Page 97 of Primal God

Well, crap.

Slowly and carefully, I sit and then stand. In front of me is the culprit of my fall. A pair of men’s sneakers. Freaking Dimitri!

When I’m sure nothing in my lower extremities is hurt, I make my way back up the stairs. It takes effort, mostly because my arm is throbbing and it’s kind of making me dizzy.

I reach the second floor. Another wave of pain washes over me and I cradle my wrist, leaning against the wall. Dimitri comes from his room and turns on the hallway light. He’s already dressed in his scrubs, which means he was trying to leave before I woke up. Guess the joke is on him.

“I thought I heard something. What happened?”

“Clara wanted water. I tripped over some shoes and fell.”

His gaze goes to my arm that I’m supporting.

“Are you hurt?”

“I’m not sure,” I lie.

He leads me to his room, where he turns on the light. Carefully, he feels around. I whimper when he gets near my wrist.

“I think you may need to go to the hospital.”

“It’s broken, isn’t it?”

He nods. “I believe so.”

I cup my wrist. “I can call an Uber.”

“Absolutely not. I’ll drive you.”

“What about the kids?”

He curses under his breath. We both know we can’t take the kids with us.

Dimitri says, “Give me a moment.”

He grabs his cell phone and calls someone.

“Brooks, remember that favor you owed me? Well, I’m cashing in.”

Thirty minutes later, Dimitri and I are on the way to the hospital where he works. While we waited for Brooks to show up, Dimitri stabilized my wrist and put an ice pack over it. It helped a little with the pain, but not much. He also took water to Clara, only to find her fast asleep in my bed.

“Guess it comes in handy working for an orthopedic surgeon,” I joke as we pull up to the hospital.

Dimitri scowls but says nothing. He’s been surprisingly quiet since we left the house. I wonder if he knows it was his shoes that I tripped over? I definitely don’t voice this thought. We arrive at the hospital and Dimitri parks in a spot marked for physicians. He hops out of the car and rushes around to open my door for me.

“This way.”

We make our way through several doors until we’re in the ER. An older man in scrubs smiles when he sees us.

“Santos, is this the pretty young lady you told us to expect?”

Dimitri glares. “It is, though I distinctly remember asking for Zoey.”

“Dr. Harris is out today, so I’m covering.” He turns to me. “I’m Dr. Rivers. You must be Lilith.”

I hold out my left hand, since my right one is wrapped. “Nice to meet you. You can call me Lili.”

“Lili, can you tell me what happened?”