Except that he needed to be awake, because he kept hearing Vladlena’s voice, and he was desperate to know that he wasn’t dreaming her softly-spoken words.
Slowly, he pried open his eyes. A grayish fog swirled all around him, but through it he could make out hospital equipment and walls scrawled with red symbols. On the ceiling, thick chains hung in neat loops, and when he turned his head to look out the open doorway, he saw people in scrubs moving past. Beyond them . . .
He blinked. Blinked again. The fog didn’t clear, but a person came into focus, a person he hadn’t seen since the day he became a vampire.
It was the male who had turned him.
The massive guy hadn’t changed; he was still wearing some sort of plate bone armor, and his pale hair still hung to his shoulders, with two thin braids at each temple. Tattoos on his throat writhed as he spoke with a Seminus demon in a black paramedic uniform.
Nate waited for the hot, searing hatred to wash over him, the way it always had when he thought of the male who had taken Nate’s mortal life from him. But nothing happened. Nate had fantasized about finding the bastard and dismembering him slowly, making him pay for what he’d done.
Now . . . now Nate was oddly calm about seeing the guy. The person Nate really wanted to see was Lena, and so far, she was a no-show.
Nate.
She might be a no-show, but her sweet voice was a soothing whisper in his head. Closing his eyes, he let the male who’d made him a vampire disappear, and he concentrated on Lena, wishing he’d had a chance to make love to her.
Nate.
He inhaled, caught a whiff of the fresh scent unique to Lena’s silky skin. Rolling his head to the side, he opened his eyes again. She was standing next to him, dressed in purple scrubs, fiddling with an IV bag of blood. And she was wearing his stethoscope.
“Hey.” Her smile wrapped around his heart, and he smiled back like a besotted fool. “It’s about time you woke up. As soon as this bag empties, you should be back almost to 100 percent.”
“Are you . . .” He had to clear his throat of what seemed to be a year of disuse. “Are you okay?”
“Eidolon healed me when we first came in. Two days ago, in case you’re wondering.” She took his hand, her warm palm heating him. “For a while there, I thought I was going to lose you.”
He’d thought that too. But then she’d come out of nowhere, all fur and fangs, and . . . “You shifted,” he whispered. “I saw you.” What she’d shifted into was another question. He’d never seen anything like the huge, beautiful canine.
“I’m free, Nate.” Her voice was full of charming, childlike excitement. “I’m going to live.”
Nate pushed himself up on one elbow. “How did it happen?”
The sound of a cleared throat brought Nate’s head around. A dark-haired male in scrubs and a white lab coat stood in the doorway.
“Seems our Vladlena is a rare crossbreed. I’m pissed that I didn’t think of that sooner.”
“Why would you have?” she asked. “My father said I was his.”
“He also said you were born in human form. I didn’t put that together with your inability to shift.”
“Crossbreed?” Nate asked.
She nodded. “Apparently, my dam mated with a wolf the same day she mated with the hyena I thought was my father. Who is my father.” There was a heartbeat of silence before she added, “He might have been an evil sonofabitch, but he was good to me.”
“You’ll have to tell me about him someday,” Nate said, and she gave him that smile that knocked him off his axis again. “So how could two different species produce offspring? And how come your other brothers are hyenas?”
Eidolon spoke up. “Littermates can have multiple fathers. As far as interspecies shifter breeding . . . in most cases, it can’t happen. But hyenas are the one shifter species that can sometimes breed with both felines and canines, though the cubs are usually stillborn. Those who survive birth rarely live beyond infancy. I’ve never heard of any making it to adulthood.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “I’ll bet the fact that your father was a doctor saved your life. He said you and Vaughn were sick a lot as babies. Even if he didn’t know why you were sick, he was able to treat you.”
Lena’s fingers stroked the back of Nate’s hand absently. “What made me finally be able to shift?”
“Adrenaline,” Eidolon said. “Probably combined with strong emotion. Whatever it was, you powered through the block you had.” A commotion started up outside the room. “That’s my cue. Nate, you should feed as soon as possible, and take it easy for a couple of days. Other than that, you two can both take off. Lena, call me later.”
The second the doctor was gone, Nate jackknifed up, hauled Lena into his arms, and yanked her down on top of him. The pinch of pain in his chest was worth having her body against his. “I’m sorry, Vladlena.” He stared into her eyes, praying she could see the intense regret in his. “I’m so sorry I got you into that mess.”
She shook her head, making her braid tap against his neck. “I’m not. I mean, I could have done without nearly being killed, but because of it, I was able to shift. Really, being in that arena saved my life.”
“I killed your brother.”
Her hand came up to cup his cheek. “He’d have killed me if you hadn’t.”
Thank gods she was cool with what he’d done, because he wouldn’t take it back even if he could. That bastard had deserved to die. A sudden flare of panic shot through him as the events in the arena came back to him.
“What happened to Fade? And the club. Shit . . . Marsden—”
“Marsden’s fine,” she assured him. “In fact, he was here a little while ago to check on you. Gladius has been shut down, and Fade’s dead.”
If only that were true, and the reality was like water on flame. The demon would hunt Nate and Lena to the ends of the earth. “He can be resurrected.”
A wicked smile touched her lips, stirring the embers of the fire that had just been doused. “Sin recognized his demon species. His remains are being stored in the morgue until we can identify and kill his vivacant.”
Damn, Lena and her colleagues were awesome. “I can help with that.” He kissed her, a fleeting brush of his mouth over hers. “Oh, hey, I want to find that vampire I saw earlier.”
“You’ll have to be more specific,” she said wryly. “This place is crawling with the fangy sort.”
“Tall. Blond. Wearing armor. He’s the guy who turned me.” He kissed her again, this time just long enough to get a taste of her peach lip gloss. “I want to thank him. Never thought I’d say that.”
She frowned. “The only male who fits that description I’ve seen isn’t a vampire. He’s one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
Nate snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“Seriously.” Her head bobbed and her dewy skin took on an excited flush that might have unearthed some jealousy if Nate wasn’t so . . . reeling. “His name’s Thanatos. He was here a little while ago.”
Yeah, that was enough to make him dizzy. “Those guys are real?”
“Very.”
Nate blew out a stunned breath. “Maybe I didn’t see my sire, then. Must have been hallucinating.”
Closing his eyes, he buried his face in Lena’s neck, taking in the soft floral notes of her shampoo and soap. She smelled clean, like a shower, and all of a sudden, all he could think about was getting her under a spray of hot water, naked, with his hands lathering every inch of her skin.
“So do you want to comb the hospital for your sire?” she asked, her voice a husky murmur. “Or would you rather go home? Because I know which I’d rather do.”