Page 60

Eric

E ric dove into the dictation room, slamming the door behind him.

He just needed a minute. One fucking minute, and maybe then his hands would stop trembling.

He glanced at the clock on the wall, taking deep, shaky breaths.

He’d made it five whole hours of his shift.

Five hours where it had taken everything in him to focus on his patients the way he needed to.

But that was fine. He could do seven more, right?

Eight if he included the charting he was miles behind on and the report he would need to give to the oncoming doctor. Just eight measly, miserable hours.

Fuck. Fuck.

Starting out, he’d been worried the issue would be the blood—that he’d be distracted by it, maybe have to fight from nibbling on his own patients.

But it turned out that wasn’t the problem.

The problem was wanting to run out the door and head right back into the arms of the asshole who’d caused all this.

He’d thought it would be better than this.

He’d thought maybe some distance would help shake the hold the psycho vampire seemed to have on him, dim that restless need the beast inside him was crawling with.

But it was only worse, somehow. He felt itchy and hot and irritable. And his hands would not stop shaking .

He clenched them into fists to stop the tremors, only for his phone to ring in the next second.

Damn it. He checked to make sure it wasn’t his mother again—he had ten missed calls from her already, and he wasn’t in any state to deal with the consequences of that.

“Monroe.” His voice had never sounded so clipped, so irritable.

“Um. Hi, Doctor. It’s Sharon from CVICU. So Mrs. Davis?”

He’d just come from that room, damn it. Eric pinched the bridge of his nose, resisting the urge to groan. “Yeah? What now?”

“I saw your order for a liter of fluid?”

“ And ?” Was every one of this nurse’s sentences going to come out like a vague question, or was she going to get to the point sometime this year? “You told me you were having to go up on pressers. She’s dry.”

“Well, yeah. But she’s in advanced heart failure. She gets scheduled diuretics as it is.”

And he’d just put in an order that could throw her into fluid overload. Like he was a baby resident on his very first day. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Sharon’s voice went ice-cold. “Excuse me?”

Eric wiped a hand over his face. He was out of line.

He was so out of line he was probably going to get a call from the charge nurse in the next two minutes, chastising him for bullying her staff.

“Sorry. That wasn’t at you. I…stubbed my toe.

I’ll change it to 250 milliliters. Hold her evening diuretics. Sorry, Sharon.”

“Got it.” She hung up without another word, no doubt pissed at his tone. She had every right to be. He knew better than to take his temper out on the nurses. It was the cardinal rule in the ICU.

But he didn’t want to be here anymore. He didn’t want to deal with any of this. He didn’t want to hold his tongue, to be cheerful and chipper and easygoing.

He wanted to yell. He wanted to rage. He wanted…

He wanted to go home.

Well, not home . It wasn’t his empty apartment he was craving.

He wanted the place where Wolfe was—that big house with a bed made up for a him and a dresser full of clothes that weren’t his but were still the perfect size.

That place. The one where everything smelled so good and he felt weirdly safe and the only other occupant didn’t seem to mind if he was pissy or pouty or a major pain in the ass.

But no. Eric had, for whatever reason, wanted to work. He’d had to work. Because vampire or not, this was what he did. This was who he was. The only little bit of good he offered to the world.

And if he could just have a minute alone, it would be fine.

No patients. No phone calls. He could get this under control. He could .

Thirty seconds passed before there was a knock on the door.

Eric considered throwing his phone at it. “I’m busy,” he bit out instead.

“Dr. Monroe?” The voice was familiar, but it wasn’t the one Eric wanted to hear. It didn’t have the smooth, clipped tones, the sexy accent.

Wolfe was supposed to be Eric’s mate, right? His bonded soul or whatever? So why wasn’t he here ? Shouldn’t he be around, when Eric was suffering? He’d said he’d be there if Eric needed him.

Wolfe was clearly a liar.

“Eric.”

“ What ?” Eric snarled, yanking open the door.

It wasn’t until he saw Danny on the other side, the shocked look in his big brown eyes, that Eric realized he’d finally lost the battle and accidentally let his vampire face out.

And apparently—judging from the cracking sound and the odd tilt to the door—broken the dictation room door right off its hinges.

“Oh my fucking God.” Danny—who apparently was also much stronger than he looked—shoved Eric back inside with one push, knocking him out of the line of sight from the doorway. “You have your fangs out!” he whisper-yelled.

