He hung up and stood there breathing hard, his hands still transformed, his eyes still glowing. Someone needs you, he told himself. Focus. But all he could think about was her taste on his lips, the feel of her body against his, the way she’d looked at him without fear.
He headed for the bathroom, needing his suppressant. He needed to get Hyde back under control before he saw a patient. The medical bag sat on the counter where he’d left it that morning. He pulled out the vial and syringe with shaking hands.
One dose. Perhaps two. Whatever it took to push Hyde down and restore his control. His hand slipped as he tried to fill the syringe. The vial shattered against the sink, sending glass and suppressant everywhere.
“Dammit!” He grabbed for the pieces instinctively, and a shard sliced deep into his palm.
Blood welled immediately, bright red against his skin, but then it started to glow. Green light pulsed from the wound, and he watched in horrified fascination as the cut knitted itself back together, leaving only a faint line that faded even as he stared at it.
His hand was completely healed. In seconds. Hyde was so close to the surface that his healing ability was manifesting without conscious effort. Fuck. This was worse than he’d thought, worsethan just heightened emotions or loss of control. This was integration – both sides blurring together.
Dangerous, his father’s voice whispered in his memory.This is how it starts. First the healing manifests. Then the strength becomes unpredictable. Then the rage surfaces and people get hurt.
He braced his hands on the counter, trying to think. The suppressant was gone, spilled across the sink in a puddle of broken glass, but the Andersons needed him. He had no choice but to face his patient with Hyde barely contained beneath his skin. He quickly cleaned up the glass and washed his hands, watching the water run clear. There was no blood, no evidence of injury. It was like it had never happened.
Patients first. Personal crisis later.
The journal sat on the hallway table where he’d dropped it when Chloe kissed him. He picked it up, intending to set it aside for later, but it fell open to a page near the middle, and his eyes caught on a single phrase written in his great-grandfather’s careful hand—balance is always the answer.
He stood frozen for a moment, staring at the words. Not control, but balance.
Outside, he heard the distant wail of the ambulance siren. The Andersons needed him. He set the journal down carefully and headed for the door, his great-grandfather’s words echoing in his mind. Balance. His palm tingled where the wound had been, and Hyde hummed beneath his skin, protective and present and impossibly close.
He hurried out into the night, towards duty and patients and the carefully constructed life he’d built, but everything had changed.Because Chloe had kissed him. And somewhere in his great-grandfather’s journal might lay the answers he’d been too afraid to seek.
CHAPTER 12
“You look like someone kicked your puppy.”
Chloe glanced up from the caramel apple she’d been pretending to eat, and found Ginger’s sympathetic green eyes studying her across the festival booth.
“That obvious?”
“Little bit.” Ginger linked her arm through Chloe’s, steering her away from the apple stand toward the town square where jack-o’-lanterns floated in mid-air, courtesy of the local coven. “Let me guess. Tall, blond, extremely repressed doctor?”
Heat crept into her cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Uh-huh.” Ginger’s grin was infectious. “You’ve been scanning the crowd every three minutes for the past hour. And you get this little crease right here—” she tapped between Chloe’s eyebrows, “—every time you don’t find him.”
She sighed, giving up the pretense. The festival was beautiful—twinkling orange lights strung between buildings, the scent ofcinnamon and woodsmoke in the crisp autumn air, children in costumes running between booths while their parents laughed and chatted. Everyone from trolls to orcs to fairies was enjoying themselves. Everyone except a certain reclusive doctor.
She should be enjoying herself—she wanted to enjoy herself—but Victor’s absence felt like a missing tooth she couldn’t stop probing with her tongue.
“He’s not coming,” she admitted quietly. “I didn’t really think he would, but I guess I hoped…”
“That one kiss would magically fix decades of trauma and self-imposed isolation?” Ginger’s tone was gentle, not mocking. “Trust me, I understand.”
They wove through the crowd towards where Houston stood near the dunking booth, his massive minotaur frame impossible to miss. He was listening patiently to old Mr. Henderson complain about property lines, his expression calm and attentive despite having heard the same complaint at least monthly for the past year, according to Ginger.
“It’s different with Victor,” she said. “He actually believes—” She broke off, not sure how to explain the depth of his conviction that he posed a threat.
“That loving someone makes him a monster?” Ginger finished softly. “Yeah. I’ve heard some of the stories about his father. About how controlled everything had to be, and how his mother learned to be small and quiet.”
Her chest tightened. “He told you?”
“Not directly. But Houston knows things. And in a small town, people talk.” Ginger squeezed her arm. “The point is, Victor’sterrified. And terrified people don’t show up to crowded festivals where they might lose control in front of everyone they’ve spent years proving themselves to.”
Of course he wouldn’t come. Not because he didn’t care, but because he cared too much. Because his fear of hurting someone—of becoming his father—outweighed everything else. Even her. The thought stung more than it should.
