand why you wanted to come in to see Havers.
Pointedly, she reached out and rotated his arm back around, gently prodding at a red line that was traveling up his biceps, heading in the direction of his heart.
There are signs of infection.
Ill be fine.
All she could do was raise her eyebrows. You ever hear of sepsis?
The indie band? Sure, but I wouldnt think youd have.
She shot him a look. Sepsis as in an infection of the blood?
Hmm, you want to lean over the desk a little and draw me a picture? His eyes drifted down her legs. I think Id find thatvery educational.
If any other male had pulled that kind of line, shed have slapped them down until they saw stars. Unfortunately, when it was that heavenly bass voice doing the talking and that amethyst stare doing the walking, she didnt really feel leched upon.
She felt caressed by a lover.
Ehlena resisted the urge to V8 her forehead. What the hell was she doing? She had a date tonight. With a nice, reasonable, civilian male whod been nothing but nice, reasonable, and very civil.
I dont have to draw you a picture. She nodded down at his arm. You can see for yourself right there. If you dont treat this, its going to go systemic.
And even though he wore fine clothes like every tailors dream mannequin, deaths cold gray cloak would not look good on him.
He held his arm against his tight abs. Ill take that under advisement.
Ehlena shook her head and reminded herself that she couldnt save people from their own stupidity just because she had a white coat hanging from her shoulders and the letters RN at the end of her name. Besides, Havers was going to see that in all its gory glory when the doctor examined him.
Fine, but lets take your reading on the other arm. And Im going to have to ask you to take your shirt off. The doctors going to want to see how far up that infection goes.
Rehvenges mouth lifted in a smile as he reached for his top button. You keep this up and Ill be naked.
Ehlena looked away fast and wished like hell she found him sleazy. She could sure use an injection of righteous indignation to help fend him off.
You know, Im not shy, he said in that low voice of his. You can watch if you like.
No, thank you.
Pity. In a darker tone, he added, I wouldnt mind you watching me.
As the sound of silk moving against flesh rose up from the exam table, Ehlena made busywork going through his chart, double-checking things that were absolutely correct.
It was weird. From what the other nurses had said, he didnt pull this lothario stuff with them. In fact, he barely talked to her colleagues, and that was part of the reason they were anxious around him. With a male this big, silence read as menacing. Fact of life. And that was before you added the tat/mohawk chaser.
Im ready, he said.
Ehlena pivoted around and kept her eyes pinned on the wall next to his head. Her peripheral vision, however, worked just fine, and it was hard not to be grateful. Rehvenges chest was magnificent, the skin a warm golden brown, with muscles that were defined even though his body was relaxed. On each of his pecs he had a five-pointed red star tattooed on the upper part, and she knew he had more ink.
On his stomach.
Not that shed looked.
Right, because actually, shed been gawking.
Are you gong to examine my arm? he said softly.
No, thats for the doctor. She waited for him to say, Pity, again.
I think Ive used that word enough around you.
Now her eyes shifted to his. It was the rare vampire who could read his own species minds, but somehow it didnt surprise her that this male was among that small, rarified group.
Dont be rude, she said. And I do not want you to do that again.
Im sorry.
Ehlena slipped the cuff around his biceps, plugged her stethoscope into her ears, and took his blood pressure. With the little piff-piff-piff of the balloon inflating the sleeve until it was tight, she felt the edge in him, the tense power, and her heart tripped over itself. He was particularly sharp tonight, and she wondered why.
Except that was not her business, was it.
As she released the valve and the cuff let out a long, slow hiss of relief, she took a step back from him. He was justtoo much, all the way around. Especially right now.
Dont be frightened of me, he whispered.
Im not.
Are you sure?
Absolutely positive, she lied.
SIX
She was lying, Rehv thought. She was definitely frightened of him. And talk about a pity.
This was the nurse Rehv hoped he would get each time he came in. This was the one who made these visits even partially bearable. This was his Ehlena.
Okay, so she wasnt his in the slightest. He knew her name only because it was on the blue-and-white pin on her coat. He saw her only when he came to be treated. And she didnt like him at all.
But he still thought of her as his, and that was just the way of it. The thing was, they had something in common, something that crossed species lines and eclipsed social stratifications and bonded them together even though she would have denied it.
She was lonely, too, and in the same way he was.
Her emotional grid had the same footprint his did, Xhexs did, and Trezs and iAms did: Her feelings were surrounded by the disconnected void of someone separated from her tribe. Living among others, but essentially apart from it all. A shutout, a castaway, one who had been expelled.
He didnt know the whys, but he sure as fuck knew what life was like for her, and that was what had first gotten his attention when he met her. Her eyes and her voice and her scent had been next. Her intelligence and quick mouth had sealed the deal.
