"Sure I do."
"No, you don't."
"You're an ortho guy, not an infectious-disease czar."
"You're not having an immune response here, Whitcomb."
She felt her own throat. Thought about the fact that she wasn't sneezing, coughing, or throwing up. But, hell, where did that leave her?
"I want to have a CAT scan on your head."
"Bet you say that to all the girls."
"The ones who present with your symptoms? Absolutely."
"And here I thought I was special." She shot him a weak smile and closed her eyes. "I'll be okay, Manello. Just need to get back to work."
There was a long silence, during which she realized that his hands were on her knees. And he was still up close, leaning over her.
She lifted her lids. Manuel Manello was looking at her not as a doctor would, but as a man who cared about her would. Shit, he was attractive, especially like this… except something was off. Not with him-with her.
Well, duh. She had a headache.
He leaned forward and stroked her hair back. "Jane…"
"What?"
"Will you let me set up a CAT scan for you?" As she started to shut him down, he interjected, "Consider it a favor to me. I couldn't forgive myself if there was something wrong and I didn't push on this."
Shit. "Yeah. Okay. Fine. But I don't need-"
"Thank you." There was a moment's pause. And then he leaned in and kissed her on the mouth.
Chapter Thirty-six
On the Other Side, Vishous stared down at Cormia and wanted to shoot himself in the foot. Following her wobbly revelation that she'd never seen a male before, he felt god-awful. It had never dawned on him that she'd known only females, but if she'd been born just after the last Primale died, how could she have ever met the opposite sex?
Of course she'd be terrified of him.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered, drawing hard on his hand-rolled, then tapping on it. He was ashing on the amphitheater's marble stage, but he didn't give a fuck. "I totally underestimated how hard this would be for you. I assumed…"
He'd assumed she'd be hot to trot for him or some shit. Instead, she was no better off than he was.
"Yeah, I'm damn sorry."
As her lids peeled back in surprise, the jade color of her eyes gleamed.
In what he hoped passed for a gentler tone, he said, "Do you want this…?" He moved the hand that held the cigarette back and forth between them. "This mating?" When she stayed quiet, he shook his head. "Look, I can see it in your eyes. You want to run from me, and not just because you're scared. You want to run from what we're going to have to do, right?"
She brought her hands to her face, the heavy folds of the robe riding down her thin arms and choking the crooks of her elbows. In a small voice she said, "I couldn't bear to let down the Chosen. I… I will do what I must for the good of the whole."
Well, wasn't that the theme song for the both of them.
"As will I," he murmured.
Neither of them said another word and he didn't know what to do. He was no good with females to begin with, and he was even worse now that he was damaged goods from letting Jane go.
Abruptly he whipped his head around, aware that they were not alone. "You, behind the column. Come out. Now."
A Chosen stepped into view, head bowed, body tense beneath her traditional white wrap. "Sire."
"What are you doing here?"
As the Chosen stared meekly at the marble floor, he thought, Lord save him from the subservience. Funny, during sex he'd demanded it. Now the shit annoyed the hell out of him.
"You'd better have come to comfort her," he growled. "If it's anything other than that, you need to get the hell out of here."
"It is for comfort," the Chosen said softly. "I worry for her."
"What's your name?"
"Chosen."
"For fuck's sake!" As both she and Cormia jumped, he forced his temper deep into his gut. "What is your name?"
"Amalya."
"Okay, then, Amalya. I want you to take care of her until I get back. That's an order." As the Chosen did some bowing and vowing, he took a last drag on the hand-rolled, then licked two of his fingers and pressed them to the tip. As he put the butt in the pocket of his robe, he wondered for no good reason why in the hell everyone had to wear fucking pajamas on the other side.
He glanced at Cormia. "See you in two days."
V left without looking back, walking up the white grass of the hill, avoiding the white silk path that had been laid out. When he came to the Scribe Virgin's courtyard, he prayed like hell he didn't run into her, and thanked God she wasn't around. The last thing he needed was a postgame wrap-up with the likes of Momzilla.
Under the watchful eyes of all those songbirds, he launched himself back to the real world, but he didn't go to the mansion.
He went exactly where he didn't need to be: He took form across the street from Jane's condo. It was a bad fucking idea on a skyscraper scale, but he was half-dead from sorrow and not thinking right, and besides, he didn't give a shit about anything. Not even the lines that couldn't be crossed between humans and his kind.
The night was cold, and he was barely dressed in the fakata ceremony clothes, but he didn't care. He was so numbed-out and wrecked in the head, he could have been naked in a sleet storm and not noticed-
What the hell.
There was a car in her driveway. A Porsche Carrera 4S. Same one Z had, only Z's was iron gray and this number was silver.
V hadn't intended to get closer than across the street, but that plan was blown out of the water as he inhaled and caught the scent of a male emanating from the convertible. It was that doctor, the one who'd pulled the lothario shit with her in the hospital room.
V materialized to the maple in her front yard and looked in through the kitchen window. Coffeepot was on. Sugar was out. There were two spoons on the counter.
Oh, hell, no. Hell mother fucking no.
V couldn't see much of the rest of the condo, so he jogged around the side, his bare feet screaming as he crunched through icy snow patches. As an old woman from the condo next door peered out her window as if she'd seen him, he threw some mhis around as a precaution-and because he figured he should do something that proved he had a brain.
This stalker routine sure as shit wasn't going to get him on Jeopardy!
As he came up to the back windows and got a look-see into the living room, he saw the death of another as clearly as if he'd committed the murder in real time:
That human male, that doctor, was on his knees and pressed up close to Jane as she sat on her sofa. The guy had one hand on her face, the other on her neck, and he was focused on her mouth.
V lost his concentration, dropped the mhis, and moved without thinking. Without reasoning. Without hesitation. He was nothing but screaming, bonded male instinct as went for the French doors, prepared to kill-
From out of nowhere Butch stepped in front of him, derailing the attack by grabbing him around the waist and dragging him away from the condo. It was a dangerous move, even between best friends. Unless you were an eighteen-wheeler, you didn't want to get in between a bonded male and the target of this kind of aggression: V's attack instinct shifted its focus instantly. He bared his fangs, hauled off, and punched his nearest and dearest in the side of the head.
The Irishman dropped V like a beehive, whipped back his fist, and threw a low-higher that caught V on the underside of his chin. As his jaw slammed into his skull and his teeth sang like a choir of angels, he caught fire sure as a dry meadow, instantly into overburn.
"Mhis, you fucker," Butch spat. "You mhis this place first before we do this."