“Hello, Grier.” The doctor approached the stairs. “I’m Dr. Daria Schmidt. I practice out of Gershwin Memorial Hospital, but Scion Lawson convinced me to make a house call.”
“Oh good.” I sat upright, folding my legs in lotus position until the room stopped wobbling. “I need to check the status on my friend. He was driving when the accident occurred.”
“I just left Mr. Torres.” Her smile was warm, her lips held tight to hide her fangs. “He’s stable. His nose has been reset, his ribs wrapped, and his boo-boos kissed by a handsome lawyer.”
“You were his doctor?” Shock made me borderline rude, but vampire doctors didn’t waste time on human patients. “I apologize for my surprise.”
After winking, she cut her eyes to Linus. “Mr. Lawson was very persuasive.”
“I bet.” His checkbook could persuade most anyone of anything. “How many zeroes did it take to convince you to treat a human patient?”
Linus stared me down. Up. Whatever. “Grier.”
Schmidt guffawed, her feelings clearly not bruised. “Enough I almost ran out of fingers before I ran out of zeroes.”
“Send me the bill,” I demanded. “Whatever it cost, I’ll pay it.”
Linus developed a sudden case of selective hearing that tempted me to ask Schmidt to examine him.
“I’ll come up to you,” she said. “Could you get back in bed, please?”
“Sure thing.” I grunted as I unfolded my limbs. “Just a sec.”
Schmidt climbed into the loft while I rallied my battered legs into cooperating with me.
After setting down her supplies, she opened her arms, preparing to scoop me up and carry me. Her blue scrubs were a long way from pink satin and lace, but a vampire coming at me with arms extended kicked my hindbrain into high gear. I started backing away, not stopping even when my palms hit the edge.
“Step away from her,” Linus commanded an instant before an icy hand clamped down on my wrist. He balanced with half his body on the stairs, half in the loft, and my back pressed flush to his chest. “Grier, I need you to calm down.” He traded his initial grip for pinning an arm around my waist. “Daria isn’t going to hurt you. She won’t touch you if you don’t want her to.” His cool breath tickled my ear. “I can find someone else.”
“I’m the best doctor in the city,” she said defensively.
“I was…” I couldn’t get out the words. They got stuck in my throat. “I was…”
“She spent five years in Atramentous,” Linus told her, which wasn’t what I had been about to confess at all. But, her being a vampire, I understood why he wouldn’t want her to know about Volkov’s—or the Master’s—interest in me. “A vampire abused her.” Truth told on an angle. “This was a mistake.”
“You got me the best.” I found my voice. “It’s what you do.” I inched forward. “Her being a vampire was secondary to you.” I cast her an apologetic glance. “I meant no offense.”
“You’re Grier Woolworth,” she said, dumbfounded. “I should have put it together sooner when Linus Lawson requested me to treat his friend Grier, but it’s been a long night.”
A deadly calm settled across Linus’s features, and the memory of a black tattered cape tickled the back of my mind. “Will that be a problem, Doctor?”
“My clan is pro-Coalition, so that’s a no.” She leaned against the wall, as far from me as she could get, while I crawled back on the bed, Linus at my side. “I have no interest in political jockeying. Whatever this nonsense movement is selling, I’m not buying.”
Once I situated myself against the pillows, I waved her over to me, feeling slightly ridiculous to have her at my beck and call. “Do you have a name for the clans splintering from the Undead Coalition?”
“No.” She proceeded with caution, moving slowly so as not to spook me. “I didn’t watch the news when I was human, and that hasn’t changed. Any particular reason why you’re asking?”
“No.” Her no-nonsense attitude helped me relax. “Living in Savannah, so close to the Lyceum, you hear things and wonder. That’s all.”
Her noncommittal noise told me she knew there was more to it, but also that she was smart enough not to investigate. Letting the matter drop, she confirmed her story that politics wasn’t her bailiwick.
Some girls have all the luck.
“Can you lift your shirt, please?”
I peeked at Linus, but he had already turned his back.
“You’re healing well,” she said as she started my exam. “I don’t see any wounds consistent with the blood on your face, throat, and hand.” She checked with Linus. “I assume that’s your work?”
