Maybe the doe-eyed librarian act was her game. Maybe she drew in the males who wanted to tap a wallflower. Nate had never been that kind. He liked hardasses who knew what they were getting into when they bedded a vampire, but as he’d sized up Vladlena, he began to see the appeal.
But then he’d seen the nervousness in her eyes, heard the note of fear in her voice. Some deep, dark part of him had awakened, and the thrill of the hunt seized him. It was a small rush, barely a ripple in the pool of numbness he’d been drowning in, but Jesus, it was as if a thread of life had been thrown to him, and he was going to cling to it for as long as he could.
“Well?” His body buzzed as he studied her, the way it did when he inadvertently drank blood from a coked-up human, but this was better. Purer, without the fuzzy edges. “You just going to stare at me, or are you going to offer up some incentive for me to hire you?”
Her slender throat worked on a few swallows, and he followed the column of smooth ivory skin lower, to the V neckline of her forest-green angora sweater. Just as he dove south to the smooth swells of her breasts, she thrust a file at him.
“Here’s your incentive.” She waited until he took the file, and then she stepped back, as if wanting to get away. It made him want to cage her between his body and the wall just to show her that if he didn’t want her to escape, she wouldn’t. “Eidolon, the head doctor at Underworld General, prepared that for you. It lists my accomplishments and special skills.”
He nearly chuckled at her attempt to divert him, but he was having too much fun watching her squirm. “All of your special skills?”
Again, her soft brown eyes flared. “Eidolon wouldn’t know all of my special skills, since he has enough integrity to not require that his employees sleep with him.”
“Is that so.” He set his glass on the desk and flipped through the file, not focusing on particulars. “So tell me, why are you leaving this great place where the upstanding boss doesn’t want his nurses on their backs?”
“My reason for leaving is my business. But as you can see, I come with the highest recommendation.”
Fair enough. But something about this female was off, and Nate had learned a long time ago to trust his instincts. She was too fidgety, too . . . something.
Curvy. Curvy is something.
Putting the lid on his less-than-helpful inner voice, he ran his thumb over the loopy whirls of her writing. “The file says you’re a shifter. What species?”
“Tiger.”
Not bloody likely. He inhaled deeply, seeking her scent. Through the tantalizing aroma of vanilla was a wild undertone of feline . . . and canine. Mostly canine, in fact. He’d have pegged her for a wolf, so why was she saying she was a tiger? It wasn’t any of his business, but again, something was off. He’d encountered every species of shifter alive, and he’d never come across one with this particular blend of scents.
His sixth sense was telling him to send her packing. The club had enough troubles, and it operated on a delicate balance. He didn’t need this female messing up anything or causing problems. And yet, she intrigued him with the very qualities that were making him twitchy.
“Okay, Tiger Lady, why are you applying to work here?”
“I need a job, and I work well independently, but I don’t want to work in a human hospital or clinic.”
“Why not? It would be a hell of a lot safer, and you don’t strike me as someone who likes to take risks.”
There wasn’t a tiger shifter on the planet who didn’t like to cozy up with danger, but she didn’t deny his accusation. “Humans provide fewer challenges, medically speaking.”
Her chin lifted, and though she was shorter than he was, she somehow looked down her nose at him, all superior-like. Interesting. Usually females batted their eyelashes and gave him smoky take-me eyes. The superior thing sent another rush through him, piquing his interest even more. Hell, he was actually getting hard.
He picked up his glass again and studied her over the rim. “So you like challenges,” he murmured.
“I love a good fight.” An odd darkness infused her voice, setting off his internal alarms.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just what I said. Challenges are what make life interesting, don’t you think?”
He wondered what she’d do if he challenged her right up against the wall. His cell buzzed with a text message, and what do you know . . . opportunity was knocking. Buzzing. Whatever.
He looked over at Vladlena, who was shifting her weight nervously. “Can you start work now?”
“Right this minute?”
“If I like how you perform, you get the job.”
She glared at him for a heartbeat, as if trying to decide how he meant, “perform,” and then she shrugged. “Why not.”
He took her to the medic station, where Marsden met them with a big, bleeding male with a gaping laceration that had opened up his arm from shoulder to elbow. Blood streamed from his mashed nose and lips, and a piece of his ear had been torn off.
Vladlena leaped into action, snapping gloves out of the dispenser on the wall and then grabbing a towel to put pressure on the laceration as she guided the male toward the exam table. When he growled at her, Nate’s first instinct was to deck the guy, but she handled that like a seasoned pro as well.
“You do not growl at your nurse.” There was an underlying growl of her own in her words, but it was soft, almost gentle, bringing to mind the sound of a mother wolf chastising her young. “I have to help you, but I don’t have to make it comfortable. Got it?”
The male settled down, surprising the hell out of Nate. Mars nodded in approval and then jerked his thumb toward the hall. “I’m going to check on the other participant in the dance floor brawl.” He took off, and Nate turned back to Vladlena, who was reaching for the rolling med kit next to the bed.
“Now,” she said, “let’s get some vitals. What’s your species?”
