Page 22 of Piece You Saved

“Oh, I just… sorry. Where are you going?”

She darts a glance over my shoulder. I do the same. Kade is standing in front of Aden’s life-support machine. It’s a risk to turn it off until we know Aden’s body is going through the change. Not only because of what unplugging it could do to him, but because of what alarms it might set off, drawing unwanted attention from the nurses’ station.

Even when his first shift starts, it’s still risky. The effect of a shifter’s bite isn’t instant, so he could die before his body starts healing the damage to his heart. And I saw all that damage back in the attic before I started CPR. Harley was right. For him to have survived at all isn’t just lucky, it was a fucking miracle.

My wolf had been snarling at me to bite Aden. To turn him, because Aden, for all he is—or was—human, was and is family, and pack.

“We need a wheelchair and a white coat,” I tell Saige. Getting out with both isn’t going to be easy, but without those two things, it’ll be impossible. I aim my next words over my shoulder. “Don’t touch that, Kade. I’ll turn it off when we’re ready to move him.”

I turn back to Saige.

She stares up at me a second longer, realizes what I’m waiting for, and steps aside with a muttered apology.

As I step out, a red-haired nurse is lingering halfway down the hall, clipboard in hand, with big green eyes fixed hopefully this way. If I’m not mistaken, a flash of disappointment flits across her gaze when I pull the door closed behind me.

Kade and his fucking plan to flirt with Bea as a distraction. Could he not have thought of something else?

I smile at her, not laying it on thick the way Kade never seems to be able to help himself from doing, but politely. Not like I’m looking to fuck her. “I’m sorry, but you couldn’t help me find a restroom, could you?”

She smiles and nods as her eyes drift over my shoulder to the closed door at my back. “At the end of the hallway and to the right.”

Since I can’t have her hanging around waiting for Kade to take her to a janitor’s closet and fuck her the way she seems to want to, I give her a bashful, and hopefully embarrassed, crooked smile. “Yeah, I’m the type to get lost in a grocery store. You wouldn’t mind showing me, would you? I always find hospitals are like a maze.”

Her eyes return to me, and she smiles. “No problem. Have you recovered from—”

“I have.” Not three steps down the hallway, a familiar dark-haired doctor with blue-green eyes sticks his head out of an open door.

Harley flashes a smile at the nurse. “Beatrice, sorry to interrupt, but could you give them a hand in here? I have an emergency I need to deal with, and they need another pair of hands.”

She turns to smile apologetically at me, “I’m sorry, but—”

I lift my palms. “Go. I’ll find it.”

“I can show you the restroom,” Harley says as he steps into the hallway. “Since I’m going down that way. Thanks again, Beatrice.”

As Beatrice steps inside the patient’s room, Harley pulls the door closed, and after giving both sides of the hallway a casual glance, lifts his arm to the right. “It’s this way, sir.”

I follow.

We pass three closed doors and two open ones before Harley turns into an empty room. With the bed made, blinds drawn, and the chemical antiseptic smell extremely strong in here, it’s more than ready to receive a patient.

Within seconds, Harley has his white coat off and in my arms. Then he points at a wheelchair parked up beside the empty bed. “I’m assuming you’ll also need one of those.”

If I hadn’t seen the look in his eyes in the waiting room, I think I might like him. If not for his intelligence, then for his ability to get things done, and get them done efficiently.

I study him as I slip on his coat, buttoning it up. People might be able to overlook bloody gray sweatpants that at a distance they could mistake for scrubs, but they’ll ask questions why a doctor came to work in a black t-shirt. At least I can hide my bare feet as I push the wheelchair. “I couldn’t help but overhear a little of your conversation while you were checking Saige over.”

His lips quirk into the barest trace of a smile, one that has me wanting to bare my teeth. Curiously, my wolf isn’t ready to rip his throat out. Must be because he saved Aden. “Oh, Jane?” He darts a glance over my shoulder. “You should probably get going.”

I grip the wheelchair, wheel it to the door, and prepare to leave. “How are you going to explain the missing white coat?”

“I have a spare.” He follows me to the door. “And a doctor in scrubs isn’t unusual.”

Before I step out, I let him see the alpha wolf in me. The beast I fight in a daily battle within myself to control. At least, I used to fight every day. Until Saige. She’s changed me. Is changing my wolf too, but I don’t know how or what he’s changing into.

“I owe you for Aden,” I tell him. “Which is why I won’t kill you for looking at Saige the way I caught you before.”

He meets my stare for several seconds, and a smile swims in his gaze. “Oh, I’m sure you must be seeing things.”

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