Page 494 of Coal Hearts

I closed my eyes.

I didn’t want to watch.

Something sharp stabbed me a few times.

Fucking ow again—

“The local anaesthesia should kick in quickly.” Her bedside manner improved a little as she placed the empty syringe I hadn’t noticed back on the table.

After a few moments, she tapped my red-raw skin. “Can you feel anything?”

“Only a thick numbness.”

“Good.” She gave me a tight smile. “Look away if you’re squeamish.”

Could a man who got turned on by blood be squeamish?

I’d never actually tested myself and stubbornly kept my eyes locked on my arm as she shrugged and threaded the needle through the first section.

The way my skin resisted the puncture only to fail and surrender. The strangest slithering sensation as she pulled thread through flesh and then jabbed me all over again.

Yep.

My teeth clamped together as a fresh wave of nausea rushed.

I’m squeamish.

Closing my eyes, I breathed through my nose and did my best to use the same technique I’d done on the beach. I imagined my pain flowing down my legs and into Victor’s castle. I focused on nothing but my breath, in and out, in and out, in and—

“All done.”

“What?” My eyes snapped open. “Already?”

Giving me a strange look, she glanced at the clock. “It’s been twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes?”

How was that possible?

I studied the neat gauze stuck over my arm, bumpy with a faint line of black stitches beneath.

Panic filled me to return to Ily.

Ily.

Goddammit, her name corrupted my entire system.

I didn’t know if my heart or my cock reacted the most anymore.

One thing I did know...I would go out of my way to never use her name again.

How could I?

Now that I knew what it meant?

Grabbing the open half of my dressing gown, I went to shrug back into it, but the doctor caught my wrist. “Wait.” Her cool hands landed on my roasting, throbbing side, probing none too gently.

I hissed and flinched but didn’t move away.