He looked down, surprised to see the gash that ran from his right side to his left hip. And that’s when the pain hit. Oddly, the only thing he could think of was that now Vladlena had an excuse to touch him.
Chapter 4
Vladlena did not like her boss. At all. But she was a trained medical professional, and he was bleeding. Badly. Besides, he’d saved her from what might have been a vicious beating, and while she didn’t doubt that his motivation was more about not wanting to lose another medic than about chivalry, she was grateful.
“Get on the table.” She peeled off the gloves she’d used on the warg, washed, and snapped on new ones as Nate did as he was told.
Interesting. He definitely didn’t seem like the type to follow instructions, but he hopped up on the table and laid back as if he were reclining to watch TV in bed.
And there was an image she needed to get out of her head, because she suddenly saw him on red silk sheets, his black hair spilling over a pillow, and she was right there, straddling his hips and running her hands up what was surely a magnificent chest.
She cleared her throat—and her mind. She was a professional, after all. “You’re going to have to take off your shirt.”
He worked the buttons, his long fingers seeming to take an unnecessarily long time. As he peeled the shirt away, he sucked air, and now that the wound was exposed, she could see why. The knife the vampire had cut him with had been serrated, leaving ragged edges on an already deep laceration. The slice had also gone through his leather belt and slacks.
“You’ll have to undo your pants too.” She swore she saw the faintest glimmer of amusement in his expression before it shuttered.
His hand hovered over his belt buckle. “Close the door. I don’t need my employees seeing me like this.”
The idea of shutting herself in a room with him sent flutters of both trepidation and excitement through her. The excitement was something that shouldn’t happen, not until she knew more about his involvement in her brother’s death, and she gave herself a mental scolding as she closed the door.
“There.” She turned back to him. “Happy?”
“I’ve been opened up from ribs to crotch. I’m not jumping for joy.”
“You’re already starting to heal,” she pointed out, and then she stopped talking, because he tore open his fly and her mouth no longer worked.
He didn’t wear underwear.
“I’m going to clean the area—”
“With your tongue?”
She jerked back. “What?”
“That’s what my vampire medic would do.”
“Eew. And no. I’m not a vampire, and even if I were, that’s just not . . . protocol.”
“Did your boss at Underworld General tell you that? The one who doesn’t make you fuck him?” That glimmer of amusement was back.
“You know, I don’t think you need medical assistance at all.” His wound was closing up quickly, though there was a three-inch gash where the knife had entered that was deeper than the rest of the laceration, and it could definitely use stitches or glue.
“I think I do.” Smiling, he tucked his hands behind his head. “So do me.”
With a huff, she swabbed blood from his skin with plain water—vampires sometimes had allergic reactions to disinfectants. It was probably inappropriate to notice how hard his flesh was, how deeply cut the muscles were, and how firm his skin was, but then,
“So, Vladlena” he said, “why didn’t your little voice trick work on me?”
“Call me Lena. And . . . voice trick?”
“I saw the way you were able to settle the warg down with only a few words.”
“Ah, that.” She shrugged. “It only works on canines.”
“Odd for a tiger, don’t you think?” He peered at her so intently through half-lidded eyes that she felt stripped bare. Vulnerable.
She pushed aside the whisper of panic that said he might not believe her cover story, but she hadn’t wanted to draw any suspicion by revealing that she was a hyena.
“We all have unique gifts.” Time for a subject change. She probed the worst of the damage. “You’re very lucky the blade didn’t enter an inch higher, or your stomach would have been punctured.”
“And that’s bad?”
She dabbed at the deep laceration, and though it must have hurt, Nate didn’t even flinch. “For a vampire, yes. All your other organs heal quickly, but because the stomach pumps the blood you ingest through your body, it can bleed you out.”
“Wouldn’t kill me.”
“No, but it’ll make you weaker than a newborn baby for several days.”
He watched her finish wiping down his skin. “How long have you been a nurse?”
“You’d know the answer to that if you’d read my file.”
A lazy grin turned up the corners of his mouth. “Maybe I like the sound of your voice and want to hear it from you instead.”
Insufferable vampire. “A little over two years. I went to college and nursing schools in the human world, and then I got a job at Underworld General.”
And talk about a culture shock. Human medicine and demon medicine were two completely different animals. Every demon species was different, from their anatomies to their vital signs to the type of treatments they could tolerate—or not tolerate.
“What drew you to the medical field?”
“It’s in my genes,” she sighed. “My father was a surgeon at Underworld General.” As a child, she’d bandaged her stuffed animals, moving on to nursing neighborhood pets, and as she got older, the sound of an ambulance’s siren would fill her with excitement and longing.
“Was?”
“He’s dead.” She tossed the bloodied materials and dragged the rolling tray of supplies closer with her foot. “Killed by The Aegis.”
“Bastards.” He shifted, which made his fly gape open a little more. Nope, he definitely didn’t wear underwear. “What about the rest of your family? Mother? Siblings?”
“My mother hasn’t been in my life since my brothers and I were weaned.” Mainly, that was because she’d wanted to kill both Vaughn and Lena to rid the world of two runts who hadn’t thrived and who had needed extra care in their first few months to survive. Lena’s father had run her mother off, and she hadn’t seen her since.
“How many brothers?”
Lena’s first impulse was to lie, to mention only the two living ones, but no, she wanted him to get a glimpse of the pain she’d felt when she saw Vaughn in shreds.
“I had three. One was killed recently.”
His hand came down on her wrist, startling her. “The Aegis?” His voice was surprisingly mellow, his hold gentle, and for a moment, she was tongue-tied. But then she remembered that this vampire might very well have had something to do with Vaughn’s death, and she casually dislodged his grip.
“I’m not sure who is responsible,” she said. “But when I find out, I’m going to make them pay for what was done to him.”
