Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #9)(92)

Through the wavy pane of his vision, he watched as she dealt with Blay and then worked on Tohrment. He couldn’t hear what she was saying because his ears weren’t really working all that well, but Blay was clearly grateful and Tohr seemed eased just by her presence. From time to time, Manello asked her something, or Ehlena stopped her with a question, or Tohr winced and she paused to calm him.

This was her life, wasn’t it. This healing, this pursuit of excellence, this abiding devotion to her patients.

Her duty to them defined her, didn’t it.

And seeing her like this made him rethink what had happened between her and Payne. If Payne had been hell-bent on taking her own life, Jane would undoubtedly have tried to stop her. And then when it became apparent she couldn’t . . .

Abruptly, as if she knew he was staring at her, Jane’s eyes flipped to his. They were so shadowed he could barely tell their color, and she momentarily lost her corporeal form, as if he’d sucked the will to live right out of her.

That surgeon’s face got in the way. “You need more pain relief?”

“What?” V asked around his thick, dry tongue.

“You groaned.”

“Not . . . about . . . the knee.”

“It’s not just your knee.”

“. . . what . . . ?”

“I think your hip’s dislocated. I’m going to take the pants all the way off.”

“Whatever . . .”

As V went back to staring at Jane, he was only vaguely aware of scissors going up both sides of his leathers, but he knew exactly when the surgeon got all the cowhide off of him. The guy let out a sharp hiss . . . that was quickly covered up.

Sure as shit the reaction was not about the tattooed warnings in the Old Language.

“Sorry, Doc,” V mumbled, not sure why in the hell he was apologizing for the mess down below his waist.

“I’ll, ah . . . I’ll cover you up.” The human shot off and returned with a blanket that he put on V’s lower abdomen. “I just need to look your joints over.”

“You . . . do that.”

Vishous’s eyes returned to Jane and he found himself wondering . . . if she hadn’t died and been brought back as she had, would they have tried to have young? It was doubtful he could sire anything other than an orgasm with the damage his father had done to him. And he’d never wanted kids—still didn’t.

She would have been a stellar mother, though. She was good at everything she did.

Did she miss being alive?

Why had he never asked her that?

The return of the surgeon’s face cut off his thinking. “Your hip’s dislocated. I’m going to have to set it before I work on the knee because I’m worried about your circulation. Okay?”

“Just fix me,” V moaned. “Whatever it takes.”

“Good. I’ve put the knee in a temporary brace for this.” The human looked over to Butch, who, shower-request notwithstanding, had propped himself up against the wall no less than two feet away. “I need your help. There’s no one else around with free hands.”

The cop was right on it, shoring up his strength and coming over. “What do you want me to do?”

“Hold his pelvis in place.” The human hopped up onto the stainless-steel table at V’s legs, crouching down to avoid banging his head on the chandelier. “This is going to be a muscle job—there’s no other way to do it. I want you facing me, and I’ll show you where to put your hands.”

Butch got right with the program, sidling in close and reaching down. “Where?”

“Here.” V had some vague sensation of warm weight on both sides of his hips. “Little more to the outside—right. Good.”

Butch looked around his own shoulder at V. “You ready for this?”

Silly question. Like asking someone if they were prepared for a head-on collision.

“Stoked,” V muttered.

“Just focus on me.”

And V did . . . seeing the flecks of green in the cop’s hazel eyes and the contours of that busted nose and the five-o’clock shadow.

When the human grabbed V’s lower thigh and started lifting, V jacked up against the table, his head kicking back, his jaw straining.

“Easy, there,” the cop said. “Focus on me.”

Uh-huh, right. There was pain, and then there was PAIN. This was PAIN.

Vishous labored for breath, his neural pathways crammed with signals, his body exploding even as his outer skin stayed intact.

“Tell him to breathe,” someone said. Probably the human.

Yeah, that was going to happen. Not.

“Okay, on three I’m going to force the joint back into place—you ready?”

V had no clue who the guy was talking to, but if it was him, there was no way to answer. His heart was jumping and his lungs were stone and his brain was Las Vegas at night and—

“Three!”

Vishous screamed.

The only thing that was louder was the pop as the hip was relocated, as it were. And the last thing he saw before he checked out of the Conscious Inn & Suites was Jane’s head whipping around in a panic. In her eyes was stark terror, as if the single worst thing that she could imagine was him in agony. . . .

And that was when he knew that he still loved her.