Page 17 of Heir

“I’d like to wait for the psych consult. You hearing voices does raise some concerns.”

My mate growled. I smirked. “I’m fine. I was probably just still unconscious. I did pass out, you know.”

A man with a clipboard, glasses, and big ears approached her curtains, ducking in behind them. “Hello, I’m Dr. Shapiro. I believe a psych consult was requested.”

“I’m not a danger to myself or others. Can you legally hold me?” my mate asked, her ire increasing.

“W-well . . . no,” Dr. Big Ears stammered. “I just want to ask you a few questions though.”

“Well, I don’t want to answer them. Discharge me or I’ll do it myself. I’m not crazy. You’re treating me like I’m crazy. I was struck by motherfucking lightning.”

“Ms. Playfair—” started Dr. Big Ears.

“She’s not crazy,” another female voice said. “Shocked and scared, maybe. But not crazy. I don’t think you need to do a psych consult.”

“Exactly,” my mate said. “So either discharge me, or I’ll get up off this bed and do it myself. But I’m not answering any of your stupid-ass psych eval questions. You can shove those up your ass for all I care.”

The curtain flew open and the ER doctor, as well as Dr. Big Ears, left with disgruntled looks on their faces.

I zeroed in on the woman sitting up in the bed, animatedly chatting with another woman with a head of wild red curls. But my mate was the one I focused on.

She was stunning.

A head of wild curls herself—only dark brown with streaks of blonde—a hoop piercing in her nose, high cheekbones, and alert moss-green eyes. But it was her smile that had my chest heating up, and that hollow feeling disappearing even more.

Her gaze flicked across to me and she narrowed her eyes.

Did she feel the pull too? Could she smell me?

I took a step forward, drawn by our intense connection. This wasn’t where or how I wanted to meet her, but the Fates had plans all on their own. They made me wait over five hundred years for a mate, and now they had me meeting her for the first time in an overcrowded human hospital. It all had to mean something divine.

“There you are, sir. We need to get you back to the exam bed.” An arm looped through mine. “I have an IV for you and we’d like to do a blood draw.”

I jerked my arm away and growled at the same orderly as before. “Don’t touch me.”

Several people in the busy ER turned to watch us, including my mate. But she was distracted quickly by her doctor returning, probably with the discharge papers.

“Sir, if you’ll just come with me.” Now it was a security guard. He was big, and his voice was far deeper than the wimpy orderly.

“I’m fine,” I growled again. “I need to see her.” I pointed at my mate, but she was already gone from the bed.

Fresh panic swamped me as I scanned the crowded space in search of her or her friend. But they were nowhere to be seen. Her scent was already growing fainter again. The hollow ache was back.

The security guard easily overpowered me now and led me back to the exam bed where they hooked me up to an IV. “No blood draw,” I said.

“Sir, we need to determine if you’re anemic,” said a phlebotomist, there with a kit to perform bloodwork.

I shook my head. “No. Blood. Draw.”

If they took my blood, they’d be shocked to find out I didn’t have any of the human blood types. My blood was cold, and didn’t have any of the similar human properties. What happened after that, I didn’t even want to find out.

What I needed to understand was why my mate left. Didn’t she know it was me? Didn’t she feel the pull? None of this made any sense.

I needed to get out of there. I needed to follow her. I needed to find her.

But she had already gone too far, and just like I had in the limo and on the plane, I blacked out from the agony. My last thought was an image of her and wondering why she left me here alone, without her.

“He needs blood,” came a stern, authoritative voice somewhere off in the distance. “Any will do.”

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