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“I go by Anne, actually. It’s my middle name.”
The partial vampire smiled at her without flashing fangs, assuming he had any. “Anne, please call me Rob. Now, what happened? I know you already told triage, and your intake nurse, but I’d like to hear it for myself.”
Anne looked down at where her hands had twisted around themselves. “It was an accident. I crossed the street without looking and it was dark.” She nodded in Darius’s direction. “He wasn’t speeding or anything. It was all my fault.”
Darius frowned, but kept quiet. He wanted to bring up the other half of the truth, that she’d been chased, but he figured the medical types would find all her injuries, even if they didn’t know the why’s of her entry onto the roadway.
“So you were hit by a car.”
“Yes, but as I said, it wasn’t his fault. There’s no reason to get the police involved or anything.”
Dr. Bluff nodded. “And I understand you came in here on your own.”
“Sort of.” Her anxious eyes shot over to Darius. “He carried me in, I think.”
“Okay.” Dr. Bluff got a stethoscope out of his white coat’s pocket. “While I listen to your heart and lungs, and check your pupils, I hate to ask the unoriginal question, but where does it hurt?”
As the male plugged his ears with his instrument and leaned over the bed, Anne started going through the rest of the spiel she’d shared two other times. On the sidelines, Darius closed his eyes and listened to the rise and fall of her voice. The words she spoke were simple ones, rarely anything multi-syllabic, and certainly nothing terribly complicated in terms of translation. They focused him like a laser, however.
On her. And whatever she wanted, needed.
Ordered him to do.
“You’re not going to pass out, are you?”
Darius popped his lids. The other vampire in the room was right in front of him, face banked with panic. Like the last thing he wanted were all of the physical anomalies of the species showing up during the treatment of what was supposed to be just another queasy bystander.
“No, no, I’m fine.”
A knowing look came into the male’s eyes. “I’m going to order some X-rays of her right shoulder and her right lower leg. I’m also going to have to perform a full physical exam. Unless you’d prefer me to have a female doctor do it?”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Anne said from over on the bed. “I’m not shy.”
The other vampire didn’t acknowledge his patient’s consent. Instead, he waited for permission to proceed… as was the way when any healer dealt with a bonded male and his female: No one wanted the kind of trouble that arrived swiftly and surely if the protective instinct of a male was triggered.
Clearly, the doctor thought some of the story was a ruse.
And besides, Darius hadn’t bonded.
“Um… hello?” Anne prompted. “You boys finished making decisions for me, or are you expecting me to wait a little longer while you figure out my consent?”
As Darius glanced over to the bed, he couldn’t explain to her why the deference was being paid. And in any event, she wasn’t his mate—
“Yes, a female doctor would be best,” he heard himself say. And then he switched into the Old Language. “And I shall be right on the other side of that thin curtain during the exam.”
“But of course, sire,” Dr. Bluff replied with an incline of the head. “We shall not have it any other way. Are there any other special provisions you require for her?”
Darius could feel the woman’s eyes narrowing on him. “No, that is all.”
“She shall be treated with the utmost consideration.”
“She better be,” he growled.
* * *
A mere half hour later, Anne and her bed were wheeled back into her little green-draped subdivision. And what do you know, the man with the blue eyes and the big body was just where she’d left him, waiting on that flimsy plastic chair like a dog at the front door during a workday.
“Dr. Bluff will be back in very soon,” the orderly said. “You good?”
“Yes, thank you.”
The guy nodded. “You take care now.”
And then she and her mystery man were alone again. As she glanced over at him, she had a feeling he was trying not to stare at her, and there was the temptation to think it was because he found her alluring in some way.
Yeah, because this hospital gown really brought out the red in all of her bruises.
“Did they treat you in an acceptable manner?” he asked as he continued to focus on the floor.
He had the strangest way of putting things, so formal, so precise.
“They were great, thanks. Although I think I glow in the dark now from all the X-rays.” She pulled her blankets up a little higher. “I really can’t believe how quickly this is going.”
