For the next twenty-four hours, I prowled the corridors of Empire General, waiting to see which of my patients would die. I looked in on a nervous dryad so many times that she checked herself out of the hospital. Better to heal a canker on her own in the forest, than to submit to a crazy witch doctor in the city.
Responding to my repeated visits, the sole mother in our nursery—an ifrit with twins who were failing to thrive—sparked outrage so convincingly that I avoided the entire ground floor for the rest of the night.
The shifter ward was always a mixed bag. That night, we had a massively pregnant werecat in close quarters with two wolves who had been injured in a car crash, an alpha and his mate who could not consistently hold their human shape. A bear shifter rounded out the mix, lumbering up and down the hall, moaning in agony from an inflamed gall bladder, but refusing surgery for fear the organ would find its way onto the black market. After unsuccessfully ordering the wolves to stay in their rooms (a measure no alpha would tolerate), I resorted to giving the anxious werecat mother a fresh pillow filled with catnip.
Room by room, I checked on every creature under my care. Some cases were serious. Others were less critical. The one patient I wanted to visit—Nick—was strictly off limits; I didn’t trust my judgment around him, not when I had a potential Code Blue on my hands.
Dawn came, and no one had died. Maybe the banshee had graduated bottom of her class in death prediction. Maybe the ivory comb had come from an absent-minded museum curator who happened to leave priceless ivory artifacts in random places.
Maybe the expected death just hadn’t happened yet.
I made it through another twenty-four hours, subsisting on little more than coffee and catnaps. Shifters ward, elementals ward, ER, and witches—round after round after round. I added in the nursery when I thought I could get away with annoying the ifrit mother, and I checked on the first four rooms in the Vampire Unit three times during the night.
I avoided the end of the hallway. I avoided Nick.
As the third day started, I skipped right past caffeine and turned to amphetamines. Med school classmates swore by the little red pills. I’d never indulged—I’d always had my fatigue-banishing spells.
Becs caught me with my hand halfway to my mouth. “You’ll end up with a killer headache.”
“Thanks, Dr. Sartain.”
She merely held out her hand. “Forget about the drugs. Take a nap for a few hours.”
“I can’t. My patients need me.”
“Your patients have a dozen other doctors, ones who’ve slept enough to make reasonable medical decisions.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. My own warder thought I was a crappy doctor.
Oh. My own warder thought I was too tired to act sanely.
“Go on, Ash. I’ll get you if anything happens.”
“But the banshee…”
“It’s been two full days. It must have been a false alarm.”
“Maybe she doesn’t wear a watch.”
“Ashley—”
“Okay,” I said, because I really was exhausted, and I was enough of a doctor to know that I didn’t want to start on the roller coaster of pharmaceutical uppers and downers. “But promise you’ll wake me at noon.”
“You need at least—”
“Promise!”
“Fine,” she said, but I could see the words made her unhappy.
She did wake me at noon. But someone had engaged the tractor beam on my narrow bed. The mattress seemed to make my body heavier than a griffin’s. I couldn’t swing my legs over the side. I couldn’t sit up straight. Instead, I punched my pillow and rolled over to face the wall. I was asleep before Becs shut my bedroom door.
The next time I woke, it was after dark. I scrambled to the bathroom and took care of pressing matters—brushing my teeth to eradicate a foul taste in my mouth, twisting my dirty hair into something resembling a messy bun, and only then tending to my complaining bladder. I topped a clean pair of scrubs with my omnipresent white coat, and I braced myself to face the hospital.
Shifters—fine.
Elementals—fine.
I descended to the second floor. Before I could check out the nursery, I heard a low voice teasing from the shadows: “There she is—the world-famous Dr. McDonnell herself.”
I forced myself to turn around slowly, to have an easy smile on my face by the time I met Nick’s gaze and countered, “If it isn’t the world-famous Mr. Raines himself.
I didn’t really carry it off. My voice quavered on his name. My body was far too eager to run toward him, no matter what my mind demanded. I compromised and strolled instead.
