Page 32 of Wolfgang

Damn it. He checked to make sure it wasn’t his mother again—he had ten missed calls from her already, and he wasn’t in any state to deal with the consequences of that.

“Monroe.” His voice had never sounded so clipped, so irritable.

“Um. Hi, Doctor. It’s Sharon from CVICU. So Mrs. Davis?”

He’d just come from that room, damn it. Eric pinched the bridge of his nose, resisting the urge to groan. “Yeah? What now?”

“I saw your order for a liter of fluid?”

“And?” Was every one of this nurse’s sentences going to come out like a vague question, or was she going to get to the point sometime this year? “You told me you were having to go up on pressers. She’s dry.”

“Well, yeah. But she’s in advanced heart failure. She gets scheduled diuretics as it is.”

And he’d just put in an order that could throw her into fluid overload. Like he was a baby resident on his very first day. “JesusfuckingChrist.”

Sharon’s voice went ice-cold. “Excuse me?”

Eric wiped a hand over his face. He was out of line. He was so out of line he was probably going to get a call from the charge nurse in the next two minutes, chastising him for bullying her staff. “Sorry. That wasn’t at you. I…stubbed my toe. I’ll change it to 250 milliliters. Hold her evening diuretics. Sorry, Sharon.”

“Got it.” She hung up without another word, no doubt pissed at his tone. She had every right to be. He knew better than to take his temper out on the nurses. It was the cardinal rule in the ICU.

But he didn’t want tobehere anymore. He didn’t want to deal with any of this. He didn’t want to hold his tongue, to be cheerful and chipper and easygoing.

He wanted to yell. He wanted to rage. He wanted…

He wanted to go home.

Well, nothome. It wasn’t his empty apartment he was craving. He wanted the place where Wolfe was—that big house with a bed made up for a him and a dresser full of clothes that weren’t his but were still the perfect size. That place. The one where everything smelled so good and he felt weirdly safe and the only other occupant didn’t seem to mind if he was pissy or pouty or a major pain in the ass.

But no. Eric had, for whatever reason, wanted to work. He’dhadto work. Because vampire or not, this was what he did. This was who he was. The only little bit of good he offered to the world.

And if he could just have a minute alone, it would be fine.

No patients. No phone calls. He could get this under control. Hecould.

Thirty seconds passed before there was a knock on the door.

Eric considered throwing his phone at it. “I’m busy,” he bit out instead.

“Dr. Monroe?” The voice was familiar, but it wasn’t the one Eric wanted to hear. It didn’t have the smooth, clipped tones, the sexy accent.

Wolfe was supposed to be Eric’s mate, right? His bonded soul or whatever? So why wasn’t hehere? Shouldn’t he be around, when Eric was suffering? He’d said he’d be there if Eric needed him.

Wolfe was clearly a liar.

“Eric.”

“What?” Eric snarled, yanking open the door. It wasn’t until he saw Danny on the other side, the shocked look in his big brown eyes, that Eric realized he’d finally lost the battle and accidentally let his vampire face out. And apparently—judging from the cracking sound and the odd tilt to the door—broken the dictation room door right off its hinges.

“Oh my fucking God.” Danny—who apparently was also much stronger than he looked—shoved Eric back inside with one push, knocking him out of the line of sight from the doorway. “You have your fangs out!” he whisper-yelled.

Eric clapped a hand over his mouth. “I didn’t mean to!”

“Well, put themback,” Danny hissed, fighting with the door to get it to close as best he could.

“Ican’t.” Eric slid down into a crouch, his back against the wall. He was trying; he really was. He couldn’t be wandering around the hospital with his fangs out. But it was like the beast inside him had broken free and wasn’t going back anytime soon. The wordmatejust kept ringing through his head, over and over, like some sort of chant. Like it was thatthingtalking and not his own brain, and everything else was just…fog.

He was vaguely aware of the sounds of Danny, hovering over him, talking on the phone. “Where are you? Well, drivefaster.”

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