Instead, Marissa looked at the mother. "This is going to be fine."
When she went over and put her hand on a thin shoulder, the mother shuddered, then gripped Marissa's palm hard.
"Tell me he can't get in here," the female said in a low voice. "If he finds us, he'll kill us."
Marissa whispered, "No one can get into the elevator without identifying themselves in front of a camera. The two of you are safe. I swear to it."
When the female nodded, Marissa left so that the young could be sedated.
Outside the patient room, she leaned against the hallway wall and felt more heaving rage. The fact that those two were bearing the pain of a male's violent temper was enough to make her want to learn how to shoot a gun.
And God, she couldn't imagine setting that female and her young loose in the world because surely that hellren would find them when they left the clinic. Although most males put their mates higher than themselves, there had always been among the race a minority of abusers and the realities of domestic violence were ugly and far-reaching.
A door shutting to the left brought her head up, and she saw Havers come walking down the hall, his head buried in a patient chart. Odd... his shoes were covered with little yellow plastic booties, the kind he always put on when he donned a hazmat suit.
"Have you been in the lab again, brother mine?" she asked.
His eyes shot up from the chart and he pushed his horn-rimmed glasses higher on his nose. His jaunty red bow tie was cocked at a bad angle. "Come again?"
She nodded at his feet with a smile. "The lab."
"Ah... yes. I have." He reached down and took the covers off his loafers, crushing the yellow plastic in his hand. "Marissa, would you do me the favor of returning to the house? I've asked the Princeps Council leahdyre and seven other members to dinner on Monday next. The menu must be perfect and I would talk to Karolyn myself, but I'm due in the OR."
"Of course." Except then Marissa frowned, aware that her brother was still as a statue. "Is everything all Page 42
J R Ward: Lover Revealed
right?"
"Yes, thank you. Go... go now. Do... yes, please go now."
She was tempted to pry, but she didn't want to keep him from the young's operation, so she kissed him on the cheek, straightened his bow tie, and walked away. When she reached the double doors that led into the reception area, though, something made her glance back.
Havers was stuffing what he'd been wearing on his feet into a biohazard bin, and his face was drawn into tight lines. With a deep breath, he braced himself, then pushed open the door to the surgical suite's anteroom.
Ah, she thought, so that's what it was. He was upset about operating on the young. And who could blame him?
Marissa turned back to the doors... then heard the boots.
She froze. Only one kind of male made that thunder when he approached.
Pivoting around, she saw Vishous striding down the hall, his dark head lowered, and behind him, Phury and Rhage were similar silent menaces. All three were dripping with weapons and weariness, and Vishous had dried blood on his leathers and his jacket. But why had they been in Havers's lab? That facility was the only thing back there, really.
The Brothers didn't notice her until they practically mowed her down. Coming to a stop as a group, their eyes quickly went elsewhere, no doubt because of her having fallen from Wrath's grace.
Dear Virgin, up close they looked truly awful. Sick, yet not unwell, if that made any sense.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" she asked.
"Everything's cool," Vishous said in a hard voice. " ' Scuse us."
The dream... Butch lying in the snow ... "Is someone hurt? Is... Butch..."
Vishous just shrugged her off and stepped past her, punching open the doors into Reception. The other two offered stiff smiles, then did the same.
Following at a distance, she watched them walk by the nursing station to the access elevator. As they waited for the doors to open, Rhage reached out and put his hand on Vishous's shoulder, and the other Brother seemed to shudder.
The exchange made warning bells go off, and the instant the elevator doors closed Marissa headed for the wing of the clinic the three had originally come from. Moving quickly, she passed the sprawling, brilliantly lit