I quickly took a step back from him, suddenly feeling more alarmed than amused. “Seriously? I already rejected your rather insulting offer. Did that not register or something?” I was this close to telling the werewolf that he could go fuck himself, but mouthing off to random werewolves was a seriously bad idea. “You know what, I’ve got this.” I held up the note. “Have a nice day.”
I turned and jogged away from the guy, rushing through the farmer’s market. I decided not to linger anymore at the stalls. It seemed that if I was determined to keep my appendages, I was even broke in magical currency.
Chapter Four
The Grayhaven Veterinary Clinic took up an entire city block, and there was a line to get in. I couldn’t help but notice that very few of the people in line had a pet. Obviously, when Lucas had suggested I come before opening, it was because he had more patrons than a store giving out free shit on Black Friday. When I made it in through the door, the girl behind the desk peered up through thick platinum bangs. She looked high school age, maybe sixteen or seventeen.
“Hello. We’re full today,” she said with a wide smile. “You’ll have to come back.”
“I have a gift certificate,” I said, holding the paper up.
The girl kept that disconcerting smile on her face as she looked at the note. “Uh, huh. That hand?”
She pointed to my left.
When I showed her my right, she nodded. “Okay… I think I understand.” She pushed back her rolling chair, gliding through the office and sticking her head into a hallway. “Dr. Wolf!” She yelled, “There’s a woman here with a gift certificate to have her hand sewn up, but she doesn’t have a wound. Am I supposed to cut her?”
The girl produced a knife from thin air.
“No! No,” I heard resonate from deeper in the building. A few seconds later, Lucas came stumbling out of the back while drying his hands. “Damn it, Kimmy. I said no more bringing knives into the clinic.”
“What knife, Dr. Wolf?” The blade in the grinning teenager’s hand vanished, and if possible, the wattage on her smile increased. “I was just asking what you wanted me to do. Should I make a new pot of coffee?”
“Yeah. Sure, Kimmy, make coffee, and then I need you to please pull the charts for the next patients on the list.” Lucas tossed his paper towel into a bin and glanced past his rather creepy admin. “Teagan.” His brows shot up. “You came?”
“I’m a sucker for free operations. I just couldn’t resist.”
Kimmy looked over and nodded in approval. “Is that a werewolf thing?”
“She’s joking, Kimmy.” Lucas nodded back. “I can squeeze you in now.”
“What the fuck?” A woman called from the waiting room. “She was here like an hour after us.”
“Maybe you’d like to take her place?” Kimmy stood, and she flourished her fingers where the same small dagger appeared again. She turned her smile on the woman standing in the waiting room, who immediately took a seat and mumbled that she’d wait for her appointment.
“Kimmy…” Lucas rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily, “Just please put the knife away and don’t make any extra work for me. I’d like to leave at a somewhat reasonable hour. Coffee would be good.”
I threw a thumb toward the waiting room. “I don’t want to get you in trouble, here.”
He smiled, and I got to see why he had such prominent smile lines. A little dimple creased up his right cheek too. “I’m actually on break,” he said, “So I wouldn’t be seeing them anyway.”
“Now I feel really bad,” I said as I headed around the desk. “Are you sure you want to sacrifice your break to do me a favor?”
“I’m positive. Mind if I take a look?” Lucas reached out for my hand. When I set my hand in his, he cupped my palm in warm fingers and leaned over it. He pressed gently on the meat of my palm, and pain radiated out.
I hissed in a breath.
His soft gray eyes came up to meet mine. “I’m guessing you didn’t get all of the glass out before your hand healed, yeah?”
“You would be correct in that assumption, Dr. Wolf.”
“On top of that, vampire saliva doesn’t repair lacerations in the muscle. It just closed up your cut.” His lips twisted, and it was half genuine smile, half annoyance. “I want to scold you for botching your own operation when I could have fixed you up in ten minutes, but I’m not going to do that because I’m just happy that you showed up here.”
“It’s hard for me to trust anyone who’s offering to help me without getting something from it.” I bit my lip. “Which sounds ungrateful, and I’m not.”
“Well, I hope I’m deserving of the trust you’re putting in me today, then. How do you feel about me grabbing your height and weight?” Lucas nodded to a scale. “I’m probably just going to use a local, but you might need full anesthesia.”
I winced inwardly. Stepping on a scale in front of a good-looking doctor was a recurring nightmare of mine, no matter what my weight was, but it was really the anesthesia I had an objection to. “Lucas, I’m going to need you to do this without medicine.”
His warm grin faded. “Just so I have this right, you want me to operate on your hand without any type of anesthesia? There’s a lot of nerves in the hand, and if you move, I could easily do the kind of damage that could potentially cause loss of function in your hand.”
I looked up into his soft gray eyes. “If you order
