Page 4 of His Little Garnet

ChapterThree

Chadka

Calm the fuck down before you scare the shit out of her, big guy.

My hand is still on the doorknob as I turn back around. I need to rein in my instincts and get a grip. Fast. I must not lurch across this room and claim this female before she takes her next breath.

Sure, she signed the waivers when she came in the door, but she’s in an altered state right now. She’s in pain. I can feel her pain from where I’m standing. I could sense it from outside the door before I came into the room.

It’s odd. I’ve never felt this kind of connection to another living being before. I’m drawn to her as if there’s a bungie cord between us, and I can’t hold off much longer before I’m going to slingshot toward her.

I wasn’t in the control room yet this evening, or I would’ve seen her earlier. Hell, if I’d noticed her, she wouldn’t have gotten injured because she no longer would have been on the dance floor at all.

Instead, I was taking my time upstairs in my apartment, waiting for more people to arrive before I bothered to come look at the monitors. I’m not a fan of coming down on the main floor very often. I prefer to sit on the second floor in the control room and watch the interactions of the human females on the monitors.

It’s tedious. Night after night. I’ve grown weary of the process over the past few weeks. Nearly giving up. I’d heard from every other man I know who’s found his mate among the human population that when you know, you know. It’s instantaneous.

They weren’t wrong. This Little girl in front of me is mine. I need a second to process that, and then I need to take care of her injury. I also need to be careful so I don’t freak her out.

“It’s broken,” she says softly, licking her full pink lips after. “Colles fracture of the radius. It’s going to need to be realigned. There’s nothing you can do here. I’ll need to go to the hospital for this one and—”

I finally find my head and cut her off, stepping across the room. “You won’t need a hospital, Little one.” I force my voice to remain calm. I’m a doctor for fuck’s sake. I’ve seen all kinds of injuries in the last several decades. I’ve never once been as flustered around a patient as I am now.

It has nothing to do with the fact that she’s female or Little. I’ve seen many Littles on Eleadia. It’s because she’s mine.

I grab a chair and sit facing her. Every inhale brings more of her essence into me. Filling me with her personal scent. I’m ignoring the other scents—the perfumes she’s bumped up against in the club tonight, the shampoo she used, the lotion her friend was wearing and touched her with.

I push all of that aside and focus on this sweet girl’s personal pheromones. Intoxicating.

“May I look?” I ask, stretching out my hands but not touching her. I want her to offer her arm to me.

She’s holding her arm close to her body against her chest, the ice pack against it wrapped in a towel. I can’t see the break at all yet. But she has a surprising amount of knowledge.

When she doesn’t stretch out her arm yet, I continue speaking. “Are you a doctor, Little one?”

“Nurse,” she whispers. “Just finished nursing school today.” She groans. “And now this. I’m supposed to start my first job on Monday. Guess that’s not going to happen.”

No. It’s not. She won’t even be on the planet on Monday. Not if I have anything to say about it.

I draw in another whiff of her. It’s maddening. I probably shouldn’t have sent everyone else out of the room, but they were making too much noise, and I knew they wouldn’t shut up so I could have these first moments with my Little girl alone.

This is awkward. She has no idea she’s mine. I don’t want her to panic.

“Do you know which classification the fracture is, Little one?” I ask to keep the conversation going.

“Livy,” she tells me.

I smile. “That’s your name?”

“Well, Olivia. But most people call me Livy.”

My heart can’t take this. I’m torn into shreds by the fact that she’s so precious and also in pain, and I’m helpless until she lets me get closer. “I love the name Olivia. Why do you need a second name?”

“Livy? It’s a nickname. Short for Olivia.”

“Ah. I see. I’ll have to think about that for a bit.”

She narrows her gaze. “Or just tell the ambulance driver my name is Olivia Martens,” she suggests.

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