Page 8 of Piece You Saved

“Complications we can get to once Jane here sees someone about her injuries,” Harley says, his tone offhand.

I freeze, and then I shake my head. “I’m fine.”

Harley raises a brow. “You winced when your friend touched your abdomen. People do not wince unless they are in pain. Do you know one of the most important things I’ve learned over the years? That it’s not a good idea to ignore pain. It could be nothing, but it could be something, and it’s always a good idea to find out which one it is. The sooner the better.”

I feel Kade glance down at the top of my head. “Angel?”

I flash him a fake smile. “I’m okay. We should focus on Aden. When can we see him?”

“Your friend is just out of surgery and still sedated,” Harley tells us, keeping his eyes fixed on me. “It’s going to be a while before he’s ready for visitors, which gives us plenty of time to discover the source of your wince.”

“Who can she see?” Kade asks.

I jerk my head up. “Kade! I said I was—”

He cradles the back of my scalp, dips his head, and kisses me hard on the lips. “This is non-negotiable, angel. You’re seeing someone about this pain. That’s priority number one.”

I lick my lips, and his gray eyes darken. It’s wrong to want him to kiss me again, to want more than that with Aden lying in intensive care, but I’ve always wanted Kade, and I think I always will.

“I’m okay,” I say. “Really.”

He kisses me again, this time softer and sweeter, until my eyelids flutter closed, and I lean into him. When he speaks, he’s still so close that his lips brush mine. “Not negotiable.” After a beat, he lifts his head, and his gaze settles on Harley. “Who can she see?”

“I have time,” Harley says with a new note in his voice that I can’t make out.

He’s studying us with an inscrutable look on his face. There’s nothing at all to suggest what he thinks of Kade’s kiss. Kade must see something he doesn’t like or trust because his arms tighten around me. Again, I hide my wince.

“What do you say, Jane?” Harley asks, and again I get the sense he saw more than I wanted him to.

“There’s no one else in this hospital?” Kade bites out, not the least bit happy at the direction this conversation has gone. “No one?”

It’s there one moment, and gone the next, but I’d swear blind a flare of amusement flits across Harley’s eyes as he pushes himself to his feet. “I’m a renowned heart surgeon. A prodigy,” he says. “You won’t find a better doctor in this hospital.”

“With an ego to match,” Kade speaks through gritted teeth.

Harley holds one hand out to me. “Jane?”

It’s perfectly ordinary. Nothing special marks it out as a prodigious surgeon’s hand. Strong, faintly tanned, and long fingers. Short blunt nails. There’s nothing the least bit threatening about it. Yet I eye it like someone led a rabid snarling dog toward me and told me to pet it.

I don’t want to take Harley’s hand. I don’t want to go anywhere with him.

And I wouldn’t, if I wasn’t getting the impression there’s more to this offer than him wanting to check me over. Something like Harley being Dr. Simon Trevor’s friend.

A man who died because he helped you, which means you owe Harley an explanation, if not an apology.

So I do the thing I do not want to do. I place my hand in Harley’s and let him pull me to my feet. It’s warm. Overly so. But that’s the thing with shifters. They run hot. In temperature and emotion.

And they are cruel. Vicious. My heart rattles in my chest at how cruel and vicious they can be.This was a mistake.I start to pull my palm back.

Kade grips my right hip, refusing to release me. “Angel, you don’t have to—”

Wrong. I do.

“Not negotiable, you said,” I interrupt, still staring at the handsome doctor with an animal inside him which makes me hate him. “You and Dariel can get a coffee while Harley makes sure this pain isn’t anything serious.”

CHAPTER 3

SAIGE

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