“Warg,” the male grunted, and yeah, Nate figured. Werewolves, or wargs, as they liked to be called, were growly by nature, and they tended to be larger than other animal-based underworlders and humans—probably because they grew an extra inch or two after being bitten and turned into a werewolf.
She inspected his mouth and airway for any of the teeth that had been knocked out. “Was it a fist or foot that did this?”
Before the warg could answer, there was a shout from outside, and a vampire burst into the room. The warg came off the table, and Nate leaped to intercept him.
“Not in my office,” Vladlena snapped, and for a moment, the warg paused.
Unaffected by her command, the vampire lunged. A pure animal in his rage, he struck out at Vladlena, knocking her into the cabinets.
Fury ripped through Nate with the force of a summer storm, and then he was moving faster than his thoughts, ramming his fist into the male’s nose and popping a double-tap into his throat. As the vamp’s head rocked back, Nate seized him by the neck and slammed him into the wall. He felt the sting of a blade slash at his gut, but he was too lit to let it slow him down. If anything, the pain fed his need to draw blood, and he reached for the fucker’s wrist, snapping it with a quick twist of his fingers. The vamp shouted in agony and dropped the blade. Now Nate was going to tear the bastard’s head off.
Literally. One of the interesting things about being a day-walker was that he was stronger and faster than “normal” vampires, and he was going to make use of that right now—
Marsden’s hands came down on Nate’s shoulders to wrench him away from the nightcrawler as three of the club’s security guys wrestled the warg and vampire to the ground, cuffing them roughly.
“Get ’em out of here,” Mars snapped. “If they want to fight, they’ll do it outside. Then give them a fucking map to Underworld General. They aren’t setting foot in here again.”
Nate whirled around to Vladlena, and when he saw her on the floor, trapped by a shelf that had fallen on her, the pinprick of life he’d felt penetrate
his veil of indifference earlier widened. Son of a bitch, if she was hurt . . .
He and Mars tag-teamed the shelf, lifting it off her.
“You okay?” Nate offered her a hand, and she took it, surging to her feet as if she hadn’t just been wearing a two hundred pound wooden shelf.
“I’m fine.” She started to brush herself off, but when she looked at him, she froze. “But you’re not.”
He looked down, surprised to see the gash that ran from his right side to his left hip. And that’s when the pain hit. Oddly, the only thing he could think of was that now Vladlena had an excuse to touch him.
Chapter 4
Vladlena did not like her boss. At all. But she was a trained medical professional, and he was bleeding. Badly. Besides, he’d saved her from what might have been a vicious beating, and while she didn’t doubt that his motivation was more about not wanting to lose another medic than about chivalry, she was grateful.
“Get on the table.” She peeled off the gloves she’d used on the warg, washed, and snapped on new ones as Nate did as he was told.
Interesting. He definitely didn’t seem like the type to follow instructions, but he hopped up on the table and laid back as if he were reclining to watch TV in bed.
And there was an image she needed to get out of her head, because she suddenly saw him on red silk sheets, his black hair spilling over a pillow, and she was right there, straddling his hips and running her hands up what was surely a magnificent chest.
She cleared her throat—and her mind. She was a professional, after all. “You’re going to have to take off your shirt.”
He worked the buttons, his long fingers seeming to take an unnecessarily long time. As he peeled the shirt away, he sucked air, and now that the wound was exposed, she could see why. The knife the vampire had cut him with had been serrated, leaving ragged edges on an already deep laceration. The slice had also gone through his leather belt and slacks.
“You’ll have to undo your pants too.” She swore she saw the faintest glimmer of amusement in his expression before it shuttered.
His hand hovered over his belt buckle. “Close the door. I don’t need my employees seeing me like this.”
The idea of shutting herself in a room with him sent flutters of both trepidation and excitement through her. The excitement was something that shouldn’t happen, not until she knew more about his involvement in her brother’s death, and she gave herself a mental scolding as she closed the door.
“There.” She turned back to him. “Happy?”
“I’ve been opened up from ribs to crotch. I’m not jumping for joy.”
“You’re already starting to heal,” she pointed out, and then she stopped talking, because he tore open his fly and her mouth no longer worked.
He didn’t wear underwear.
So much for being a professional. Giving herself a muchneeded kick in the butt, she fetched a tray of supplies and returned to him.
“I’m going to clean the area—”
“With your tongue?”
She jerked back. “What?”
“That’s what my vampire medic would do.”
“Eew. And no. I’m not a vampire, and even if I were, that’s just not . . . protocol.”
“Did your boss at Underworld General tell you that? The one who doesn’t make you fuck him?” That glimmer of amusement was back.
“You know, I don’t think you need medical assistance at all.” His wound was closing up quickly, though there was a three-inch gash where the knife had entered that was deeper than the rest of the laceration, and it could definitely use stitches or glue.
“I think I do.” Smiling, he tucked his hands behind his head. “So do me.”
With a huff, she swabbed blood from his skin with plain water—vampires sometimes had allergic reactions to disinfectants. It was probably inappropriate to notice how hard his flesh was, how deeply cut the muscles were, and how firm his skin was, but then, he was being completely inappropriate, so she found it hard to chastise herself.
