TWENTY - THREE

Down in the exam room, Payne's healer was looking halfdead, but entirely happy with his partial demise.

As she waited for him to answer her question, she was rather more concerned with his condition than he was. His blood had been shockingly rich on her tongue, the dark wine slipping to the back of her throat and tunneling into her, flooding not just her gut but her whole body.

It was the first time she'd ever taken a vein at the neck. Chosen, when they were in the Sanctuary, required not the sustenance of blood, nor did they cycle through their needings. And that was when one wasn't in suspended animation, as she had been.

And she barely remembered feeding from Wrath's wrist.

Strange ... the two bloods had tasted much the same, though the flavor of the king's had been bolder.

"What is this coming?" she repeated.

Her healer cleared his throat. "It's ... ah, what happens when you're into someone and you're with them."

"Show me."

The laughter that came out of him was velvety and deep. "I would love to. Trust me."

"Is it something I ... can make you do?"

He coughed a little. "You already have."

"Really?"

Her healer nodded slowly, his eyelids dropping low. "You most certainly did. So I need a shower."

"And then you will show me." It wasn't a request; it was a demand. And as his arms tightened up on her, she had the sense he was aroused. "Yes," she growled. "You shall show me everything."

"I'll so fucking do that," he said darkly. "Everything."

When he stared at her as if he knew secrets she couldn't begin to guess at, she realized, even with the paralysis, that this was worth living for. This connection and excitement were worth more than her legs, and she had a sudden, stark terror that she had nearly missed this.

She had to thank her twin properly. But however could she balance this gift?

"Let me take you back to your room." Her healer stood up smoothly, in spite of her weight. "After I'm cleaned off, we'll start with a sponge bath for you."

Her nose crinkled in distaste. "How clinical."

There was more of that secret smile of his. "Not the way I'm going to do it. Trust me." He paused. "Hey, any chance you can hit the lights for me so I don't bump us into something? You're glowing, but I'm not sure it's enough to go by."

Payne had a moment of confusion - until she lifted her arm. Her healer was right. She was softly aglow, her skin casting a faint phosphorescence.... Perhaps this was her sexual response?

Logical, she thought. For the way he made her feel on the inside was as uncontainable as happiness and as luminous as hope.

When she willed the lights back on and unlocked the doors, he shook his head and started walking. "Damn. You've got some fancy tricks there, woman."

Perhaps, but not the ones she wanted. She would love to give him back what he had shared with her ... but she had no secrets to teach him and no blood to gift him with, as not only did humans not require such a thing, but it was capable of killing them.

"I wish I could repay you," she murmured.

"For what?"

"Coming herein and showing me ..."

"My buddy? Yeah, he's an inspiration."

For truth, 'twas more about the man in the flesh than the one on the screen. "Indeed," Payne demurred.

Back in the recovery room, he took her to the bed and laid her out with such care, arranging the sheeting and blankets so that no part of her was bare ... taking the time to resettle the equipment that dealt with her bodily functions ... plumping the pillows behind her head.

Whilst he worked, he always covered his hips with something. A part of the bedding. The two halves of his coat. And then he stood on the far side of the rolling table.

"Comfortable?" When she nodded, he said, "I'll be right back. Holler if you need me, okay?"

Her healer disappeared into the bathroom and the door shut most of the way - but not completely. A shaft of light pierced through into the stall of the falling water and she saw clearly his white-coated arm reach in, turn a handle, and call forth the warm rain.

Clothes were removed. All of them.

And then there was a brief glimpse of glorious flesh as he stepped under the spray and closed the glass partition. As the auditory rhythm of the water changed, she knew his naked form was breaking up the free fall.

What did he look like, sluiced with water, slick and warm and so very male?

Pushing herself up off the pillows, she leaned to the side ... and leaned a little more ... and leaned more still until she was all but hanging off....

Ah, yeeees. His body was in profile, but she saw plenty: Carved with musculature, his chest and arms were heavy over tight hips and long, powerful legs. A dusting of dark hair sat upon his pectorals and formed a line that went o'er his abdomen and down, down ... so far down....

Damn it, she could not see enough, and her curiosity was too desperate and driving to ignore.

What did his sex look like? Feel like ...

