Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #9)(19)

When she nodded, he moved out of her range of sight and she closed her eyes to concentrate, straining for some kind of sensation to register. Anything.

Surely if there was a response, however dim, that was a good sign—

“I feel something,” she said with a surge of energy. “On my left side.”

There was a pause. “How about now.”

She begged her legs for a similar reception and had to breathe deeply before she could answer. “No. Nothing.”

The sound of the soft sheets being repositioned was the only confirmation she got that she was covered once again. But at least she had felt something.

Except instead of addressing her, her healer and her twin’s mate conversed quietly, just out of earshot.

“Verily,” Payne said, “mayhap you will include me in the discussion.” The pair of them came over and it was curious that neither looked pleased. “It is good that I felt aught, no?”

Her healer came closer to her head, and she felt the warm strength of his palm take her own. As he stared at her, she was yet anew captivated : His lashes were very long. And across his strong jaw and his cheeks, a shadow of beard was showing. His thick, dark hair was shiny.

And she really liked the way he smelled.

But he hadn’t replied to her, had he? “Is it not, healer?”

“I wasn’t touching you on your left foot at that time.”

Payne blinked through an unexpected upset. And yet, after all this time being immobile, she should be prepared for information like that, shouldn’t she.

“So are you going to begin the now?” she asked.

“Not yet.” Her healer glanced over at Jane, and then looked back. “We’re going to have to move you for the operation.”




“This hallway ain’t far enough away, buddy.”

As Butch’s reasonable voice registered, V wanted to bite the guy’s head off. And the urge got even stronger as the bastard continued. “How ’bout heading over to the Pit?”

Logical advice, true. And yet . . . “You’re starting to piss me off, cop.”

“Like that’s a news flash? And P.S., I don’t care.”

The door to the exam room opened and his Jane slipped out. As she looked at him, her forest green eyes were not happy.

“Now what,” he barked, unsure whether he could handle any more bad news.

“He wants to move her.”

After a moment of blinking like a cow, V shook his head, convinced he’d gotten his languages confused. “Excuse me?”

“To St. Francis.”

“No. Fucking. Way—”

“Vishous—”

“That’s a human hospital!”

“V—”

“Have you lost your mind—”

At that moment, the godforsaken human surgeon came out, and to his credit, or his insanity, he got right up into V’s grille. “I can’t work on her here. You want me to try it and paralyze her for good myself? Use your goddamned head—I need an MRI, microscopes, equipment, and staff you don’t have here. We’re out of time, and she can’t be transported far—besides, if you’re the U.S. government, you can bury her records and make sure this doesn’t get picked up by the press, so the exposure will be minimal with my help.”

U.S. government? What the—Yeah, whatever with that. “She’s not going to a human hospital. Period.”

The guy frowned over the “human” thing, but then seemed to shake it off. “Then I’m not operating—”

V launched himself at the man.

It was a total blink-of-the-eye kind of thing. One minute, he was planted in his shitkickers; the next he was all fly-be-free—at least until he slammed into the good doctor and velvet-Elvised the bastard onto the corridor’s concrete wall.

“Get in there and start cutting,” V growled.

The human could barely draw a breath, but hypoxia didn’t stop him from manning up. He met V right in the eyeball. Unable to speak, he mouthed, Won’t. Do. It.

“Let him go, V. And let him take her where he needs to go.”

As Wrath’s voice cut through the drama, the urge to go pyrotechnic became nearly irresistible. Like they needed another kibitzer? And f*ck-that on the command.

V squeezed the surgeon’s collar trash-bag tight. “You are not taking her anywhere—”

The hand on V’s shoulder was heavy, and Wrath’s voice had an edge like a dagger. “And you’re not in charge here. She’s my responsibility, not yours.”

Wrong thing to say. On so many levels.

“She is my blood,” he snarled.

“And I’m the one who put her on that bed. Oh, and I’m also your cocksucking king, so you will do as I command, Vishous.”

Just as he was about to say and do something he would later regret, Jane’s sanity reached him. “V, at this moment, you are the problem. Not your twin’s condition, or Manny’s decision. You need to step back, get some clarity, and think, not react. I will be with her the whole time, and Butch will come with me, won’t you.”

“Abso,” the cop replied. “And I’ll get Rhage, too. She won’t be left alone for an instant.”

Dead silence. During which V’s rational side fought for his steering wheel . . . and that human refused to back down. In spite of the fact that he was one stab through the heart away from a coffin, that son of a bitch just kept glaring right back.