Page 135

BONUS POV: DANNY

Danny

He’d picked up a rare day shift, and it had been one of those busy but dull days where the patients were unending but nothing too exciting had come through. A couple strep tests, a kiddo in need of albuterol, and an inebriated man who’d chucked his sandwich at Danny’s head, to name a few.

Stomach pain, though, could go either way. It could be something as harmless as bad gas, or it could be a symptom of about a thousand dangerous conditions.

Luckily, with Danny’s vamp strength and energy, he was good to go either way, even with the long shift he’d endured so far.

He ducked into the bay with clean hands and a smile, finding two young guys waiting for him. “Hi, you two, I’m Danny. I’ll be your nurse.”

He turned to the smaller of the pair, a cute blond in glasses who was hunched over his belly protectively. “You’re Cassian?” When he nodded, Danny turned to the second, an attractive jock type who was hovering protectively over his…friend? Boyfriend? “And you are…?”

“I’m Blake.”

“Family?” Danny asked.

“Boyfriend.”

That answered that. Although, Danny didn’t miss the startled glance Cassian shot Blake’s way. Maybe it was a new thing. Ahh, young love . So sweet. So painful.

“Okay, Cassian, if you’re willing to release your beau and hop up on the gurney? I promise I don’t bite.”

Danny smiled to himself as he pulled on his gloves, laughing inwardly at his own little joke.

Then he immediately hoped to God that Soren wasn’t lurking nearby, waiting on Gabe.

The snarky vampire would never let Danny live a joke like that down.

And Danny could smell…something. That metallic vamp edge, which he hadn’t been scenting earlier in his shift.

He hadn’t thought Gabe was working today, but maybe they’d pulled him in?

In that case, it wouldn’t matter if Soren was around—Gabe would tease Danny just as badly.

No more vampire puns , Danny scolded himself.

He grimaced at his near miss, then turned to Cassian, who’d obediently climbed onto the gurney. Danny started his assessment, feeling for any particularly tender spots. “Where exactly do you hurt?”

Cassian blushed. “Um…”

“Look, sorry for lying,” Blake cut in brusquely. “But we’re not actually here for stomach pain. He was given something last night, and he’s been having…weird symptoms ever since.”

That explained the caginess, and the blushing.

Danny stopped his assessment, stepping back and putting his hands on his hips. “Oh! Okay, lying to your health care team, always a good start.”

But it was nothing new. People had all sorts of reasons for not trusting hospitals, and if Danny let himself get offended every time a patient lied to him, he’d spend a lot of useless time angry at people who were scared and hurting.

So he kept the smile on his face as he told them, “Let’s start with some vitals, then you can tell me about your symptoms, okay, Cassian?”

Cassian gave him a relieved look, like he’d expected to be in some sort of major trouble. Not the lying type, then, at least not by nature. “Just Cass, please.”

Danny started his vitals. A regular but slow heartbeat, a picture-perfect blood pressure (as Danny’s would be if he wrapped that cuff around his own arm—he’d checked before), and…0 percent oxygen.

Something niggled in the back of Danny’s brain as he raised his brows, looking at the monitor. “Huh. This cord must be broken. Feeling short of breath?”

“Have you ever had any vampires come through here?”

Cass blurted the question so suddenly and so loudly that, for a moment, Danny was sure he’d hallucinated it. He stared at his patient, trying to figure out what Cass had actually said.

True, a steady heartbeat and blood pressure with no oxygenation was how a vampire’s body worked when they drank blood regularly, from what he and Gabe had figured out. And there was that metallic edge to the air in here…

Cass gave Danny a strangely hopeful look. “Like, sprouting fangs and drinking their friend’s blood after a wild night out?”

Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.

Cass had been turned. He was a vampire, and he didn’t know what to do about it, and he’d come into a human fucking hospital for answers.

Oh fucking fuck. What if Danny hadn’t been working? What if it had been Chloe or literally anyone else ?

And how had Danny not realized he had a freshly fucking turned vampire right in front of him ?

Privacy. They needed privacy. Not a little curtained bay where anyone could hear them.

Danny jerked off his gloves and stuck his head out of the curtain. “Chloe, we’re gonna need the isolation room!”

That one at least had doors and walls. Danny hustled Cass and Blake into the new room and turned to Cass, looking him over. There was still the possibility this was a—what?—drug-induced delusion? Maybe the rest of it was coincidental. Maybe the oxygen monitor cord really was broken.

And maybe Roman is about to show up outside this door wearing a tutu .

“All right, what exactly were you given last night?” Danny asked relatively calmly.

“Blood, I think?”

“After someone bit you?”

A nod.

“Show me.”

And then Cass did.

He made a really adorable vampire, Danny had to admit. The all-black eyes under his glasses and the cutest little fangs, all topped with the nerd-chic, buttoned-down look he had going on?

Too cute.

And also…life-changing. This sweet guy had just had his life altered forever, and he didn’t even have any idea of what had been done to him.

“Okay. Well.” What the fuck was Danny supposed to say now?

If it were Roman inducting them into this life, it would be all doom and gloom and dire foreshadowing.

( Sorry, babe, but you know it’s true .) Soren would probably fuck with them, just because it was funny.

Lucien…well, maybe it was better not to think of what Luc would do.

Same went for Wolfe. And while Jay was the sweetest of the sweet, he was serious enough about the consequences of vamphood that he might just burst into tears at the sight of a new vamp, especially one who was so young.

Danny settled on a smile and a “Welcome to the club, then.”

(It was incredibly hard to resist adding, “When you’re here, you’re family,” but Danny managed. Just barely.)

He was met with silence.

Okay. So maybe he wasn’t the ideal vampire ambassador after all.

Hours later, after having explained the ins and outs of vampirehood to poor Cassian, dealt with an incredibly short-lived bi-awakening freakout from both sides, and given Ferdy a much-deserved walk around the neighborhood, Danny received a text from an unknown number.

Blake came back. We’re officially boyfriends now. Thank you for your help xxx

Short, sweet, and to the point, just like the newbie vamp who’d sent it.

Danny smiled at his phone, then brandished it in the air, running to where Rome was fussing around in the kitchen. “Hey, guess who’s a vampire ambassador extraordinaire and a fated mate matchmaker now?”

Danny fucking Kingman, that was who.