One sixty-eight over ninety-five. Thats high. She ripped the cuffs lip free with a quick jerk, no doubt wishing it were a strip of his skin. I think your bodys trying to fight off the infection in your arm.
Oh, his body was fighting something off, all right, but it had fuck-all to do with whatever was cooking in his needle sites. With his symphath side battling the dopamine, the impotent state he usually existed in when fully medicated had yet to report in for work.
Result?
His cock was stiff as a bat in his slacks. Which, contrary to popular opinion, was actually not a good sign-especially tonight. Coming off that convo with Montrag, he was feeling hungry, drivena little crazy from the inner burn.
And Ehlena was just sobeautiful.
Although not in the way his working girls were, not in that obvious, over-the-top, injected, implanted, sculpted way. Ehlena was naturally lovely, with fine small features and that strawberry blond hair and those long, lean limbs. Her lips were pink because they were pink-not from some eighteen-hour, glossy, frosted grease coat. And her toffee-colored eyes were luminescent because they were yellow and red and gold all mixed together-not from a whole lot of paint-by-numbers shimmery shadow and slathered-on mascara. And her cheeks were flushed because he was getting under her skin.
Which, even though he sensed shed had a hard night, didnt bother him at all.
But that was a symphath for you, wasnt it, he thought with derision.
Funny, most of the time he didnt care that he was what he was. His life as hed always known it had been a constantly shifting mirage of lies and deceptions and that was that. Around her, though? He wished he were normal.
Lets see what your temperature is, she said, bringing an electronic thermometer over from the desk.
Its higher than usual.
Her amber stare flipped up to his. Your arm.
No, your eyes.
She blinked, then seemed to shake herself. I seriously doubt that.
Then you underestimate your appeal.
As she shook her head and clicked one of the plastic covers onto the silver wand, he caught a whiff of her scent.
His fangs elongated.
Open. She brought the thermometer up and waited. Well?
Rehv stared into those amazing tricolored eyes of hers and dropped his jaw. She leaned in, all business as usual, only to freeze. As she looked at his canines, her scent surged with something dark and erotic.
Triumph singed in his veins as he growled, Do me.
There was a long moment, during which the two of them were bound together by invisible strings of heat and longing. Then her mouth flattened out.
Never, but I will take your temperature, because I have to.
She jabbed the thermometer in between his lips, and he had to clamp his teeth together to keep the thing from deflating one of his tonsils.
Sall good, though. Even if he couldnt have her, he turned her on. And that was more than he deserved.
There was a beep, an interval, and another beep.
One oh nine, she said as she stepped back and released the plastic cover into the biohazard bin. Havers will be with you as soon as hes able.
The door clapped shut behind her with the hard syllabic smack of the f-word.
Man, she was hot.
Rehv frowned, the whole sexual attraction thing reminding him of something he didnt like to think about.
Someone, rather.
What erection he had instantly limped out as he realized it was Monday night. Which meant tomorrow was Tuesday. The first Tuesday of the last month of the year.
The symphath in him tingled even as every inch of skin he had tightened like his pockets were full of spiders.
He and his blackmailer had another one of their dates tomorrow night. Christ, how was it possible another month had gone by? It seemed like every time he turned around it was the first Tuesday again and he was making the drive upstate to that godforsaken cabin for another command performance.
The pimp becoming the whore.
Power plays and hard edges and base fucking were the currency of the meetings with his blackmailer, the basis of his love life for the past twenty-five years. It was everything dirty and wrong and evil and degrading, and he did it over and over again to keep his secret safe.
And also because his dark side got off on it. It was Love, Symphath Style, the only time he could be how he was with no holds barred, his one slice of horrible freedom. After all, much as he medicated himself and tried to fit in, he was trapped by his dead fathers legacy, by the evil blood in his veins. You couldnt negotiate with your DNA, and though he was a half-breed, the sin-eater in him was dominant.
So when it came to a female of worth like Ehlena, he was always going to be on the far side of the glass, nose pressed up hard, palms spread with need, never getting close enough to touch. It was only fair to her. Unlike his blackmailer, she didnt deserve what he brought to the table.
The morals hed taught himself told him at least that much was true.
Yay. Rah. Go, him.
Next tat he got was going to be of the frickin halo over his head.
As he looked down at the mess running up his left arm, he saw what festered there with total clarity. It wasnt just a bacterial infection from him deliberately using needles that werent sterile on skin that hadnt been hit with an alcohol rub. It was a slow suicide, and that was why he was damned if he was showing it to the doctor. He knew exactly what would happen if that poison got deep into his bloodstream, and he wished it would get off its ass and take over.
The door swung open and he glanced up, ready to tango with Havers-except it wasnt the doc. Rehvs nurse was back, and she didnt look happy.