Lover Unleashed (24 page)

In spite of the fact that she was a ghost, Jane’s heart was still capable of stopping in her chest.

And as she eased down onto the edge of the hospital bed, there was nothing moving behind her sternum. “What promise was that,” she said to her patient.

“It is a matter betwixt the pair of us.”

The hell it was, Jane thought. Assuming that she was guessing right.

“Payne, there might be something else we can do.”

Although what that was, she hadn’t a clue. The X-rays were showing that the bones had been aligned properly, Manny’s skills having fixed them perfectly. That spinal cord, though—that was the wild card. She’d had a hope that some regeneration of nerves might be possible—she was still learning about the vampire body’s capabilities, many of which seemed like pure magic compared to what humans could do in terms of healing.

But no luck. Not in this case.

And it didn’t take an Einstein extrapolation to figure out what Payne was looking for.

“Be honest with me,
shellan
of my twin.” Payne’s crystal eyes locked on hers. “Be honest with yourself.”

If there was one thing that Jane hated about being a doctor, it was the judgment call. There were a lot of incidents when decisions were clear: Some guy presented at the ER with his hand in an ice cooler and a tourniquet around his arm? Reattach the appendage and run those nerves back where they needed to be. Woman in labor with a preemergent cord? C-section her. Compound fracture? Open it up and set it.

But not everything was that “simple.” On a regular basis, the gray fog of maybe-this, maybe-that rolled in, and she had to stare into the cloudy and the murky—

Oh, who was she kidding.

The clinical side of this equation had reached its correct sum. She just didn’t want to believe the answer.

“Payne, let me go get Mary—”

“I did not wish to speak with the counseling female two nights ago, and I shan’t speak unto her now. This is over for me, healer. And as much as it pains me to call upon my twin, please go and get him. You are a good female and you should not be the one.”

Jane looked at her hands. She had never once used them to kill. Ever. It was antithetical not just to her calling and her commitment to her profession, but her as a person.

And yet as she thought about her
hellren
and the time they’d spent together when she’d woken up with him, she knew she couldn’t let him come here and do what Payne wanted him to: He’d taken a small step back from the precipice he’d been about to jump off of, and there was nothing Jane wouldn’t do to keep him from that ledge.

“I can’t go get him,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just won’t put him in that position.”

The moan that rose from Payne’s throat was despair from the heart given wings and released. “Healer, this is my choice.
My
life. Not yours. You wish to be a true savior, then make it look accidental, or get me a weapon and I’ll do it. But leave me not in this state. I cannot bear it, and you have done no good for your patient if I continue thus.”

On some level, Jane had known this was coming. She had seen it clear as the pale shadows in the dark X-rays, the ones that told her everything should be working right—and if it wasn’t, the spinal cord had been irreparably injured.

She stared at those legs that lay under the sheet so still and thought of the Hippocratic oath she had taken years ago: “Do no harm” was the first commandment.

It was hard not to see Payne as having been harmed if she were left like this—especially because she hadn’t wanted the procedure in the first place. Jane had been the one urging the salvation, pushing it on the female for her own reasons—and V had been the same.

“I shall find a way,” Payne said. “Somehow, I shall find a way.”

Hard not to believe that.

And there was a greater chance of safe success if Jane helped in some manner—Payne was weak, and any weapon in her hand would be a disaster waiting to happen.

“I don’t know if I can do this.” The words left Jane’s mouth slowly. “You’re his sister. I don’t know if he’d ever forgive me.”

“He need never know.”

God, what a bind. If she were stuck in that bed, she would feel exactly as Payne did, and she would want someone to help her execute her final wish. But the burden of keeping something like that from V? How could she do that?

Except . . . the only thing worse would be his not coming back from that dark side of himself. And killing his sister? Well, that was an express train right into that part of his neighborhood, wasn’t it.

The hand of her patient found her own. “Help me, Jane. Help me. . . .”

As Vishous left the nightly meeting with the Brotherhood and headed for the training center’s clinic, he was feeling more like himself—and not in a bad way. The sex with his
shellan
had been mission critical for them both, a kind of reboot that hadn’t just been physical.