With a curse, she awkwardly shuffled herself around so that she was on the end of the bed. Angling her head, she made the very best of the limited exposure of that crack in the doorway. But as she had moved, so had he, and he was now facing away from her, his back and his ... lower body ...

She swallowed hard and stretched upward to see even more. As he unwrapped the cleansing bar, water streamed across his shoulder blades and rivered o'er his spine, flowing onto his buttocks and the backs of his thighs. And then his hand appeared on the nape of his neck, the frothy suds he had called up in his palms going the way of the water as he washed his body.

"Turn about ..." she whispered. "Let me see all of you...."

The desire for her eyes to get greater access only increased as his soapy ministrations went below his waist. Lifting one leg, and then the other, his hands were tragically efficient as they went o'er his thighs and calves.

She knew when he tended to his sex. Because his head fell back and his hips curled up tight.

He was thinking of her. She was sure of it.

And then he spun around.

It happened so fast that as their eyes met, both of them recoiled.

Even though she had been caught and then some, she shambled back against the pillows, and resumed her former position, restraightening the blankets he had been so careful with. With her face aflame, she wanted to hide -

A sharp squeak echoed through the room, and she glanced up. He had burst forth from the bathroom, the shower left open and running, soap still clinging to his abdominals and dripping from off ...

His sex was a magnificent shock. Standing out from his body, the rod of him was hard and thick and proud.

"You ..."

He said something further, but she was too captivated to care, too enthralled to notice. Deep within her, a wellspring was released, her sex swelling and preparing itself to accept him.

"Payne," he demanded, covering himself with his hands.

Instantly, she was ashamed and put her palms to her hot cheeks. "Verily, I am sorry I spied upon you."

Her human gripped the edge of the doorway. "Not that ..." He shook his head as if to clear it. "Are you aware of what you were doing?"

She had to laugh. "Yes. Believe in this, my healer - I was totally aware of what I was regarding so thoroughly."

"You were sitting up, Payne. You were up on your knees at the end of the bed."

Her heart stopped. Surely she could not have heard him right.

Surely.

As Payne frowned, Manny lurched forward - and then realized he was really fucking naked. Which was a condition that occurred when a guy didn't just have his ass in the breeze, but was totally and completely, ball-numbingly erect as he pulled a birthday suit. Reaching into the bathroom, he snagged a towel, wrapped it around his hips, and then went over to the bed.

"I ... no, you must be wrong," Payne said. "I couldn't have - "

"You did - "

"I had merely stretched upon - "

"How did you get to the end of the bed, then. And how did you get back where you are?"

Her eyes went to the short footboard, confusion drawing her brows in tight. "I do not know. I was ... watching you and you were all I knew."

The man in him was astounded and ... strangely transformed. To be wanted that much by someone like her?

But then the physician in him took over. "Here, let me see what's doing, okay?"

He untucked the sheets and blanket from the end of the bed and rolled them up to the tops of her thighs. Using his finger, he ran it across the sole of her pretty foot.

He expected it to twitch. It didn't.

"Anything?" he said.

When she shook her head, he repeated on the other side. Then he moved higher, wrapping his palms around her slender ankles. "Anything?"

Her eyes were tragic as they met his. "I feel nothing. And I do not understand what you think you saw."

He moved higher, to her calves. "You were on your knees. I swear to it."

Higher still, to her taut thighs.

Nothing.

Christ, he thought. She had to have had some control over her legs. There was no other explanation. Unless ... he'd been seeing things.

"I do not understand," she repeated.

Neither did he, but he was going to damn well figure it out. "I'm going to go review your scans. I'll be right back."

Out in the exam room, he got some help from the nurse and accessed Payne's medical record via the computer. With practiced efficiency, he went through everything: vitals, exam notes, X-rays - he even found the stuff he'd done to her at St. Francis, which was a surprise. He hadn't a clue how they'd gotten access to that original MRI - he'd erased the file nearly as soon as it had gone into the medical center's system. But he was glad to see it again, that was for sure.

When he was finished, he sat back in the chair, and the band of coldness that shot across his shoulder blades reminded him he was in nothing but a towel.

Kind of explained that nurse's walleyed look when he'd spoken with her.

"What the hell," he muttered, staring at the latest X-ray.

Her spine was perfectly in order, the vertebrae lined up nice and square, their ghostly glow against the black background giving him a perfect snapshot of what was going on down her back.

