Firefighter Unicorn (Fire & Rescue Shifters 6)

akes. And wings.”

“That’s a caduceus, the Rod of Hermes. It’s the symbol used by U.S. Army medics, but it doesn’t actually have any traditional association with medicine.” He snorted. “If you come back with one of those tattooed on your body at Oxford, be prepared for excessive mockery from your more well-educated colleagues. I was drunk, but not that drunk.”

She giggled, and then stopped abruptly as what he’d just said percolated through her brain. “Wait. You studied medicine at Oxford University? And you’re a paramedic?”

His shoulder tensed under her cheek. “I never finished my training. I got the degree, but I quit six weeks into my hospital residency.”

“Really? Why?”

“My headaches,” he said in a low voice. “University was bad enough, being surrounded by hordes of horny students, but the hospital was even worse. So many people, in such a small space…I could barely function. I tried to work despite the migraines, but even when I forced myself to touch patients, there were too many I couldn’t heal. I’m best with things like wounds and burns, life-threatening injuries. In hospital, there were too many people I couldn’t help.”

I can’t cure cancer, he’d said before.

Ivy caught his hand in her own, drawing it up to her mouth. Softly, she kissed his knuckles, and the joints of his strong, clever fingers.

“Tell me more about your tattoos,” she said, releasing him again. “You can’t have got them all when you were drunk.”

He let out a soft huff of laugher. “No. Though I was badly hung-over when I got these put on.” He indicated the intricate vines curling along his collarbones. “It was a few months after I’d dropped out. I was something of a mess. Living at home, searching for a purpose. After the third time my father hid a hooker under my bed—”

“What?”

“It’s a long story. Suffice it to say that he’s a terrible human being. Anyway, I stormed out, drove randomly half the night, and ended up here in in Brighton. Spent two days getting shit-faced at the Full Moon pub and generally feeling sorry for myself. Then on the third day Rose marched over to me, said that there was someone I needed to meet, and introduced me to Fire Commander Ash. While, let me add, I was still completely plastered. Worst job interview ever.”

Ivy smirked at the mental image of Hugh being grilled by the Phoenix while three sheets to the wind. “Can’t have gone too badly, since he hired you.”

“Well, I told him what I could do, and why. Which I would never have done while sober, so I can thank two bottles of vodka for my job.” His flippant tone turned more serious. “In any event, Ash gave me back a purpose. And the first thing the next morning I went out and got the vines, to make sure I never forgot it again. To help me stay focused.”

Ivy touched one of the dry, dead leaves on his right pectoral. “Stay focused on what?”

He was silent for a moment. Then he took her hand, drawing it across his chest so that her forefinger rested on one of the budding leaves on the other side.

“John Doe,” he said. “Sword through the heart.”

Ivy drew in a sharp breath, but he was already was moving on. Following the curl of the vine, he guided her fingertip to a triple spray of leaves springing from a single stem.

“Griff. Three times. I hope he’s bored with endangering himself, because I’m running out of skin there.” Another leaf. “This was a woman in a traffic incident. Never knew her name, but she would have bled out before the ambulance arrived. Anyway. You get the picture.”

She lifted her head to stare at him, speechless. He avoided her eyes, looking down at his left arm as if it belonged to someone else.

“A leaf per life. Terribly melodramatic, I know.” His tone was light, but there was a forced edged to his self-mockery. “But once I’d started, it seemed churlish to stop. Would be rude to decide that someone wasn’t worth recording, after all.”

She flattened her hand over his bicep. Her fingers covered at least a dozen leaves just there. And the curling vines covered his shoulder, down his arm, round over his back…

“This part’s empty,” she said, following the vines down to his elbow.

“Just waiting to be filled in.” He shrugged. “I wanted the unfinished design to be there, staring at me accusingly, if I was ever tempted to stop.”

“Stop getting tattoos?”

“Stop healing,” he said softly. “Give up my unicorn. Like I said, the tattoos help keep me focused.”

Her eyes went from the half-filled vines on his left arm to the nearly empty ones on his right. Only a handful of dry, curled leaves clung there…

“Hugh.” She touched one of the autumn leaves, and he flinched. “If the growing leaves are people you’ve saved, what are these?”

He was silent for a long, long moment.

“The people I didn’t,” he said at last. “And I pray to God that side is finished.”