God, it had felt good to be back with his female. Yeah, sure, there were problems still waiting for him . . . and, well, shit, the closer he got to the clinic, the more the mantle of stress returned, hitting his shoulders like a pair of cars: He had seen his sister at the beginning of every evening and then again at dawn. For the first few days, there had been a lot of hope, but now . . . that had mostly passed.

Whatever, though. She needed to get out of that room, and that was what he was going to do tonight. He was off rotation, and he was going to take her to the mansion and show her there was something other than that white cage of a recovery room to live for.

She wasn’t getting better physically.

So the mental was going to have to carry her through. It just had to.

Bottom line? He was not prepared to lose her now. Yeah, he’d been around her for a week, but that didn’t mean he knew her any better than he had when this had all started—and he was thinking they both needed each other. No one else was the offspring of that goddamn deity mother of theirs, and maybe together they could sort out the crap that came with their birthright. For shit’s sake, it wasn’t like there was a twelve-step for being the Scribe Virgin’s kid:

Hi, I’m Vishous. I’m her son and I’ve been her son for three hundred years.

HI, VISHOUS.

She’s done a head job on me again, and I’m trying not to go to the Other Side and scream bloody murder at her.

WE UNDERSTAND, VISHOUS.

And on the bloody note, I’d like to dig up my father and kill him all over again, but I can’t. So I’m just going to try to keep my sister alive even though she’s paralyzed, and attempt to fight the urge to find some pain so I can deal with this Payne.

YOU’RE A STRAIGHT-UP PUSSY, VISHOUS, BUT WE SUPPORT YOUR SORRY ASS.

Pushing his way out of the tunnel and into the office, he crossed over to the glass door and then strode down the corridor. As he went by the workout room, someone was running like their Nikes were on fire, but otherwise, there was a whole lot of no one around—and he had a feeling Jane might still be back in their bed, lounging after he’d done her right.

Which the bonded male in him took a fuckload of satisfaction from. For real.

When he came to the recovery room, he didn’t knock, but—

As he stepped inside, the first thing he saw was the hypodermic needle. The next thing was that it was about to change hands, going from his
shellan
’s to his twin’s.

No therapeutic reason for that.

“What are you doing?” he breathed, abruptly terrified.

Jane’s head whipped around, but Payne didn’t look at him. Her stare was fixated on that needle like it was the key to the lock on her jail cell.

And sure as shit it was going to help her out of that bed . . . right into a coffin.

“What the
fuck
are you doing.” Not a question. He already knew.

“My choice,” Payne said grimly.

His
shellan
met him in the eye. “I’m sorry, V.”

A whitewash cut his vision off, but did nothing to slow his body down as he lunged forward. Just as he reached the bedside, his eyes cleared and he saw his gloved hand latch onto his
shellan’s
wrist.

His death grip was the only thing keeping his twin from death. And he addressed her, not his mate.
“Don’t you fucking dare
.
”

Payne’s eyes were violent as they met his own. “And do not you dare!”

V recoiled for a moment. He had stared into the faces of bested enemies and discarded subs and forgotten lovers both male and female, but he had never seen such depths of hatred before.

Ever.

“You are not my god!” she screamed at him. “You are but my brother! And you will not chain me unto this body any more than our
mahmen
will!”

Their fury was so well matched that for the first time in his life, he was at a loss. After all, it made no sense to enter into conflict if your opponent was equal.

Trouble was, if he left now, he was coming back to a funeral.

V wanted to pace to dial down his pissed-off, but he’d be damned if he was looking away for even a split second. “I want two hours,” he said. “I can’t stop you, but I can ask you to give me one hundred and twenty minutes.”

Payne’s eyes narrowed. “Whatever for.”

Because he was going to do something that would have been inconceivable when this whole thing had started. But this was a type of war, and accordingly, he didn’t have the luxury of picking his weapons—he had to use what he had, even if he hated it.

