Page 6 of The Beast's Betrayed Mate
“Yes,” she nodded. “Will he live?”
Anthony offered her a smile to set her at ease. “It wasn’t quite as bad as all that,” he assured her. “In fact, it must have been something he ate that made him as ill as he was. He’s already on the mend.”
She furrowed her brows. “Really?” she asked.
“Yes, color is coming back, and he’s drinking down his cranberry juice like a champ,” Anthony replied, making her think that he missed his calling and should have gone into pediatrics.
“So… he gets to go home?” she asked.
“Absolutely. He should probably take the day off,” Anthony said, eyebrows raised as though he knew there would be protesting from the man in question.
“Yeah,” she said, in agreement that convincing Mr. Duncan to have a day of rest would be like wrestling a cat down to give it a dose of antibiotics. “Great. I’ll wait here then.”
Anthony excused himself, and she stared after him.
How was this possible, though? This had to be some sort of medical marvel. Peter had looked sicker than anyone she had ever witnessed in her life and now he was downing cranberry juice? It had been less than half an hour since they got there.
“Just accept it,” she muttered. “Drop him off at his place. Go back to work. Get back to your regularly scheduled program.”
Right. Easy.
But the bite on his hand. Damn it, why didn’t she ask Anthony about it?
“Apparently it’s a very clean wound,” Peter told her as she pulled out of the hospital parking lot twenty minutes later. He still had a small cranberry juice carton in his hand, sucking from a straw, and she frowned at him. “It’s for my blood sugar levels,” he explained. “They were down so they gave me this. Wholesome source of sugar.”
“Right,” she said. “And the bite wound looked ‘very clean’.”
It was his turn to frown at her. “You sound skeptical.”
“It’s a bite,” she said. “Did they give you a shot? What if you had early onset tetanus, and they’ve just sent you home? I don’t trust the medical system in this country.”
He smiled. “You’re part of the medical system of this country.”
“Exactly!” she exclaimed. “You know there are shady players. And doctors just want to make a buck off of whatever drug they’re peddling so they peddle that drug to people. Even when they might not need it, or it’s clearly not the right one.”
He arched an eyebrow. “For someone who is in the peddling business…”
“Hey, we make drugs that work, okay?” she stopped him. “I don’t know what those other clowns in the business are up to, though, and half of their stuff is peddled next to ours so who knows what course of remedy you’ve been put on.”
“But I didn’t get anything peddled to me,” he remarked. “So, the diagnosis from my doctor must have been the truth.”
She eyed him, realizing that he was right and disliking it.
“They said I’m one of the most remarkable recoveries they’ve ever seen,” he shrugged. “And I feel fine.”
Her eyes caught on the bite mark on his hand. She was staring so hard it made him give a shout when she forgot she was actually behind the wheels of a car, his hands on the wheel helping her swerve to keep them in the right lane.
“What the hell?” he barked.
“Your hand,” she said. “It looked like it was ready to fall off an hour ago and now look at it.”
He did. The wound had almost entirely closed up. There was no pus, no redness, no clotting. It looked as though it was halfway to scarring over. As though there wouldn’t even be any scabbing.
“Like I said,” Peter shrugged. “I feel great. You really don’t have to concern yourself anymore. Honestly. But thank you. For the concern.”
Then he seemed to pause, another slight furrow of his brow appearing. He had his right hand in the pocket of his jacket and looked as though he was touching something in it.
“What?” she asked.