Apparently a gentleman, Nick stood as I approached. He’d convinced someone to get him clothing beyond the usual hospital issue. Dark sweatpants hung low on his hips, and his black T-shirt was tight enough for me to examine his pecs for scars. Stubble was still deliciously dark on his face, and I wondered if he owned some special five-o-clock-shadow-producing razor.
“Wh—” I licked my lips. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m tired of staring at the same four walls. At least here I can see the sky and the stars.” He gestured toward the windows that overlooked the back garden. “We vampires might Welcome the Night, but if I stare at the poster in my room for one more hour, I’m going to rip it to shreds.”
I stiffened. “You’re part of a very important pilot program—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re going to ensure a higher level of physical and mental health to the entire Eastern Empire by mindfully integrating new imperials into the existing Washington community, maintaining safe spaces and non-triggering interactions for all.”
“You memorized all that?” I was shocked.
“I haven’t had a hell of a lot else to do. After years of working for the Secret Service, night shift at the hospital is a little tame. Especially when the head honcho ignores you, night in and night out.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was—”
“Protecting your patients against an imminent threat.”
“How do you know that?”
“Rebecca Sartain stopped by. Professional courtesy, I guess. One lawman to another.”
“Rebecca Sartain isn’t a lawman. She’s my personal warder.”
“Same difference.” He shrugged one lazy shoulder. I told myself not to watch the ripple of his abs. I ignored myself completely. “She seemed to think you might want my assistance in assessing a threat.”
“The last thing I—”
He arched one eyebrow.
I hastily rephrased the lie I’d been about to tell him. “The last thing I want is for you—or Rebecca—to worry about patient care.”
“She’s got your back, Ashley.”
He said my name, and my insides turned to caramel. I wanted to tell him I hadn’t heard, just so he’d repeat himself. Instead I sank onto the upholstered couch. “She told you what happened? About the banshee?”
He nodded as he took one of the nearby chairs. I’d wanted him to sit beside me. From the tiny smirk on his face he knew that. His voice was serious, though, as he said, “I think you have to consider that someone planted the comb.”
“But why put it in the storeroom? And in a dark corner? If someone wanted us to find the damned thing, they would have dropped it in a hallway.”
“Maybe your banshee was stealing supplies. You might have interrupted her when the three of you began your impromptu little meeting.”
“Becs told you about that?” I was incredulous. Our impromptu little meeting had been brought about my loss of the magic I’d known since birth. It was incredibly private, something that should have been kept secret from everyone.
But Becs had clearly trusted Nick enough to tell him. And she was the most close-mouthed person I’d met in my entire life. She’d still never told the secret about where we’d gone when I snuck out of the magicarium dorm on my birthday sophomore year, the night we— Yeah. She’d never told that.
Hulking in the shadows, Nick waited me out, giving me time to accept that my warder trusted him. He let me get used to the idea that I could trust him too. Maybe. Just a little.
I finally asked, “What supplies could a banshee possibly need?”
“New bandages to replace her torn ones?”
“Banshees aren’t mummies!” I said, but I laughed.
“Are mummies real?” he asked. “I mean, not the kind you see in a museum, not old bones from ancient Egypt. Are real, living mummies wandering the streets of DC?”
The question proved he hadn’t read all the materials from Welcome the Night, even if he’d memorized my mission statement. That was actually the whole idea behind the program—caring hospital staff were supposed to help newly turned vampires discover the reality of supernatural life in the Eastern Empire.
Well, I’d gotten off track when I was consumed with pursuing my banshee. But I was available to answer any and all patient questions, starting now.
“Mummies aren’t real,” I said. “But the rest of the old movies are pretty much on point. Vampires,” I said, gesturing toward him. “The Wolfman.”
“Tell me more about that.” He leaned close enough that I caught a whiff of soap on his skin—not the industrial strength stuff we put in all the showers. Whoever had brought him clothes had made sure he smelled like pine trees.
I matched his posture, shifting forward until our knees almost touched. And I told him everything I knew about wolf shifters, dredging up details I thought I’d forgotten years ago. It was the least I could do, for a patient who’d been ignored for the better part of forty-eight hours.
And my tingling lady bits would settle for nothing less.