Lover Unbound

know? Anyway, I'm walking and I see this bright flash of light up ahead. It was like a massive strobe thingy coming out of this alley. I walked a little faster, 'cause I wanted to see what was going down, and that's when I heard the gunshot. It was like a pop sound. Actually, I didn't even know it was a gunshot until I got here. You'd think it'd be louder-'

'When did you call nine-one-one?'

'Well, I waited a little bit, 'cause I figured someone would come running out of the alley and I didn't want to be shot. But, like, no one came, so I figured they'd disappeared out some back way or something. Then when I walked down here, I saw that there's no other way out. So maybe he shot himself, you know?'

'What the guy look like?'

'The vic?' The kid leaned in. 'Vic is what the police call the victim. I heard 'em.'

'Thanks for the clarification,' Phury muttered. 'So what did he look like?'

'Dark hair. With a goatee. Lot of leather. I stood over him while I called nine-one-one. He was bleeding, but alive.'

'You didn't see anyone else?'

'Nope. Just the one. So, like, I'm going to get interviewed by the police. Like, for real. Did I tell you that?'

'Yeah, congratulations. You must be thrilled.' Man, Phury totally had to resist popping the kid a fat lip.

'Hey, don't hate. This is cool stuff.'

'Not for the guy who got shot, it isn't.' Phury looked over the scene again. At least V wasn't in lesser hands, and he hadn't been dead at the scene. Chances were the slayer had shot V first, but the brother had still had enough strength to poof the bastard before passing out.

From the left, Phury heard a well-modulated voice: 'This is Bethany Choi of the Channel Six NewsLeader team reporting live from the scene of another downtown shooting. According to police, the victim, Michael Klosnick-'

Michael Klosnick? Whatever, likely V had copped the lesser's ID and it had been found on him.

'-was taken to St. Francis Medical Center in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest…'

Okay, this was going to be a long night: Vishous injured. In human hands. And they had only four hours until daylight.

Rapid-evac time.

Phury dialed the compound while he walked back over to Butch. As the cell rang, he talked at the cop. 'He's alive at St. Francis with a gunshot.'

Butch sagged and said something that sound like, Praise God. 'So we're going to get him out?'

'You got it.' Why wasn't Wrath picking up? Come on, Wrath… pick up. 'Shit… those goddamned surgeons must have gotten the surprise of their human lives when they opened him up-Wrath? We've got a situation.'

Vishous came awake in an out-of-it body, becoming fully conscious, though he was trapped in a cage of comatose flesh and bones. Unable to move his arms or legs, and with his eyelids shut so tight it was like he'd been crying rubber cement, it appeared that his hearing was the only thing working: There was a conversation going on above him. Two voices. A female's and a male's, neither of which he recognized.

No, wait. He knew one of them. One of them had ordered him around. The female. But why?

And why the hell had he let her?

He listened to her talk without really following the words. Her cadence of speech was like a male's. Direct. Authoritative. Commanding.

Who was she? Who-

Her identity hit him like a slap, stunning some sense into him. The surgeon. The human surgeon. Jesus Christ, he was in a human hospital. He'd fallen into human hands after… Shit, what had happened?

Panic energized him… and got him exactly nowhere. His body was a slab of meat, and he had a feeling the tube down his throat meant a machine was working his lungs. Clearly they'd sedated the shit out of him.

Oh, God. How close to dawn was it? He needed to get the hell away from here. How was he going to-

His escape planning came to a crashing halt as his instincts fired up, took the wheel, grabbed control.

It wasn't the fighter in him coming out, though. It was all those possessive male impulses that had always been dormant, the ones he'd read about or heard about or seen in others, but had assumed he'd been born without. The trigger was a scent in the room, the scent of a male who wanted sex… with the female, with V's surgeon.

Mine.

The word came from out of nowhere and arrived with a matched set of urge-to-kill luggage. He was so outraged his eyes flipped open.

Turning his head, he saw a tall human woman with a short cap of blond hair. She wore rimless glasses, no makeup, no earrings. Her white coat read, JANE WHITCOMB, MD, CHIEF OF TRAUMA DIVISION in black cursive letters.

'Manny,' she said, 'this is crazy.'

V shifted his stare to a dark-haired human male. The guy was also in a white coat, with his reading, MANUEL MANELLO, MD, CHAIRMAN, DEPARTMENT OF SURGERY at the right of the lapel.

'There's nothing crazy about it.' The guy's voice was deep and demanding, his eyes way too fricking fixated on V's surgeon. 'I know what I want. And I want you.'

Mine, V thought Not yours, MINE.

'I can't not go down to Columbia tomorrow,' she said. 'Even if there were something between us, I'd still have to leave if I want to lead a department.'

'Something between us.' The bastard smiled. 'Does that mean you'll think about it?'

'It?'

'Us.'

V's upper lip pulled off his fangs. As he started to growl, that one word rolled around his brain, a grenade with the pin out: Mine.

'I don't know,' V's surgeon said.

'That's not a no, is it. Jane? That is not a no.'

'No… it isn't.'

'Good.' The human male glanced down at V and seemed surprised. 'Someone's awake.'

You'd better fucking believe it, V thought. And if you touch her, I'm going to bite your godforsaken arm off at the socket.

Chapter Nine

Faye Montgomery was a practical woman, which was why she made a great nurse. She'd been born levelheaded, just like she'd come out with dark hair and dark eyes, and she was outstanding in a crisis. With a husband in the Marines and two kids at home and twelve years of working in intensive care units, it took a lot to rattle her.

Sitting behind the SICU's nursing station, she was rattled now.

Three men the size of SUVs were standing on the other side of the partition. One had long, multicolored hair and a pair of yellow eyes that didn't seem real, they were so bright. The second was mind-bendingly beautiful and so sexually magnetic, she had to remind herself she was happily married to a man she still had the hots for. The third was hanging back, nothing but a Red Sox cap, a pair of sunglasses, and an air of pure evil that didn't match his handsome face.

Had one of them asked a question? She thought so.

As none of the other nurses seemed capable of speech, Faye stammered, 'I'm sorry? Er… what did you say?'