Everything, from the medical record to the exam he'd just given her on the bed, suggested that his original conclusion upon seeing her again was the correct one: He'd done the best technical work of his life, but the spinal cord had been irreparably damaged and that was that.

And abruptly, he remembered the expression on Goldberg's face as it had become obvious that the difference between night and day had escaped his notice.

Rubbing his eyes, he wondered if he was, yet again, going crazy. He knew what he'd seen, however.... Didn't he?

And then it dawned on him.

Twisting around, he looked to the ceiling. Sure enough, all the way up in the corner there was a pod attached to a panel. Which meant the security camera inside could see every square inch of the place.

Had to be one in the recovery room. Had to be.

Getting to his feet, he went over to the door and peered out  into the corridor, hoping that nice blond nurse was somewhere to be found. "Hello?"

His voice echoed down the hall, but there was no reply, so he had no choice except to barefoot it around. Without an instinct as to which way to head, he choose "right" and walked fast. At all of the doors, he knocked and then tried to open them. Most were locked, but those that weren't revealed ... classrooms. And more classrooms. And a huge, professional-size gym.

When he got to one marked Weight Room, he heard the pounding of someone trying to break a treadmill with some Nikes and decided to keep going. He was a half-naked human in a world of vampires, and somehow he doubted that nurse would be marathoning it if she were on duty.

Besides, going by how hard and heavy that footfall was? He was liable to open up a can of whoop-ass, instead of just a door - and whereas he was suicidal enough to fight anything that rode up on him, this was about helping Payne, not his ego or his boxing skills.

Doubling back, he headed in the opposite direction. Knocking. Opening when he could. The farther he went, the less classroom-y it was and the more police-station-interrogation-y shit became. Down at the far end, there was a massive door that was right out of the movies, with its reinforced, bolted panels.

Outside world, he thought.

Going right up to it, he threw his weight against the bar, and - surprise! He burst out into the parking garage, where his Porsche was parked at the curb.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

His eyes snapped over to a blacked-out Escalade: windows, rims, grille, everything was tinted. Standing next to it was the guy he'd seen that first night, the one he'd thought he'd recognized ...

"I've seen you somewhere," Manny said as the door shut behind him.

From his pocket, the vampire took out a baseball cap and put it on. Red Sox. Of course, given the Boston accent.

Although the big question was, how in the hell did a vampire end up sounding like he was from Southie?

"Nice Jesus piece," the guy muttered, glancing at Manny's cross. "Are you looking for your clothes?"

Manny rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Someone stole them."

"So they could impersonate a doctor?"

"Maybe it's your Halloween - how the fuck do I know?"

From under the dark blue brim, a smile cranked into place, revealing a cap on one of his front teeth ... as well as a set of fangs.

As Manny's brain cramped, the conclusion it struggled with was unassailable: He'd been a human once, this guy. And how did that happen?

"Do yourself a favor," the male said. "Stop thinking, go back to the clinic, and get dressed before Vishous shows up."

"I know I've seen you, and eventually I'm going to put it all together. But whatever - right now, I need access to the feeds from the security cameras down here."

That snarky half smile evaporated. "And why the hell is that."

"Because my patient just sat herself up - and I'm not talking about her raising her torso off the damn pillows. I wasn't there when she did it and I need to see how it happened."

Red Sox seemed to stop breathing. "What ... I'm sorry. What the fuck are you saying."

"Do I need to reenact it in charades or some shit?"

"I'll pass on that - I so don't need you on your knees in front of me with only a towel on."

"Which makes two of us."

"Wait, are you serious?"

"Yeah. I'm really not interested in blowing you, either."

There was a pause. And then the bastard barked out a laugh. "You've got a smart mouth on you, I'll give you that - and yeah, I can help you, but you got to get your clothes on, my man. V catches you like that around his sister and you're going to need to operate on your own legs."

As the guy started to walk back to the door, Manny put it together. It wasn't from the hospital. "St. Patrick's. That's where I've seen you. You sit in the back pews during the midnight Masses alone, and you always wear that hat."

The guy threw open the entrance and stood to the side. No telling where his eyes were because of that brim, but Manny was willing to bet they weren't on him.

"Don't know what you're talking about, buddy."

Bull. Shit, Manny thought.

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