“Be here?”
She didn’t pause. “Yes.”
As they walked out of the bedroom and through the library, he said, “I’m going to see my mother now.”
“You are?”
“Yeah, she called me and asked to see me. She never does that.” It felt so right to be sharing details of his life. Well, some of them, at any rate. “She’s been trying to make me more spiritual, and I’m hoping this isn’t a bid to get me on some kind of retreat.”
“What do you do, by the way? For work?” Ehlena laughed. “I know so little about you.”
Rehv fixated on the view of the city over her shoulder. “Oh, a lot of different things. Mostly in the human world. I have only my mother to take care of, now that my sister is mated.”
“Where’s your father?”
In the cold grave, where the fucker belonged. “He’s passed.”
“I’m sorry.”
Ehlena’s warm eyes made a shot of what sure as shit felt like guilt go through his chest. He didn’t regret killing his old man; he was sorry that he was obscuring so much from her.
“Thanks,” he said stiffly.
“I don’t mean to pry. About your life or your family. I’m just curious, but if you’d prefer-”
“No, it’s just…I don’t talk about myself much.” Wasn’t that the truth. “Is that…is that a cell phone ringing?”
Ehlena frowned and broke away. “Mine. In my coat.”
She loped off into the dining room, and the tension in her voice as she answered was apparent. “Yes? Oh, hi! Yeah, no, I-Now? Of course. And the funny thing is I won’t need to go change into my uniform because-Oh. Yes. Uh-huh. Okay.”
He heard the phone clip shut as he got to the dining room’s archway. “Everything all right?”
“Ah, yeah. Just work.” Ehlena came over while pulling her coat on. “It’s nothing. Probably just staffing stuff.”
“You want me to drive you over?” God, he would love to take her to work, and not just because they could be together a little longer. A male wanted to do things for his female. Protect her. See to her-
Okay, what the fuck? It wasn’t that he didn’t like the thoughts he was having about her, but it was as if someone had switched his CD. And no, it wasn’t to Barry fucking Manilow.
Although there was definitely some Maroon 5 on the bitch now.
Bleh.
“Oh, I’ll just go, but thank you.” Ehlena paused in front of one of the sliding doors. “Tonight has been such…a revelation.”
Rehv stalked up to her, took her face in his hands, and kissed her hard. When he pulled back, he said darkly, “Only because of you.”
She beamed then, glowing from within, and abruptly he wanted her naked again just so he could come inside of her: The marking instinct was screaming in him, and the only way he could placate it was by telling himself he’d left enough of his scent on her skin.
“Text me when you get to the clinic so I know you’re safe,” he said.
“I will.”
One last kiss and she was through the door and off into the night.
As she left Rehvenge’s, Ehlena was flying, and not just because she was dematerializing across the river to the clinic. To her, the night wasn’t cold; it was fresh. Her uniform wasn’t wrinkled from having been tossed on a bed and rolled around upon; it was artfully disheveled. Her hair wasn’t a mess; it was casual.
The call to come into the clinic wasn’t an intrusion; it was an opportunity.
Nothing could take her down from this incandescent elevation. She was one of the stars in the velvety night sky, unreachable, untouchable, above the strife of the earthbound.
Taking form in front of the clinic’s garages, though, she lost some of her rose-colored glow. It seemed unfair that she could feel as she did, considering what had happened the night before: She’d bet her life on the fact that Stephan’s family wasn’t rebounding back to any semblance of joy right now. They would have just barely finished the death ritual, for God’s sake… It would be years before they could feel anything even remotely like what sang in her chest as she thought of Rehv.
Or if ever. She had the sense his parents might never be the same.
With a curse, she walked swiftly across the parking lot, her shoes leaving little black prints across the dusting of snow that had fallen earlier. As a staff member, getting through the checkpoints down to the waiting room didn’t take long, and when she came into the registration area, she shucked her coat and headed right for the front desk.
The nurse behind the computer looked up and smiled. Rhodes was one of the few males on the staff, and definitely a favorite at the clinic, the kind of guy who got along with everyone and was quick with the smiles and the hugs and the high fives.
“Hey, girlie, how you…” He frowned as she got closer to him, then pushed his chair back, putting space between them. “Er…hi.”
Frowning, she looked behind her, expecting to see a monster, given the way he shrank from her. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah. Totally.” His eyes were sharp. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. Glad to come in and help. Where’s Catya?”
“Waiting for you in Havers’s office, I think she said.”
“I’ll head on back then.”
“Yeah. Cool.”
She noticed his mug was empty. “You want me to bring you a coffee when I’m done?”
“No, no,” he said quickly, holding both hands up. “I’m fine. Thanks. Really.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yup. Totally fine. Thanks.”
Ehlena walked off, feeling like an absolute leper. Usually she and Rhodes were pally-pally, but not tonight-
Oh, my God, she thought. Rehvenge had left his scent on her. That had to be it.
She turned around…but what could she say, really?
Hoping Rhodes was the only one who’d pick up on it, she hit the locker room to ditch her coat and headed off, waving to staff and patients along the way. When she got to Havers’s office, the door was open, the doctor sitting behind his desk, Catya in the chair with her back to the hall.
Ehlena knocked softly on the jamb. “Hi.”
Havers looked up, and Catya glanced over her shoulder. They both seemed positively ill.
“Come in,” the doctor said gruffly. “And shut the door.”
Ehlena’s heart started to beat fast as she did what he asked. There was an empty chair next to Catya, and she sat down because her knees were suddenly loose.
She’d been in this office a number of times, usually to remind the doctor to eat, because once he started in with patient charts he lost track of time. But this was not about him, was it.
There was a long silence, during which Havers’s pale eyes would not meet hers as he fiddled with the earpieces of his tortoiseshell glasses.
Catya was the one who spoke, and her voice was tight. “Last night, before I left, one of the security guards who had been monitoring all the camera feeds brought it to my attention that you were in the pharmacy. Alone. He said he saw you take some pills and leave with them. I looked at the tape and checked the relevant shelves and it was penicillin.”
“Why didn’t you just bring him in?” Havers said. “I would have seen Rehvenge again immediately.”
The moment that followed was like something in a TV soap, where the camera zoomed in on the face of a character: Ehlena felt as though everything pulled away from her, the office retreating into the far distance as she was abruptly spotlit and under microscopic scrutiny.
Questions rolled into her brain. Did she really think she was going to get away with what she’d done? She’d
