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“You just shot yourself in the head—and you don’t seem to be bothered by the fact that you don’t care whether you lived or died.”
“Yup, that’s where I’m at. You want to sum it all up for a third time? Would it make you feel better?”
Shuli wanted to grab the guy by the sweatshirt and shake the shit out of him. “If you’d died, and I’d found you, what the fuck do you think it would do to me?”
“You weren’t supposed to be out here.”
“So fine!” He threw up his hands. “I’d have gotten a phone call—whenever they found your body. What about your parents—”
“They’re not really my parents. They’re just giving me a place to put my head—”
“That night in the clinic when you came in on a stretcher, they were weeping.”
“Were you there? Did you see it yourself? ’Cuz if I remember, you were still back in the club, fucking humans in the bathroom, while I was getting shot and bleeding out on the sidewalk. So how the hell would you know what those two people did next to my hospital bed better than me.”
“They love you,” Shuli said roughly.
“Or maybe they just have savior complexes that have nothing to do with me. In which case, it’s not my problem if they get all twisted.”
“Are you listening to yourself? What the fuck.”
As Shuli’s voice went up an octave and projected like a loudspeaker, a night bird flushed off into the darkness, but that was the only reaction he got. Nate just stood there as if he were a bad actor in a Dawson’s Creek remake.
Shuli shook his head. “I need a drink.”
“Good, I’ll go get my phone and call in sick to work.” Nate shrugged in that offhand way again. “I didn’t feel like going in anyway. And I think I’d like to get drunk.”
“This isn’t right. You need to talk to someone.”
“I just found out I’m a fucking superhero, and you’re upset? Really? This is not bad news.” Nate turned back to the shed and opened things. “I’m going out for a drink. You can come or not. I don’t really care.”
As the shed door clapped shut behind the guy, Shuli looked up at the sky and decided that whoever the male was who had just up and left without a care in the world, he was not his friend.
He only happened to be inhabiting Nate’s body.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sometimes, you had to show and not tell.
Aware that those pains in the angels were waiting for him out in the corridor, Lassiter ducked back into Rahvyn’s recovery room, and kept as quiet as he could. She had curled onto her side facing the door, her hands under her chin, her feet tucked in. A blanket had been pulled up from the base of the bed, but he imagined she’d been half asleep when she’d gone looking for extra warmth, because the thing covered only part of her legs and none of her back.
He would have given anything to be able to join her.
Whispering across the cool, tiled floor, he carefully lifted the blanket and rearranged it so that—
“You return,” she said in a husky voice.
As her eyes fluttered open, he laid the thin covering properly over her body. “Just to check on you. I have to go out.”
“For a while… or fore’ermore?”
“Just for a while.” He brushed her cheek. “Don’t worry.”
At least that was the plan.
Rahvyn rolled over and stretched, and his eyes went to the soft swells of her breasts. She had changed into a fresh set of scrubs, the loose fabric hiding her curves from him, but also from others if anyone else came into the recovery room—and yes, maybe it made him a prehistoric, bonded knucklehead, but he was not in any kind of hurry for another male to see what she looked like naked.
Mostly because they were likely to lose their minds at how beautiful she was, and then he was going to have to murder the poor bastard.
Ah, yes, bonded males were such fun.
“Where are you going?” she asked. “If I may inquire.”
“Of course you can. I’m going to the Audience House.”
“Oh.” She pushed herself off the pillows. “Will you be safe?”
“I promise. And as soon as I’m done, I’ll come back here.”
So they could finish what they’d started, he thought to himself.
“Please be careful.”
Her smile was the worried kind, the one you put on when you were trying not to show how anxious you were.
Bending down, he pressed his lips to hers and lingered with the contact, his body instantly flaring back to life—which, considering how fucking distracted he was with all the shit going on? Was an indication of exactly how desperate he was to have her.
“I’m always careful.” He kissed her again. “Just rest. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Rahvyn nodded and resumed her tuck-in, but she didn’t look like she was going to sleep any more, her stare too fixed on the door—as if she knew who was waiting for him on the other side of it.
