Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
God, he could have killed her.
Trying to forget all the might-have-happened’s, he glanced at her change of clothing. The blue-and-pink hospital gown she was now wearing dwarfed her, the collar hanging loose around the base of her throat, the sleeves billowing. Blankets had been pulled up to her waist, and she worried their hems with pale, blunt-nailed hands.
He thought of her lying in the middle of that road. Then he remembered when she’d come to in the back of that car. And finally he concluded… not for the first time… that she was captivating in a way that had nothing to do with being beautiful, and everything to do with being her.
Which, of course, didn’t make a lot of sense. But what part of this evening had anything to do with logic?
“I don’t know how we got this room so fast.” She tugged the thin covers higher. “Guess we hit things at just the right time.”
Can we please not use the H-word, he thought.
“Guess so.” He took a seat in one of two plastic chairs. “Maybe our luck is changing.”
“Considering your car got wrecked and I’m in a hospital johnny, I think that would be a good thing.”
As he stared at her, he wanted to smooth the loose brunette hair back from her face. “Hopefully the doctor will be in soon.”
“You don’t have to stay,” she said. “I mean, you were worried I’d walk, but I’m all registered and stuff. I’m in the system until they let me out.”
“There’s still a bill involved.” He put up his hands. “If you’d rather me hang out in the waiting room or something—”
Overhead, a canned voice announced: “Dr. Peters, line two. Dr. Peters, line two.”
“No, it’s all right.” Anne fiddled with the blankets some more. “As long as I’m, you know, not naked or anything—”
“Oh, yes. Obviously, I wouldn’t stay when they examine you—”
They both stopped short. Laughed awkwardly. Looked elsewhere.
Darius cleared his throat. “Is there anyone I should call? For you, I mean.”
“No.” The answer was quick. “Thank you.”
“Parents?” he prompted.
She shook her head. “No.”
When she didn’t expand on the details, he was tempted to get into her mind and access the information for himself. But an invasion of privacy was still wrong even if the person didn’t know they’d been violated.
“I’m okay, though,” she tacked on. In the way people did when they were lonely, and a little afraid, and didn’t want anybody to know.
She wasn’t looking to him to solve anything, however. Then again, what was he to her, motor vehicle assaults aside.
While Darius kept staring at her, he wondered whether the red patches on her neck and the side of her face were from the accident… or from the man who had so clearly been chasing after her.
So can I take care of whoever was trying to hurt you? he wondered as the curtain was pushed back.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Robert Bluff—”
The physician who stepped into the bay stopped dead. And he had reason to.
Well, hello there, my friend, Darius thought as he looked at the guy.
Or male, rather.
The vampire in the white coat had hazel eyes and dark hair, and a face with the kind of symmetry and features that equated to a conventional standard of attractiveness. He was also equally surprised to see another member of the species. Meanwhile, Darius didn’t personally recognize him—and surmised for the male to be working here, with whatever degrees and credentialing he had to have to get that “M.D.” stitched after his name, he must be a half-breed who could go out in the sunlight and who had worked his way up the human ranks.
Mind control and manipulation were good tools one-on-one, but they couldn’t be used to snow an entire community of humans over a long period of time.
As the male tried to hide the alarm he was clearly feeling, Darius thought back to the way things had been in the Old Country, when there had been a proper King and court, when there had been a strict division between humans and vampires. Now? In the New World? Standards were more loose, as long as you weren’t a member of the aristocracy.
Maybe the male was antsy because he had blood ties to the glymera? As a half-breed he couldn’t be in it officially, of course, but he was certainly looking like he’d put his foot in a pile out on the proverbial lawn.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Ah…”
Not interested in creating any problems, Darius nodded curtly, acknowledging the fact that, yup, they were both who they were, but nope, he wasn’t going to do anything about it.
The doctor took a deep breath and turned to his patient. After he tugged at the lapels of his white coat, he did another round of throat clearing. “As I was saying, I’m Dr. Bluff and I’m going to take care of you. Do you want to tell me what transpired tonight, Patricia?”