Austin reappeared, pushing a crash cart before she could stutter out any words. “You know what to do with this?”
“Of course.” The presence of a crash cart allayed only some of her fears. “But…I’m not a doctor.”
“If he needs a doctor, just call me, and I’ll get one. My number’s preprogrammed.” Mr. No-Name handed her a phone as Austin went on.
“And who should I ask for?” she asked, trying not to sound curious in the least.
Mr. No-Name let out a snort as if to say, nice try. “I’ll know it’s you.”
Austin interrupted. “There’s more oxygen tanks against the wall. Just keep him comfortable until we get back.”
Andi looked between them. None of this made sense—not the cat, not this job, not this house, and definitely not these two extremely handsome, yet extremely odd men. “Where are you going anyhow?”
Mr. No-Name shook his head at her question. “Out. But we’ll return by dawn, and I promise you’ll be on the first bus back to the city. Okay?”
Mr. No-Name’s gaze pressed her, as Austin loomed.
She inhaled—to tell them how insane all this was and back out—but then she reminded herself that the only thing that needed to make sense was the fact that one night here would equal a month of her normal paycheck. She glanced at the patient and did her best to ping out with her inherent nurse-radar, honed by months of taking too many shifts, taking in his color, and the numbers on the screen. He was the most normal thing here, hands down. “Yeah, okay,” she said, deciding. She pulled out the phone she’d been given and waved it at Mr. No-Name. “I’ll call if anything happens; otherwise, I’ll see you in eight.”
“Good,” Mr. No-Name said and smiled at her—fully—for the first time all night. The sensation of his pleased attention on her was almost as bad as whatever had happened to her on the road here. She wanted to run away, but she found she couldn’t. She was struck—pierced—like she was a deer in headlights. He was just too much.
Then the cat leapt off the bed and wound around Mr. No-Name’s legs. He glanced down, and the moment was over. The spotlight had moved on. She sagged, caught herself, and hoped he hadn’t seen it. It didn’t seem like he had as he knelt down to knuckle the cat’s head softly.
The cat meowed at him, repeatedly, as if it had strong opinions, and Mr. No-Name gave it a dour look. “No, she didn’t bring anything for you,” he told the cat, and then looked back to her. “If you hear any sounds in the house, just ignore them. It’s an old house; it creaks a lot.” Austin coughed from the door, and Mr. No-Name headed toward him. Her audience was over. The men left, and the cat followed them.
Andi relaxed, then became embarrassed by how she’d felt. What was she, some kind of schoolgirl? You know better! Whoever she’d been in the moment he’d looked at her—stupidly happy, foolishly hopeful, and just a teensy bit terrified—it wasn’t the real her.
The real Andi was a nurse who knew what to do—every time, all of the time.
She went to the bed, unlooped her stethoscope from her neck, and started to assess her patient.
Chapter 2
“What’d Grim say?” Austin asked Damian on their way to the garage.
“That she’s too small to be of any use.” In reality, Grimalkin had asked if Andi had brought him any cheese, the bluer, the better—because the house was out. Luckily, Damian was the only one who could understand the hugely powerful multidimensional guardian he’d been assigned at birth, so no one else knew how easily a gift of cheese would distract him.
“For once, the cat and I agree. If my brother wakes up –”
“I know,” Damian said, shutting down further conversation. If Zach woke up while they were gone—a big if—then hopefully he and the nurse could have an intelligent conversation, after which she’d take off his restraints. He’d be confused about what had happened, but he’d be smart enough to realize she was an outsider.
He got into the armored SUV, waiting with some of the rest of his crew. It was just him and the guys tonight. Max was driving, Jamison had his eyes on his electronics, and he sat close to Austin who was busy wiping down the barrel of something black and shiny.
He sank back into his seat, thinking about the nurse.
She smelled good, his dragon commented.
Shush, he told his dragon—but it was right.
Oil, plastics, but more overwhelmingly, the aroma of iron, surrounded him. Humans had so much iron in their blood; it was a wonder to him that they weren’t magnetic. Living in human society, he had gotten used to the metallic scent, but for some reason, tonight it seemed more pungent than usual.
It was all because of her.
When she had gotten into the car, the gaseous stink of the bus she had been on and the medicinal chemical scents that were a hallmark of her occupation clung to her coat. Those were expected.
But underlying all that was her own subtle scent, undetectable to most humans, and yet abruptly mouthwatering all the same.
Apples and caramel, yes, that’s what it reminded him of—and saltwater.
How strange.
He swiped through his emails, opening the unread files Mills had sent over. Top of her class in community college and then nursing school. But she’d suffered student loans, a staggeringly high amount of debt owed to a hospital which looked like medical bills for a relative before it got wiped—presumably by that relative’s death—and a brother who apparently couldn’t resist taking rides in cop cars. Which made her perfect for his purposes: hungry enough to be looking for cash, smart enough to keep Zach alive, and hopefully, smart enough to not ask many more questions. There was always the Forgetting Fire if she got too curious. He reached the end of her background check and found she lived in a gentrifying part of town in an apartment above a Greek bakery. That explained her scent. Her apartment probably smelled entirely of baked goods.
Mystery solved, Damian put the phone back into his pocket. But his mind went right back to her. Andi. What an odd name for a girl. He had the strangest urge to say it out loud, irrationally, to see if the sound tasted as good as she smelled. And that interesting streak of blue that he’d glimpsed a flash of before she’d wound her dark hair up—something about the act of her hiding it made him want to unwind and expose it again, to possibly feel the wrap of it around his hand.
“Why’d you warn her about the house?” Austin asked Damian, distracting him from his thoughts.
“Because Grimalkin doesn’t like strangers.”
“He doesn’t like anyone,” Austin countered.
“He’s keeping an eye on Zach, isn’t he?” Max said from the driver’s seat, defending Damian’s guardian’s integrity. Damian knew his cat and his old weapons master got along—they had to; they were the only two things that’d come from the Realms with him, albeit at different times. The battle armor Max had on made the whiteness of his skin around it even more shocking, and Damian knew if he had his hat off, all his hair would be ghostly pale. He’d had an albino’s pale eyes, too, before he’d lost them in a fight with another bear-shifter. Mills had replaced them with something magical hidden by goggles, turning him into the perfect bearer of Damian’s Forgetting Fire, since its powers no longer seemed to work on him. And whatever kind of eyes he had now, he could snipe an Unearthly creature down at eight hundred yards.