Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7) - J. R. Ward Page 0,23

that from a patient. Especially on a night like tonight.”

She frowned. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. And no, I’m not reading your mind. You just seem tired.” Abruptly, he knew how she felt. “I’d like to make it up to you.”

“Not necessary—”

“By treating you to dinner.”

Okay, he hadn’t meant to say that. And given that he’d just gotten all self-congratulatory on keeping his distance, he’d also made a hypocrite out of himself.

Clearly his next tat needed to be more along the lines of a donkey.

’Cuz he was acting like an ass.

In the wake of the invitation, it was entirely unsurprising that Ehlena stared at him like he was insane. Generally speaking, when a male behaved like he did, the last thing any female wanted to do was spend more time with him.

“I’m sorry, no.” She didn’t even tack on an obligatory, I never date patients.

“Okay. I understand.”

While she got the blood-drawing supplies ready and snapped on a pair of rubber gloves, Rehv reached over to his suit jacket and took out his card, hiding it in his big palm.

She was quick with the procedure, working on his good arm, filling up the aluminum vials fast. Good thing they weren’t glass and Havers did all the testing himself. Vampire blood was red. Symphath ran blue. The color of his was somewhere in between, but he and Havers had an arrangement. Granted, the doctor was unaware of how things worked between them, but it was the only way to be treated without compromising the race’s physician.

When Ehlena was finished, she capped the vials with white plastic stoppers, snapped off the gloves, and went for the door like he was a bad smell.

“Wait,” he said.

“Do you want some pain meds for the arm?”

“No, I want you to take this.” He held out his card. “And call me if you’re ever in the mood to do me a favor.”

“At the risk of sounding unprofessional, I’m never going to be in the mood for you. Under any circumstances.”

Ouch. Not that he blamed her. “The favor is forgiving me. Got nothing to do with a date.”

She glanced down at the card, then shook her head. “You’d better keep that. For someone who might ever use it.”

As the door shut, he crushed the card in his hand.

Shit. What the hell had he been thinking, anyway? She probably had a nice little life in a tidy house with two doting parents. Maybe she had a boyfriend, too, who would someday become her hellren.

Yeah, his being your friendly neighborhood drug lord, pimp, and enforcer really fit in with the Norman Rockwell routine. Totally.

He tossed his card into the wastepaper basket by the desk, and watched as the rim shot circled, then dropped in amid the Kleenex and the wadded-up papers and an empty Coke can.

As he waited for the doctor, he stared at the discarded trash, thinking that to him most of the people on the planet were just like that stuff: things to use up and throw away with no compunction whatsoever. Thanks to both his bad side and the business he was in, he’d broken a lot of bones and cracked a lot of heads and been the cause of a lot of drug overdoses.

Ehlena, on the other hand, spent her nights saving people.

Yeah, they had shit in common, all right.

His efforts kept her in business.

How. Perfect.

Outside the clinic in the frosty air, Wrath was chest-to-chest with Vishous.

“Get out of my way, V.”

Vishous, of course, was having none of the back-off. Not a surprise. Even before the little news flash about the Scribe Virgin having birthed him, the fucker had been a total free agent.

A Brother’d have better luck giving orders to a rock.

“Wrath—”

“No, V. Not here. Not now—”

“I saw you. In my dreams this afternoon.” The ache in that dark voice was the kind normally associated with funerals. “I had a vision.”

Wrath spoke without wanting to. “What did you see?”

“You standing in a dark field alone. We were all around your periphery, but no one could reach you. You were gone from us and us from you.” The Brother reached out and grabbed hard. “Because of Butch, I know you’re going out into the field alone and I’ve kept my mouth shut. But I can’t let you do this anymore. You die and the race is fucked, to say nothing of what it’ll do to the Brotherhood.”

Wrath’s eyes strained to focus on V’s face, but the security light over the door was a fluorescent and the glow