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“You’re impossible.”

He groaned, head lolling.

“If you bleed out before explaining anything, I will never forgive you.”

His hand found mine, cold and shaking. “Little Flower.”

“Still banned,” I whispered.

His fingers squeezed once. Then his body went completely slack. Passed out again.

CRACK.

I slapped him across the face, and he came back up growling like a fucking animal before the pain took him back down again, panting.

The phone crackled in my ear. “Ms. Heart.” Footsteps hit the hall. “My team is there,” the voice said. “Open the door.” Someone knocked.

I stood on shaking legs, still holding his phone, still covered in his blood, and opened the door. A woman with frizzy brown hair and a bag the size of a body marched in and went straight to Murder Boy.

“Documents?” he rasped.

I stared at him. “You’re bleeding through my blanket and asking for paperwork?”

The healer dropped to one knee and pulled up a PDF on her phone. Bold letters flashed near the bottom. NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENT.

“An NDA,” I said flatly. “You brought an NDA for a stab wound.”

“Standard practice,” she said.

“For who, organized crime?”

The masked man gave a faint laugh.

The healer glared. “Don’t laugh. You’ll tear the wound more.” Her hands lit gold, then white, then blue at the center. The air changed, warm with herbs, metal, and magic. She pressed one glowing palm to his shoulder. His body bucked.

“Hold him,” she snapped.

“I am five feet tall and filled mostly with panic.”

“Too bad.”

I climbed onto the couch edge and grabbed his good shoulder. His forehead, hot and shaking, found the crook of my neck. His gloved hand wrapped around mine. Not stopping me. Holding on.

“Hey,” I whispered. “Stay with me.”

The healer cut through his shirt, poured something green and smoking over the wound, cursed when gray smoke crawled out, then pulled a sliver of silver from his shoulder with tweezers too delicate for the agony involved.

His hand crushed mine for half a second before he forced himself to loosen it. “Sorry,” he rasped.

“Someone’s digging cursed silver out of your body. It’s okay.”

For half an hour, my apartment became a nightmare clinic. Light poured from her hands. Stitches sealed themselves. Bitter tonics went down his throat. Black paste hissed over the wound beneath his ribs. I sat beside him, useless and sticky with blood, while the fever under my skin worsened.

At last, the healer snapped her bag shut. “He’ll live.”

“Wonderful. That was my favorite option.”

“He needs rest. No fighting. No moving. No sex.”