“I’ll tell you
exactly
why.” V took the needle from Jane’s hold. “You’re going to do it so this doesn’t haunt me for the rest of my fucking life. How ’bout that for a reason. Good enough?”

Payne’s lids sank down and there was a whole lot of silence. Except then she said, “I will give you what you ask, but my mind will not be changed if I remain in this bed. Assure yourself of your expectations afore you depart—and be forewarned if you attempt to reason with our
mahmen
. I will not trade this prison for one on her side, in her world.”

Vishous shoved the needle in his pocket and unsheathed the hunting knife that was perm-attached to the belt on his leathers. “Give me your hand.”

When she offered it, he sliced her palm with the blade and did the same to his own flesh. Then he clasped the wounds together.

“Vow it. On our shared blood, you take a vow to me.”

Payne’s mouth twitched as if, once again, she would have smiled under different circumstances. “Trust me not?”

“Nope,” he said roughly. “Not in the slightest, sweetheart.”

A moment later, her hand gripped his and a slick of tears formed over her eyes. “I so vow.”

Vishous’s lungs loosened and he drew a deep breath. “Fair enough.”

He dropped his hold, turned around, and strode for the door. As soon as he was in the corridor, he didn’t waste time heading for the tunnel.

“Vishous.”

At the sound of Jane’s voice, he wheeled around and wanted to curse. Shaking his head, he said, “Don’t follow me. Don’t call me. Nothing good is going to come out of my being within earshot of you right now.”

Jane’s arms crossed over her chest. “She’s my patient, V.”

“She’s my blood.” In frustration, he slashed the air with his hand. “I don’t have time for this. I’m out of here.”

At that, he took off at a run. Leaving her behind.

NINETEEN

W
hen Manny got back to his place, he closed the door, locked it . . . and stood there. Like a piece of furniture. With his briefcase in his hand.

It was amazing how, when you’d lost your mind, you were kind of out of options for what to do next. His will hadn’t changed; he still wanted to get control of himself and this . . . whatever it was that was going on in his life. But there was nothing to grab at, no reins to this beast.

Shit, this had to be how Alzheimer’s patients felt: Their personality was intact and so was their intellect . . . but they were surrounded by a world that no longer made sense because they couldn’t hold on to their memories and associations and extrapolations.

It was all tied to that weekend—or at least, it had started then. But what exactly had changed? He’d lost at least some of one night, as far as he could tell. He remembered the racetrack and Glory’s fall and the vet afterward. Then the trip back to Caldwell, where he went to . . .

The forewarning of another blooming headache had him cursing and giving up.

Walking over to the kitchen, he dropped his briefcase and ended up staring at the coffee machine. He’d left it on when he’d headed off for the hospital. Great. So his morning java had actually been nighttime joe, and it was a miracle he hadn’t burned his fucking condo down.

Sitting on one of the stools at the granite counter, he stared out the wall of glass in front of him. The city on the far side of his terrace was glowing like a lady heading to the theater with all her diamonds on, the lights in the skyscrapers twinkling and making him feel really and truly alone.

Silence. Emptiness.

The condo was more like a coffin.

God, if he couldn’t operate, what did he have—

The shadow appeared from out of nowhere on his terrace. Except it wasn’t a shadow . . . . There was nothing translucent about the thing. It was as if the lights and the bridges and the skyscrapers were a painting that had had a hole cut in them.

A hole in the shape of a large man.

Manny rose off the stool, his eyes fixated on the figure. In the back of his mind, at the seat of his brain stem, he knew that this was the cause of everything, his “tumor” upright and walking . . . and coming for him.

As if bidden, he went over and opened the sliding glass door, the wind hitting him hard in the face, his hair stripping back from his forehead.

It was cold. Oh, so cold . . . but the frigid shock wasn’t just the chilly April night. A deep freeze was rolling out from the figure standing so still and deadly mere feet away from him; he got the very distinct impression the arctic blast was because this fucker in black leather hated his ass. But Manny wasn’t afraid. The answer to what was doing with him was tied to this huge man who had appeared from out of nowhere, some twenty stories up off the pavement—