here to help.”
Chapter Eleven
Bane watched in mounting disbelief as the human pushed past her shock and fear, visibly schooling her expression into one of calm confidence, as she crossed the room toward him. Even in skimpy pajamas—even with wild hair and smudged makeup—she was every inch the professional.
Damn, but he had to admire that.
She knew what he was, and she was still walking toward him. Toward Hunter, who was clearly on the edge of a crazed, homicidal bloodlust that the Turn shouldn’t be provoking in him this soon.
Hunter lunged in Ryan’s direction, almost breaking free of Bane’s hold.
“Oh, fuck no,” Bane snarled. “Stay back,” he roared at Ryan, hoping sheer volume would work where his attempts to enthrall her had not.
She kept coming, her only response a raised eyebrow. “This has a déjà vu feel to it, but I think you can’t really expect me to listen to you when you ignored me so completely in the hospital. Also, you need to explain to me how you disappeared, but maybe later. Now.” She took a deep breath and raised her chin. “Now, I want to examine my patient.”
“Yesss,” Hunter growled through a mouthful of blood, looking almost exactly like a hideous caricature of a monster in a bad vampire movie, which—for some strange reason—made Bane want to hide him from Ryan’s view.
Why?
The answer, when it came, caught him completely off guard.
He didn’t want her to see a monster and associate it with him.
The realization made his blood run cold—even colder than usual—and he filed it away, under things to think about later or maybe never, because the unbelievably fearless human was less than a foot away from him now, which meant that he could smell her and hear her heart beating far faster than her calm demeanor would have led him to expect.
And if he could smell her and hear her heartbeat… He tightened his grasp on Hunter a second before the man lunged at Ryan.
“Want!”
Bane caught his shoulders and pressed him down, and Luke, clearly suffering from blood-loss-induced exhaustion, based on the way his wrist was chewed up, got a firmer grip on Hunter’s legs.
“This isn’t good,” Luke snapped, glaring at Ryan.
“Thank you, Captain Understatement,” Ryan snapped right back at him. “Maybe you two can move out of my way so I can examine Mr. Evans and figure out what the hell you’ve done to him.”
“Maybe you can move back across the room so I can get him under control,” Bane gritted out from between teeth clenched so tightly he was surprised they didn’t shatter. “He can smell you. Don’t you get it? Your presence is aggravating his condition.”
She looked uncertain for a split second, her gaze flashing to Hunter’s face, but then Bane got fed up with the entire situation and made the decision for her, smashing his fist into the side of Hunter’s head, knocking him out.
For how long, who the hell knew, but it solved the matter momentarily.
“Why did you do that?” Ryan demanded, outrage ringing in her voice. “You can’t just—”
“I can, and I did. Now, maybe we can figure out why he keeps waking up when he should be out for three days. And we need some better restraints.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Luke muttered. “And maybe you can explain why your human is here? I mean, play with them, fine, but keep them in your bedroom or at the club in the basement. We don’t need her here.”
Before Bane could answer him—or beat the shit out of him, which was his first inclination—Ryan pointed her finger at Luke’s face.
“Hey. Asshole. Your bullshit lines didn’t work on me at the hospital, and I’m sure as hell not going to listen to you now, when we’re in a room filled with vampires. So, shut up, or I’ll shut you up.”
A peculiar feeling fizzled in Bane’s chest at her words. Was it…laughter?
Pride?
What the fuck was happening to him?
Luke, inexplicably, grinned. “Hey, doll face. We’re not in a room filled with vampires. You are. And my name’s Luke, not Asshole.” He flashed his fangs at her, still smiling, and Ryan took an almost-certainly involuntary step back, because then she immediately scowled.
His human was a fighter, then. The realization pleased him for the roughly two seconds it took for pleasure to turn to horror that he kept thinking of her as his.
“I can’t…okay. I might need to sit down.” Ryan made an abrupt right face, marched over to the far wall, and slid down to sit on the floor