Page 81 of Love JD

I tensed up, clutching his shirt as he carried me into the calm, sunset-drenched yard. “Okay.”

“Zev was in an accident,” he said slowly, carefully.

My nerves cranked up tighter than a bowing fishing rod. “What?” I asked tightly.

“A car went through a crosswalk and hit him and two other pedestrians.” My vision dotted black, but Kael jiggled me in his arms enough that it distracted me. “Chill. He’s alive, but he’s in the hospital.”

“Okay,” I breathed out. “Okay. How bad?”

“That I don’t know. Azura just got the news before I found you. But we’re going to get you back on your feet so you can go to him.”

I stared at Kael’s face, ruggedly handsome and cool as a spring pond. He didn’t look worried. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” he grinned roguishly. “You’re paying me double my rate for this little interlude. Mostly because you helped my hefty paycheck get away.”

“Mattie is not a paycheck,” I argued.

We reached his black, luxury SUV, and Kael opened the back door with the hand he had under my knees. “Oh, she’s a paycheck. The last one I’ll ever need, for that matter. You are both on my shit list for that stunt.”

“Right.” I rolled my eyes. “And you rescue people on your shit list, I guess?”

“One of them,” he smiled faintly. It crinkled his light blue eyes at the corners and made him a smidge less intimidating. He slid me into the back of the car, and his sharp eyes danced over me. “Alright, so, no offense, but you look like death.”

“Thanks,” I rasped out.

He pulled out his phone, scrolled through contacts, and pulled up a number. He clicked the speaker button and set the phone on the seat next to me while he pulled a red duffel bag up and set it on my lap. I watched with interest while he unzipped it, revealing medical supplies in packages.

“Hello?” a man asked on the phone.

“Amos, this is Ka-uh, Ghost. You have a second?”

“Is it life or death?” Amos asked, clearly perturbed.

Kael let his gaze dance over me again as he pulled out a saline bag. “Pretty damn near it. I’m here with Isla and she looks… green.”

“Oh,” Amos said, releasing a breath over the word. “Yes, of course. How can I help? You said she looks green?”

I surveyed my skin. “I’m not green.”

“She’s dehydrated,” Kael went on, ignoring me. “And I think she’s been having some kind of flare up of her—fuck, why am I guessing?” He gestured to me. “You tell him.”

That was the first time someone had deferred to me when I was in a state of distress. I cleared my throat. “Eh, Dr. Brady?”

“Hey Isla,” he said, and his voice gentled noticeably.

“Uh, okay, so I got sick Sunday night. Not sick sick. My dysautonomia went haywire. I got nauseous, and my headache was pretty bad. And if I tried to move, it felt like the ground flipped upside-down.”

“Are you keeping down fluids?” Amos asked. His voice changed again, and he sounded very doctorly.

“No,” I admitted. Kael held up an IV needle in a package with an eyebrow bounce. I gave him my arm. “I slept a lot.”

“How many times did you faint?” Amos asked.

“A lot… I think. Maybe I wasn’t always sleeping,” I said softly.

“Kael, get a blood pressure read on he—wait, why aren’t you taking her to the hospital?”

“Did Azura not call you?” Kael asked, unwrapping supplies as he talked. He swabbed the inside of my elbow with disinfectant.

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