“So, Vladlena” he said, “why didn’t your little voice trick work on me?”
“Call me Lena. And . . . voice trick?”
“I saw the way you were able to settle the warg down with only a few words.”
“Ah, that.” She shrugged. “It only works on canines.”
“Odd for a tiger, don’t you think?” He peered at her so intently through half-lidded eyes that she felt stripped bare. Vulnerable.
She pushed aside the whisper of panic that said he might not believe her cover story, but she hadn’t wanted to draw any suspicion by revealing that she was a hyena. A hyena who can’t change into a hyena. A hyena who has never displayed a single hyena trait. She was the worst shapeshifter ever.
“We all have unique gifts.” Time for a subject change. She probed the worst of the damage. “You’re very lucky the blade didn’t enter an inch higher, or your stomach would have been punctured.”
“And that’s bad?”
She dabbed at the deep laceration, and though it must have hurt, Nate didn’t even flinch. “For a vampire, yes. All your other organs heal quickly, but because the stomach pumps the blood you ingest through your body, it can bleed you out.”
“Wouldn’t kill me.”
“No, but it’ll make you weaker than a newborn baby for several days.”
He watched her finish wiping down his skin. “How long have you been a nurse?”
“You’d know the answer to that if you’d read my file.”
A lazy grin turned up the corners of his mouth. “Maybe I like the sound of your voice and want to hear it from you instead.”
Insufferable vampire. “A little over two years. I went to college and nursing schools in the human world, and then I got a job at Underworld General.”
And talk about a culture shock. Human medicine and demon medicine were two completely different animals. Every demon species was different, from their anatomies to their vital signs to the type of treatments they could tolerate—or not tolerate.
“What drew you to the medical field?”
“It’s in my genes,” she sighed. “My father was a surgeon at Underworld General.” As a child, she’d bandaged her stuffed animals, moving on to nursing neighborhood pets, and as she got older, the sound of an ambulance’s siren would fill her with excitement and longing.
“Was?”
“He’s dead.” She tossed the bloodied materials and dragged the rolling tray of supplies closer with her foot. “Killed by The Aegis.”
“Bastards.” He shifted, which made his fly gape open a little more. Nope, he definitely didn’t wear underwear. “What about the rest of your family? Mother? Siblings?”
“My mother hasn’t been in my life since my brothers and I were weaned.” Mainly, that was because she’d wanted to kill both Vaughn and Lena to rid the world of two runts who hadn’t thrived and who had needed extra care in their first few months to survive. Lena’s father had run her mother off, and she hadn’t seen her since.
“How many brothers?”
Lena’s first impulse was to lie, to mention only the two living ones, but no, she wanted him to get a glimpse of the pain she’d felt when she saw Vaughn in shreds.
“I had three. One was killed recently.”
His hand came down on her wrist, startling her. “The Aegis?” His voice was surprisingly mellow, his hold gentle, and for a moment, she was tongue-tied. But then she remembered that this vampire might very well have had something to do with Vaughn’s death, and she casually dislodged his grip.
“I’m not sure who is responsible,” she said. “But when I find out, I’m going to make them pay for what was done to him.”
“I get that,” he muttered. “Just don’t take too long, or it’ll get to the point where it won’t matter anymore.”
“Sounds like you have some experience with that?” she asked, as she reached for the tube of skin glue.
His jaw tightened so forcefully she heard
the pop of bone. “Everyone thinks anger simmers, only growing hotter until you finally release it in some massive explosion.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Absolutely. But if you wait too long, all that rage burns out. It’ll flame hotter and hotter, until it consumes all the fuel, and then you’re left with nothing. Fire is the ultimate sanitizer.” His voice was bleak, scoured of the passion she’d seen in him up until this conversation.
Avoiding his gaze, she applied the Dermabond to the laceration. “Who did you lose?”
Silence stretched, and for a long time, she didn’t think he’d answer. When he did, his voice was cold but even. “My mate.” He cocked his head, his assessing gaze stripping her bare again. “Are you mated?”
“Me?” She suppressed a laugh. “I’m too busy for a social life.”
“That’s what people say when they don’t want a social life.”
She hated that he’d seen through her. She’d always found excuses for not going out with her friends, but what it came down to was that she was defective. Who would want a shifter who couldn’t shift and who would someday go insane and die?
“And you?” She capped the glue and tossed it to the cart. “I suppose you aren’t too busy for a social life?”
“I’m not too busy. I admit I don’t want one. My work is my social life.”
As if on cue, music from the club kicked up a notch, vibrating the very air with a deep bass beat that tugged at Lena’s very insides. “So what do you do for fun?” she asked casually, when she suddenly felt anything but.
An extremely wicked grin exposed his fangs, and her senses flamed in response. “I have sex. Wanna have some fun?”
Man, Nate loved making Vladlena squirm. Mostly, he was being obnoxious, but he definitely wouldn’t be averse to getting her naked.
Which was weird, considering that she wasn’t his type, and he had never embraced the any-port-in-a-storm attitude Marsden had made into a lifestyle.