Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood 5)

"You in pain?" Red Sox asked. When there was no response, the guy looked over his shoulder at her. "Can you help him, Doc?"

She wanted to say no. She wanted to throw out a couple of curse words and demand to be released again. And she wanted kick this member of the Red Sox Nation in the balls for making her patient sicker by whatever just happened.

The Hippocratic oath got her up and moving to the duffels. "Depends on what you brought me."

She dug around and found a Walgreens-load of just about every pain med available. And all of it was straight out of Big Pharma packages, so they clearly had sources on the inside of a hospital: The drugs were sealed up in such a way that they hadn't passed very far through the black market. Hell, these guys probably were the black market.

To make sure she hadn't missed any options, she looked in the second bag... and found her favorite pair of yoga sweats... and the rest of the things she'd packed to go down to Manhattan for the Columbia interview.

They'd been to her home. These bastards had been in her home.

"We had to take your car back," Red Sox explained. "And figured you'd appreciate some fresh clothes. These were ready to go."

They'd driven her Audi, walked through her rooms, been through her shit.

Jane stood up and kicked the duffel across the room. As her clothes spilled out onto the floor, she shoved her hand into her pocket and gripped the razor, ready to go for Red Sox's throat.

The patient's voice was strong. "Apologize."

She wheeled around and glared at the bed. "For what? You take me against my w - "

"Not you. Him."

Red Sox's voice was contrite as he spoke up fast. "I'm sorry we went through your house. Just trying to make this easier on you."

"Easier? No offense, but f**k off with your apology. You know, people are going to miss me. The police will be looking for me."

"We took care of all that, even the appointment in Manhattan. We found the train tickets and the interview itinerary. They no longer expect you."

Rage made her lose her voice for a moment. "How dare you."

"They were quite content to reschedule when they heard you were sick." As if this was supposed to make it right.

Jane opened her mouth, ready to have at him, when it dawned on her that she was wholly at their mercy. So antagonizing her captors was probably not a smart move.

With a curse, she looked at the patient. "When are you going to let me go?"

"As soon as I'm on my feet."

She studied his face, from the goatee to the diamond eyes to the tats at his temple. On instinct she said, "Give me your word. Swear on the life I gave back to you. You will let me go unharmed."

He didn't hesitate. Not even to take a breath. "On my honor and the blood in my veins, you'll be free as soon as I'm well."

Berating herself and them, she took her hand from her pocket, bent down, and grabbed a vial of Demerol out of the bigger duffel. "There aren't any syringes."

"I've got some." Red Sox came over and held a sterile pack out. When she tried to take it from him, he kept a grip on the thing. "I know you'll use this wisely."

"Wisely?" She snapped the syringe out of his hand. "No, I'm going to poke him in the eye with it. Because that's what they trained me to do in medical school."

Bending down again, she fished around in the duffel and found a pair of latex gloves, an alcohol towelette packet, and some gauze and packing to change the chest dressing.

Although she'd given the patient prophylactic antibiotics through his IV before surgery, so his risk of infection was low, she asked, "Can you get antibiotics as well?"

"Anything you need."

Yeah, they were definitely hooked up with a hospital. "I might want some Ciprofloxacin or maybe some Amoxicillin. Depends on what's going on under that surgical packing."

She put the needle and the vial and the other supplies on the bedside table, snapped on the gloves, and tore open the foiled square.

"Hold up for a second, Doc," Red Sox said.

"Excuse me?"

Red Sox's eyes fixed on her like a pair of gun sights. "With all due respect, I need to stress that if you harm him intentionally, I will kill you with my bare hands. In spite of the fact that you're a woman."

As a shot of terror stiffened her spine, a growling sound filled the bedroom, the kind a mastiff made before it attacked.

They both looked down at the patient in shock.

His upper lip was peeled back and those sharp front teeth were twice the size they'd been before. "No one touches her. I don't care what she does or to whom."

Red Sox frowned as if his buddy had lost his marbles. "You know our agreement, roommate. I keep you safe until you can do it yourself. You don't like it? Get your ass healed up and then you can worry about her."

"No one."

There was a moment of silence; then Red Sox looked back and forth between Jane and the patient like he was recalibrating a law of physics - and having trouble with the math.

Jane jumped in, feeling the need to calm them down to a rolling boil. "Okay, okay. Let's cut the macho-shithead posturing, shall we?" The two of them looked at her in surprise and seemed even more astounded as she elbowed Red Sox out of the way. "If you're going to be here, unplug the aggression. You're not helping him." She glared at the patient. "And you - you just relax."

After a moment of dead-fish silence, Red Sox cleared his throat, and the patient pulled on his glove and shut his eyes.

"Thank you," she muttered. "Now, you boys mind if I do my job so I can get out of here?"

She gave the patient a shot of Demerol, and within moments his tight eyebrows eased up like someone had loosened the screws on them. As the tension left his body, she stripped off the bandage on his chest and lifted the gauze and packing off.

"Dear... God," she breathed.

Red Sox looked over her shoulder. "What's wrong? It's healed up perfect."

She gently prodded the row of metal staples and the pink seam beneath them. "I could remove these now."

"You need help?"

"This just isn't right."

The patient's eyes opened, and it was obvious he knew exactly what she was thinking: Vampire.

Without looking at Red Sox, she said, "Will you get me the surgical scissors and the grips in that duffel? Oh, and bring me the topical antibiotic spray."

As she heard rustling from across the room, she whispered, "What are you?"

"Alive," the patient replied. "Thanks to you."

"Here you go."

Jane jumped like a puppet. Red Sox was holding out two stainless-steel implements, but for the life of her she couldn't remember why she'd asked for them.

"The staples," she murmured.

"What?" Red Sox asked.

"I'm taking out the staples." She took the scissors and the grips and hit the patient's chest with a mist of antibiotic.

In spite of the fact that her brain was doing the twist in her skull, she managed to cut and remove each of the twenty or so metal clips, dropping them in the wastepaper basket next to the bed. When she was finished she swabbed up the tears of blood that welled at each entrance and exit hole, then hit his chest with some more antibacterial spray.

As she met his brilliant eyes, she knew for sure he was not human. She had seen the insides of too many bodies and witnessed the struggle to heal too many times to think otherwise. What she wasn't sure of was where that left her. Or the rest of the human race.

How was this possible? That there was another species with so many human characteristics? Then again, that was probably how they stayed hidden.

Jane covered the center of his chest with a light layer of gauze, which she then taped in place. As she finished up the patient grimaced, and his hand, the one with the glove, went to his stomach.

"You all right?" Jane asked as his face drained of color.

"Queasy." A line of sweat broke out over his upper lip.

She looked at Red Sox. "I think you're going to want to take off."

"Why?"

"He's about to be sick."

"I'm fine," the patient muttered, closing his eyes.

Jane headed for the duffels for a bedpan and talked at Red Sox. "Go on, now. Let me see to him. We aren't going to need an audience for this."

Goddamn Demerol. It worked great on pain, but sometimes the side effects were a real problem for patients.