Eric clapped a hand over his mouth. “I didn’t mean to!”

“Well, put them back ,” Danny hissed, fighting with the door to get it to close as best he could.

“I can’t .” Eric slid down into a crouch, his back against the wall.

He was trying; he really was. He couldn’t be wandering around the hospital with his fangs out.

But it was like the beast inside him had broken free and wasn’t going back anytime soon.

The word mate just kept ringing through his head, over and over, like some sort of chant.

Like it was that thing talking and not his own brain, and everything else was just… fog.

He was vaguely aware of the sounds of Danny, hovering over him, talking on the phone. “Where are you? Well, drive faster .”

Then Danny was crouched as well, his face directly in Eric’s line of sight, eyes full of surprisingly fierce concern. “Hey. Hey, look at me. It’s going to be okay.”

He sounded so sure. So confident. So caring.

“You’re a good nurse, aren’t you?” Eric asked dreamily, his gaze drifted off somewhere over Danny’s shoulder, focused on nothing in particular. This was his life now, wasn’t it? This freak-show mayhem was his foreseeable future.

“And you’re way out of it,” Danny said, his brow furrowed. “He should have come sooner.”

“Who should have?”

Wolfe. Wolfe should have come.

But no. “Gabe,” Danny said instead. “He’s coming to take over the rest of your shift. But he was a ways off. I was closer, so I came to make sure you weren’t— Um…”

Eric tried to focus his gaze back on Danny, the faintest hint of amusement breaking through his dazed state. “Eating the patients?”

Danny shrugged. “Well, yeah. Or whatever the hell this is.”

“How did you know something was wrong?” Had Eric been so out of it one of the nurses had called Danny? But that didn’t make any sense. Why would they call Danny? No one here knew they were…friends? Vampire accomplices?

“Wolfe called me. Told me to fetch Gabe. He used that word too. ‘Fetch.’ Like he’s my dog instead of my brother.”

“He did?” Warmth filled Eric’s chest at the thought. Not the “fetch” part, although that was kind of funny. But Wolfe had known. See? Eric had known he would.

Eric was also clearly losing his mind.

But then he heard it. The distinct tapping of dress shoes on hospital linoleum. And the sounds of Albert, one of the security guards, arguing furtively. “Sir, you need a visitor’s badge.”

“I’m not a visitor.”

Ohhh, Eric knew that voice. There it was, what he’d been waiting for the moment he’d left the house.

Albert’s voice took on a panicked edge. “Listen, you can’t be up here.”

“I believe you’ll find that I can.”

The voices grew louder; the steps came closer.

And then he was there, in the doorway, looking fierce as an avenging angel. An avenging angel in a tweed fucking suit.

Eric held his breath as Wolfe looked him over, those weird eyes shining red under the fluorescents; he let it out again as that fierce wave of possessiveness rushed over him through the bond.

There was irritation there as well. Possibly even concern?

But for some reason, it was that familiar possessiveness that had Eric wanting to whimper in relief from his spot on the floor.

Wolfe glanced briefly at Danny and jerked his chin to the side, where Albert was hovering over his shoulder, his gaze luckily still firmly focused on Wolfe and not Eric’s freaky face. “Deal with this one before I do something you’ll regret.”

Danny rushed forward to placate the security guard, pulling him out of Eric’s line of sight.

Eric didn’t give them another thought. Not with Wolfe crouching in front of him, so close Eric could touch the little furrowed lines between his brows if he wanted to. That lovely smell enveloped him, bright and comforting.

It was weird that he smelled that way, right? Shouldn’t he smell like brimstone or something?

“Darling,” Wolfe purred, his eyes traveling greedily over Eric’s face.

Right. It was his first time seeing Eric as a vampire. Because Eric hadn’t been able to control himself for even half a goddamn shift.

Eric didn’t know what to say. He looked down at his hands, clenched on top of his knees, flooded with a new embarrassment. For his neediness. For his loss of control.

Wolfe cupped his face, his long fingers surprisingly warm. “Darling, look at me.” Eric looked up. “Relax, pet. As lovely as he is, your beast can go back in now. I’m here.”

Eric let out another slow, shaky breath, felt his features relax incrementally. His fangs receded, and the clenching in his chest loosened for the first time in hours.

Wolfe was here.

“How did you know to come get me?” Eric asked, his gaze locked onto Wolfe’s side profile as the other vampire steered them into their house’s driveway. No, not their house. Wolfe’s house.