Vampire Fight Club
“You’ll have to undo your pants too.” She swore she saw the faintest glimmer of amusement in his expression before it shuttered.
His hand hovered over his belt buckle. “Close the door. I don’t need my employees seeing me like this.”
The idea of shutting herself in a room with him sent flutters of both trepidation and excitement through her. The excitement was something that shouldn’t happen, not until she knew more about his involvement in her brother’s death, and she gave herself a mental scolding as she closed the door.
“There.” She turned back to him. “Happy?”
“I’ve been opened up from ribs to crotch. I’m not jumping for joy.”
“You’re already starting to heal,” she pointed out, and then she stopped talking, because he tore open his fly and her mouth no longer worked.
He didn’t wear underwear.
So much for being a professional. Giving herself a muchneeded kick in the butt, she fetched a tray of supplies and returned to him.
“I’m going to clean the area—”
“With your tongue?”
She jerked back. “What?”
“That’s what my vampire medic would do.”
“Eew. And no. I’m not a vampire, and even if I were, that’s just not . . . protocol.”
“Did your boss at Underworld General tell you that? The one who doesn’t make you f**k him?” That glimmer of amusement was back.
“You know, I don’t think you need medical assistance at all.” His wound was closing up quickly, though there was a three-inch gash where the knife had entered that was deeper than the rest of the laceration, and it could definitely use stitches or glue.
“I think I do.” Smiling, he tucked his hands behind his head. “So do me.”
With a huff, she swabbed blood from his skin with plain water—vampires sometimes had allergic reactions to disinfectants. It was probably inappropriate to notice how hard his flesh was, how deeply cut the muscles were, and how firm his skin was, but then, he was being completely inappropriate, so she found it hard to chastise herself.
“So, Vladlena” he said, “why didn’t your little voice trick work on me?”
“Call me Lena. And . . . voice trick?”
“I saw the way you were able to settle the warg down with only a few words.”
“Ah, that.” She shrugged. “It only works on canines.”
“Odd for a tiger, don’t you think?” He peered at her so intently through half-lidded eyes that she felt stripped bare. Vulnerable.
She pushed aside the whisper of panic that said he might not believe her cover story, but she hadn’t wanted to draw any suspicion by revealing that she was a hyena. A hyena who can’t change into a hyena. A hyena who has never displayed a single hyena trait. She was the worst shapeshifter ever.
“We all have unique gifts.” Time for a subject change. She probed the worst of the damage. “You’re very lucky the blade didn’t enter an inch higher, or your stomach would have been punctured.”
“And that’s bad?”
She dabbed at the deep laceration, and though it must have hurt, Nate didn’t even flinch. “For a vampire, yes. All your other organs heal quickly, but because the stomach pumps the blood you ingest through your body, it can bleed you out.”
“Wouldn’t kill me.”
“No, but it’ll make you weaker than a newborn baby for several days.”
He watched her finish wiping down his skin. “How long have you been a nurse?”
“You’d know the answer to that if you’d read my file.”
A lazy grin turned up the corners of his mouth. “Maybe I like the sound of your voice and want to hear it from you instead.”
Insufferable vampire. “A little over two years. I went to college and nursing schools in the human world, and then I got a job at Underworld General.”
And talk about a culture shock. Human medicine and demon medicine were two completely different animals. Every demon species was different, from their anatomies to their vital signs to the type of treatments they could tolerate—or not tolerate.
“What drew you to the medical field?”
“It’s in my genes,” she sighed. “My father was a surgeon at Underworld General.” As a child, she’d bandaged her stuffed animals, moving on to nursing neighborhood pets, and as she got older, the sound of an ambulance’s siren would fill her with excitement and longing.
“Was?”
“He’s dead.” She tossed the bloodied materials and dragged the rolling tray of supplies closer with her foot. “Killed by The Aegis.”
“Bastards.” He shifted, which made his fly gape open a little more. Nope, he definitely didn’t wear underwear. “What about the rest of your family? Mother? Siblings?”
“My mother hasn’t been in my life since my brothers and I were weaned.” Mainly, that was because she’d wanted to kill both Vaughn and Lena to rid the world of two runts who hadn’t thrived and who had needed extra care in their first few months to survive. Lena’s father had run her mother off, and she hadn’t seen her since.
