Manny stepped in front of his shellan. "Then I'm your only option. You're welcome."
Vishous rolled his eyes. Great. What a choice.
"Do you consent?" the human demanded. "Or maybe you'd like to think about it for a while so that your joints heal up like a flamingo's. Or the leg goes gangrenous and falls the f**k off."
"Well, if that ... isn't a ... sales pitch."
"And the answer is ... ?"
"Fine. Yes."
"Get him on the table."
Butch was careful with the layout routine, but even so, V nearly threw up over both of them as his weight was redistributed.
"Motherfucker - " Just as the curse was leaving his lips, the surgeon's face appeared over his own. "Word up, Manello - you don't want ... to be that close to me ..."
"You want to punch me? Okay, but wait until after I've worked on your leg."
"No, sick ... to stomach."
Manello shook his head. "I need some pain control over here. Let's get some Demer - "
"Not Demerol," V and Jane said together.
V's eyes shot over in her direction. She'd gone across the way and was down on the floor, leaning over Blaylock's stomach, stitching up a mean-looking slice. Her hands were rock-steady and her work was absolutely perfect, everything about her the very picture of professional competence. Except for the tears running down her face.
With a moan, he looked up to the chandelier above him.
"Morphine okay?" Manello asked as he cut through the sleeve of V's biker jacket. "And don't bother being tough. The last thing I need is you woofing all over yourself while I'm poking around down there."
Jane didn't answer this time, so V did. "Yeah. That's cool."
As a syringe was filled, Butch stepped up into the surgeon's grille. Even as incapacitated as the cop was from the inhaling, he was straight-up deadly as he spoke. "I don't need to tell you not to f**k my buddy. Right."
The surgeon looked around his little-glass-bottle-and-needle routine. "I'm not thinking about sex at the moment, thank you very much. But if I was, it sure as shit wouldn't be with him. So instead of worrying about who I'm tapping, how'd you like to do us all a favor and have a shower. You stink."
Butch blinked. Then smiled a little. "You have balls."
"And they're made of brass. Big as church bells, too."
Next thing V knew, something cold was rubbing on the juncture of his arm; then there was a prick, and shortly thereafter, he went on a little ride, his body turning into a cotton ball, all light and airy. From time to time, pain broke through, rocking up from his gut and nailing him in the heart. But it wasn't connected to whatever Manello was doing to his injury: V couldn't take his eyes off his mate as she treated his brothers.
Through the wavy pane of his vision, he watched as she dealt with Blay and then worked on Tohrment. He couldn't hear what she was saying because his ears weren't really working all that well, but Blay was clearly grateful and Tohr seemed eased just by her presence. From time to time, Manello asked her something, or Ehlena stopped her with a question, or Tohr winced and she paused to calm him.
This was her life, wasn't it. This healing, this pursuit of excellence, this abiding devotion to her patients.
Her duty to them defined her, didn't it.
And seeing her like this made him rethink what had happened between her and Payne. If Payne had been hell-bent on taking her own life, Jane would undoubtedly have tried to stop her. And then when it became apparent she couldn't ...
Abruptly, as if she knew he was staring at her, Jane's eyes flipped to his. They were so shadowed he could barely tell their color, and she momentarily lost her corporeal form, as if he'd sucked the will to live right out of her.
That surgeon's face got in the way. "You need more pain relief ?"
"What?" V asked around his thick, dry tongue.
"You groaned."
"Not ... about ... the knee."
"It's not just your knee."
"... what ... ?"
"I think your hip's dislocated. I'm going to take the pants all the way off."
"Whatever ..."
As V went back to staring at Jane, he was only vaguely aware of scissors going up both sides of his leathers, but he knew exactly when the surgeon got all the cowhide off of him. The guy let out a sharp hiss ... that was quickly covered up.
Sure as shit the reaction was not about the tattooed warnings in the Old Language.
"Sorry, Doc," V mumbled, not sure why in the hell he was apologizing for the mess down below his waist.
"I'll, ah ... I'll cover you up." The human shot off and returned with a blanket that he put on V's lower abdomen. "I just need to look your joints over."
"You ... do that."
Vishous's eyes returned to Jane and he found himself wondering ... if she hadn't died and been brought back as she had, would they have tried to have young? It was doubtful he could sire anything other than an orgasm with the damage his father had done to him. And he'd never wanted kids - still didn't.
She would have been a stellar mother, though. She was good at everything she did.
Did she miss being alive?
Why had he never asked her that?
The return of the surgeon's face cut off his thinking. "Your hip's dislocated. I'm going to have to set it before I work on the knee because I'm worried about your circulation. Okay?"
"Just fix me," V moaned. "Whatever it takes."
"Good. I've put the knee in a temporary brace for this." The human looked over to Butch, who, shower-request notwithstanding, had propped himself up against the wall no less than two feet away. "I need your help. There's no one else around with free hands."
The cop was right on it, shoring up his strength and coming over. "What do you want me to do?"
"Hold his pelvis in place." The human hopped up onto the stainless-steel table at V's legs, crouching down to avoid banging his head on the chandelier. "This is going to be a muscle job - there's no other way to do it. I want you facing me, and I'll show you where to put your hands."
Butch got right with the program, sidling in close and reaching down. "Where?"
"Here." V had some vague sensation of warm weight on both sides of his hips. "Little more to the outside - right. Good."
Butch looked around his own shoulder at V. "You ready for this?"
Silly question. Like asking someone if they were prepared for a head-on collision.
"Stoked," V muttered.
"Just focus on me."
And V did ... seeing the flecks of green in the cop's hazel eyes and the contours of that busted nose and the five-o'clock shadow.
When the human grabbed V's lower thigh and started lifting, V jacked up against the table, his head kicking back, his jaw straining.
"Easy, there," the cop said. "Focus on me."
Uh-huh, right. There was pain, and then there was PAIN. This was PAIN.
Vishous labored for breath, his neural pathways crammed with signals, his body exploding even as his outer skin stayed intact.
"Tell him to breathe," someone said. Probably the human.
Yeah, that was going to happen. Not.
"Okay, on three I'm going to force the joint back into place - you ready?"
V had no clue who the guy was talking to, but if it was him, there was no way to answer. His heart was jumping and his lungs were stone and his brain was Las Vegas at night and - "
Three!"
Vishous screamed.
The only thing that was louder was the pop as the hip was relocated, as it were. And the last thing he saw before he checked out of the Conscious Inn & Suites was Jane's head whipping around in a panic. In her eyes was stark terror, as if the single worst thing that she could imagine was him in agony....
And that was when he knew that he still loved her.
Chapter Thirty-two
Up at the mansion, in Qhuinn's bedroom, there was nothing but a whole lot of silence - which was typical when you dropped a bomb, be it real or metaphorical.
Jesus Christ, he couldn't believe he'd said the words: Even though only he and Layla were in here, he felt like he'd gone to the top of a building in downtown Caldwell and bullhorned the announcement.
"Your friend," Layla whispered. "Blaylock."
Qhuinn's heart froze. But after a moment, he forced himself to nod. "Yeah. It's him."
He waited for some kind of disgust or grimace or ... even shock. Coming from where he did, he was all too versed in homophobia - and Layla was a Chosen, for godsakes, which made that old-school-glymera bull crap look positively enlightened.