“Yes.” Using touch to guide himself down, he sat on the floor at the foot of the bed. The ceiling was too low for him to stand without bending. “I treated her while the EMTs worked on Mr. Torres.”
“I almost feel bad for taking your money.” She put away her supplies then winked at me, not looking sorry at all. “She’s bruised and tender. She’s going to be sore for a few days, so make sure she takes it easy. Light exercise is okay, but nothing strenuous.” She pulled down my shirt then slung her bag over her shoulder. “You can give her another pass in the morning if she needs it, but you’ve repaired any major damage. Her body can handle it from here.” Edging past Linus, she nodded to us. “I’ll let myself out.”
We watched her go, neither of us speaking until the door shut behind her.
Linus cocked his head to one side. “Are you decent?”
Swaddled in Boaz’s shirt, I was as decent as I was getting. “Yeah.”
He twisted around, seeming to finally notice Meiko’s choice of nightgown for me. A frown gathered across his forehead before he caught my look and erased the telling lines. “Do you want me to call anyone for you?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Odette most likely knows. She’s good at gleaning me in other people’s futures. Woolly would demand I come home. Amelie will tell Boaz, and I…” I toyed with the hem of my—his—shirt. “I don’t want them to worry.”
As much as I had enjoyed Boaz rushing home to check on me, I was tired of bonding with him over near-death experiences. Part of me wondered if I would have heard from him at all if not for my jaw. Sure, he had seemed like his flirty self during his visit, but how much of that was reflex?
Relationships were built on communication. That much I knew. So, was this the point where I told him I deserved more? Or was that being too needy? Would the wrong word send him running? Clearly, something had him eyeballing a new pair of sneakers. Why else would he avoid me?
Linus nodded like he understood the things I hadn’t said. “I called Mathew.”
I blanked on the name. “Oh?”
Not fooled for a minute, Linus chuckled under his breath. “He’ll want to spar with you to gauge your skill level. On Dr. Schmidt’s recommendation, I’ve invited him to Savannah next week rather than facilitating a meeting on this trip.”
Oh, yeah. Mathew. The self-defense instructor. “That makes sense.”
He scanned my face as if my capitulation surprised him. “Are you up for answering a few questions?”
“Sure.” I curled on my side to see him better. “Fire away.”
“Did you see your attackers?”
What did it matter since he had killed them both? “Yes.” I picked at a wrinkle in the cover. “I met them in the elevator on my way down. They got spooked when I mentioned I was your guest and fled when Hubert used my title. I was going to tell you about them tonight but…” I rubbed my face. “After everything, it’s hard for me to tell if I’m overreacting or if my paranoia is justified. I misjudged them. I should have brought them up when you called.”
“They were reckless.” Linus wrapped a hand around one wrist and pulled until he could see my face. “This wasn’t your fault. We had no reason to think they would risk harming you to capture you.”
“What changed?” A memory of the knife in Ernestine’s hand winked in my mind’s eye. “They weren’t gentle about getting what they wanted.”
Linus studied me, waiting for a reaction. “How much did you see?”
“I saw their heads separated from their bodies.”
Lips twisting, he grimaced. “I wish you hadn’t.”
“You saved me.”
“You give yourself too little credit.” He lifted his hands, exposing reddened skin blistered up to his elbows. “You were holding your own.”
“Goddess.” I leveraged up onto my elbow. “What happened?”
“Your sigil happened.” He twisted them to and fro as he examined the damage. “I tried to pull you out, but you set a ward inside the car.” He made fists then flattened them, watching the skin flex. “It took me fifteen minutes to break it, and I’m convinced it only failed then because you smudged a line to let me in.”
“What sigil did I use?” Trauma had softened those edges to a comforting blur. “I’ll have to remember it for next time.”
“I have no idea.” He huffed out a laugh, a surprised sound. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Where will they take Neely’s car?” I wondered. “Do you think we could get a picture before they do whatever they do to it?”
“It’s at an impound. Neely needs to speak with his insurance company. They’ll have to come out and take pictures before it’s scrapped.” He reached behind himself and produced his phone. “Is this what you had in mind?”
“You’re sneaky.” I accepted the phone when he tossed it and traced the lines of the sigils with a fingertip. It resonated, even though I had no memory of drawing it. “I should have known you couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”