“How many brothers?”
Lena’s first impulse was to lie, to mention only the two living ones, but no, she wanted him to get a glimpse of the pain she’d felt when she saw Vaughn in shreds.
“I had three. One was killed recently.”
His hand came down on her wrist, startling her. “The Aegis?” His voice was surprisingly mellow, his hold gentle, and for a moment, she was tongue-tied. But then she remembered that this vampire might very well have had something to do with Vaughn’s death, and she casually dislodged his grip.
“I’m not sure who is responsible,” she said. “But when I find out, I’m going to make them pay for what was done to him.”
“I get that,” he muttered. “Just don’t take too long, or it’ll get to the point where it won’t matter anymore.”
“Sounds like you have some experience with that?” she asked, as she reached for the tube of skin glue.
His jaw tightened so forcefully she heard the pop of bone. “Everyone thinks anger simmers, only growing hotter until you finally release it in some massive explosion.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Absolutely. But if you wait too long, all that rage burns out. It’ll flame hotter and hotter, until it consumes all the fuel, and then you’re left with nothing. Fire is the ultimate sanitizer.” His voice was bleak, scoured of the passion she’d seen in him up until this conversation.
Avoiding his gaze, she applied the Dermabond to the laceration. “Who did you lose?”
Silence stretched, and for a long time, she didn’t think he’d answer. When he did, his voice was cold but even. “My mate.” He cocked his head, his assessing gaze stripping her bare again. “Are you mated?”
“Me?” She suppressed a laugh. “I’m too busy for a social life.”
“That’s what people say when they don’t want a social life.”
She hated that he’d seen through her. She’d always found excuses for not going out with her friends, but what it came down to was that she was defective. Who would want a shifter who couldn’t shift and who would someday go insane and die?
“And you?” She capped the glue and tossed it to the cart. “I suppose you aren’t too busy for a social life?”
“I’m not too busy. I admit I don’t want one. My work is my social life.”
As if on cue, music from the club kicked up a notch, vibrating the very air with a deep bass beat that tugged at Lena’s very insides. “So what do you do for fun?” she asked casually, when she suddenly felt anything but.
An extremely wicked grin exposed his fangs, and her senses flamed in response. “I have sex. Wanna have some fun?”
Man, Nate loved making Vladlena squirm. Mostly, he was being obnoxious, but he definitely wouldn’t be averse to getting her na**d.
Which was weird, considering that she wasn’t his type, and he had never embraced the any-port-in-a-storm attitude Marsden had made into a lifestyle.
“You know,” Lena said in a breathless rush, “in a human establishment, I could sue you for sexual harassment.”
“Only if I was harassing you.”
“You are.”
Bullshit. The flush of her skin, the heat radiating from her, the pitch of her voice . . . it all made a liar of her. It also engaged the predator in him—it had been a long time since he’d had to give chase to make the kill.
Time to pounce.
“I can feel your desire.” He propped himself up on his elbows, forcing his body closer to hers. “You want me. Therefore, it’s not harassment. It’s bringing the natural conclusion about sooner than later.”
Her outraged gasp made him laugh. “You are so . . . so . . .”
“Sexy?”
“Arrogant.”
He’d take that. “And sexy.”
Huffing, she shoved the rolling supply tray away. “Don’t you have a club to manage?”
He made a noncommittal noise as he swung his legs over the side of the exam table. “Technically, I’m off work.”
“And technically, I’m not working, remember?”
He was up in a flash and had her backed against the wall before he even realized he’d moved. She looked up at him, as surprised as he was by his sudden movement, but he rolled with it, totally I-meant-to-do-that, even though he wasn’t sure if his slightly impulsive behavior was a good thing or a bad one.
“If you’re not working, you should be playing,” he murmured, moving as close as he could without touching her. He wasn’t going to give her an excuse to push him away.
“If, by play, you mean have sex—”
“I do.” Now he leaned in a little, loving the way her breath hitched as his mouth lowered so close to hers that he could feel the warm rush of air between her parted lips. “But you know what’s almost as good?”