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He recalled what she had done to save Nate’s life the night the kid had been shot.
This was why she was the one, he thought. Nobody else could truly understand the situation he was in.
“Lassiter,” she said tightly. “I must confess something.”
“About what?”
Her silver eyes drifted down to his mouth. “I want to be saved. By you.”
A bracing electrical charge bolted through his body. “Oh, God, Rahvyn. Are you sure.”
“Yes,” came her rock-solid reply. “Please… save me.”
As if he could tell her, among all mortals, no? Still, his reply was in slow motion, him taking one final step into her, her putting her small hands on his chest, the stillness of anticipation closing in on them, locking in on them.
Slipping his hand under her platinum hair, he stroked the nape of her neck. “I’m sorry.”
“Why do you keep saying that—”
He cut her off by covering her lips with his own, the kiss gentle, the feeling in his blood volcanic. He told himself to stop as soon as the seal was made. He didn’t. Tilting his head to the side, he deepened the contact, stroking her mouth, plying her.
When he brought her up against his body, he made himself promise…
… he would stop.
Before things got to the point of no return.
Wasn’t that where he needed to take them both, though?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was just a dog.
As Wrath was caged in the exam room, that refrain was what was going around and around in his head, circulating like a vulture. He wanted to pace. He wasn’t leaving George’s side.
Because this wasn’t just a dog.
Running his hand down George’s flank, over and over again, he felt like this was not what was supposed to be happening. Nope, not now. Not today. George had been fine yesterday, and he was far too young for this. Goldens lived to be twelve, right—
His hand slipped onto the patch of fur on the belly that had been shaved to do the ultrasound. As that rib cage expanded and then shuddered on the exhale, he bent to the golden’s soft ear.
“It’s okay, buddy. I’ve got you.”
When he stroked George’s ruff, the dog nuzzled into his palm, and there was a lick, as if even though the animal suffered, his love for his master was untempered by his pain; he was just less able to demonstrate his loyalty.
Then everything went limp, and for a split second, Wrath thought it had happened. It was over—
A hitched breath made a whistle in the jowls. And after that, George coughed.
“I’m not getting another fucking dog,” he said bitterly. “I am not going through this shit ever again.”
“Wrath, we don’t know what’s going on—”
“Do you really think he’s walking away from this?”
The door opened, and Wrath’s hypersensitive nose picked up Doc Jane’s scent—and it had changed. She was scared now.
“What is it,” he snapped.
The female waited until the door closed on its own, his ears picking up the whisper-silent bump as the thing hit its jambs.
“We’ve, ah, we’ve found something on the ultrasound. On his spleen.”
As Beth gasped, Wrath gripped the fur under his hand—and had to force himself to relax his fist. “And it is?”
“I’m not a vet and neither is Manny. The mass should be biopsied for proper diagnosis, except we’re not qualified or equipped to do that. We don’t have what we need to safely put him under, and we really wouldn’t be able to understand his vitals—”
“You operate on humans and vampires. You’re surgeons, that’s what you do.”
“It’s not appropriate—”
“Well, make it appropriate!”
As he got loud, he sensed Beth flinch over on the chair, and as she went shhh, he knew she was calming L.W. Or calming herself by soothing the young whether or not he needed it.
Doc Jane adopted a professionally calm routine that somehow was more dreadful than if she’d gotten emotional. “We are not going to operate on this dog. We’ve found a good vet, however—”
“Fine. Send Fritz to go get him or her. Bring them here, now—”
“What do you think it could be?” Beth asked roughly. “The mass.”
“I can’t really say for sure—”
“Tell me,” Wrath cut in. When there was a stretch of silence, he figured the females were exchanging glances. “It’s my fucking dog. You’re going to tell me what you think it is—”
“Hemangiosarcoma.”
The word landed like a grenade that had been tossed at him and he’d caught in his bare hands. “He’s too young. It has to be something else.”
“That’s why we need a vet.”
Wrath angled his head down to George, as if his piece-of-shit eyes still worked, as if he could actually see what he could only create from memories of other golden retrievers that he’d encountered when he’d still had a little vision. Meanwhile, out in the hall, the inevitable gathering of brothers was muted. Goddamn, he didn’t want to face them. He didn’t want to talk about this because he didn’t want to be living it in the first place, and though the fuckers meant well, he didn’t have the energy to share his pain with them—
