The Darkest Kiss (Riley Jenson Guardian 6)

I laughed and stepped back. He was right - there was quite a bit of blood at our feet.

"Then get ye to the hospital. Sable will kick your butt if you haven't got the strength to pamper her the way she deserves to be pampered."

"Too damn right." He touched my torn cheek lightly. "Do you want a lift?"

I shook my head. "I'll take Iktar's car. He can grab a lift back with the cleanup team."

"The cleanup team do not like me," Iktar commented.

I grinned. "Well, you will show off your party trick at inappropriate moments."

And having seen that trick myself, I could totally understand their aversion. I mean, a penis he could retract into his body was bad enough, but being able to produce barbs along it as well was just...gross.

"Hey, they asked," he said. "Not my fault."

I smiled and shook my head. Iktar didn't sound too depressed about not being liked, and I had to wonder if he'd done it deliberately. Our spirit lizard got a kick out of not only shocking people but alienating them. Their culture had this weird belief that the fewer friends you had, the more powerful you were. Of course, they also believed family was all that mattered, and that I could totally understand.

Kade leaned forward and kissed my uncut cheek. "Today was fun."

"You have a very odd definition of fun," I said, voice dry. "And kissing is against the rules."

"Like you care about the rules." He gave me a salute good-bye, then spun on his heel and walked out.

I walked over to Iktar and held out my hand. "Keys?"

"In the car."

"Thanks."

He nodded, then his all-blue gaze met mine. "This job will kill us all, won't it?"

I hesitated, then nodded. "Probably. None of us is immortal, Iktar."

His gaze went back to the bakeneko's body, then he nodded slowly. "I guess it's as good a way of going as any."

"Oh, I think getting old and slipping away peacefully surrounded by friends and loved ones would be a hell of a lot better than this."

His gaze came back to mine. "But you and I are not destined for that, are we?"

"Probably not." I squeezed his shoulder lightly, his flesh cold and clammy under my fingertips, then walked away. I didn't want to think about a future I might not have. I just wanted to get to the hospital and make sure my present was alive and well.

Liander's surgeon walked in an hour after I arrived back at the hospital.

Yann and Raina stood up immediately, but Rhoan didn't move, his expression carefully neutral but the tension in his body suddenly sharpening.

"How did the operation go?" Raina asked, her normally warm tones thin and high. Shaky.

The gray-haired surgeon gave her one of those smiles doctors all over the world seemed to use. The one that said everything was fine, even if things were going to hell and back.

"We repaired the bowel and the small intestine damage, but we can't one hundred percent guarantee we've gotten all the fecal matter out of his abdominal cavity, so we'll have to keep an eye out for infection. For that reason, we've confined him with light silver to stop him from shifting."

"But silver will kill him - "

"And by shifting, he could accelerate the infection as much as the healing, and that could be dangerous. We need to give it a day or so to be sure." The doctor gave her his best professional smile. "We don't use enough silver to kill, just restrain. It'll burn, but he'll heal from that and be fine."

"Oh, thank God," Raina said, raising one hand to her chest.

The surgeon hesitated, then said, "He did lose a lot of blood, and we'll have to keep him in the hospital for a little longer than we normally would for a wolf, just because the risk of infection is a lot higher, but I think he's going to be fine."