She put the little glass bottle down on a steel rolling tray and leaned over his face, syringe up in the air. "So what's it going to be? Me and this knockout sauce or… gee, no one?"

That yellow stare flared with anger, like she'd cheated him out of something.

But then the kinglike guy spoke up. "Phury, don't be an ass. This is your vision we're talking about. Shut up and let her do her job."

The yellow eye closed. "Fine," the guy muttered.

It was about two hours later that Vishous decided he was in trouble. Big trouble. As he stared at the rows of neat little black stitches in Phury's face, he was overwhelmed to the point of silence.

Yeah. He was in mega trouble.

Jane Whitcomb, M.D., was a master surgeon. An absolute artist. Her hands were elegant instruments, her eyes sharp as the scalpel she used, her focus as fierce and all-consuming as that of a warrior in battle. At times she'd worked with a blurring speed, and at others she'd slowed down until it seemed like she wasn't moving at all: Phury's orbital bone had been broken in a number of places, and Jane had put him back together step by step, removing chips that were white as oyster shells, drilling into the cranium and running wire between fragments, putting a small screw in his cheek.

V could tell she wasn't completely happy with the end result by the hard look on her face as she'd closed. And when he'd asked her what the problem was, she'd told him that she would have preferred to put a plate in Phury's cheek, but as they didn't have that kind of kit handy, she was just going to hope the bone knit fast.

From start to finish she'd been totally in control. To the point where it had turned him on, which was both absurd and shameful. It was just that he'd never met a female-a woman-like her before. She'd just cared for his brother superbly, with skill V himself couldn't hope to match.

Oh, God… He was in such fucking trouble here.

"How's his blood pressure?" she asked.

"Steady," he replied. Phury had passed out about ten minutes in, though his breathing had remained strong and so had his BP.

As Jane wiped off the area around the eye and cheekbone and started to pack it with gauze, Wrath cleared his throat at the doorway. "What about his vision?"

"We won't know until he tells us," Jane said. "I have no way of ascertaining whether his optic nerve has been damaged or whether there was any retinal or cornea damage. If any of that has happened, he's going to have to go to another facility to get it repaired, and not just because of the limited resources here. I'm not an eye surgeon, and I wouldn't even attempt that kind of operation."

The king pushed his sunglasses up a little higher on his straight nose. Like he was thinking of his weak eyes and hoping Phury didn't have to deal with that kind of problem.

After Jane covered the side of Phury's face with gauze, she ran a length of bandage around his head like a turban, then put the instruments she'd used in the autoclave. To keep from watching her obsessively, V got busy throwing out the used syringes, pads, and needles along with the disposable tube from the suction draw.

Jane snapped off her surgical gloves. "Let's talk infection. How susceptible is your kind?"

"Not very." V lowered himself back into his chair. He hated to admit it, but he was tired. If she hadn't made him take a load off, he'd be totally dead on his feet by now. "Our immune systems are very strong."

"Would your doctor have him on antibiotics as a prophylactic?"

"No."

She went over to Phury and stared at him like she was reading his vital signs without the benefit of a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. Then she reached out and smoothed his extravagant hair back. The ownership in her eyes and the gesture bugged V even though it shouldn't have. Of course she'd take a special interest in his brother. She'd just put the side of his face back together.

But still.

Shit, bonded males were a pain in the ass, weren't they?

Jane leaned down to Phury's ear. "You did well. It's going to be all right. You just rest and let that fancy healing of yours go to work, okay?" After patting his shoulder, she turned off the high-powered chandelier over the gurney. "God, I'd love to study your kind."

A blast of cold came from the corner, as Wrath said, "Not a chance, Doc. We aren't playing guinea pig for the Ekes of the human race."

"I wasn't getting my hopes up." She glanced around at all of them. "I don't want him unattended, so either I'm staying with him here or someone else is. And if I leave, I'm going to want to check on him in about two hours to see how he's coming along."

"We'll stay here," V said.

"You look like you're about to fall over."

"Not a chance of that."

"Only because you're sitting down."

The idea that he was weak in front of her sharpened his voice. "You don't worry about me, female."

She frowned. "Okay, that was a statement of fact, not concern. Do what you want with it."

Ouch. Yeah… just ouch.

"Whatever. I'll be out there." He got up and left quick.

In the equipment room he grabbed a bottle of Aquafina from the cooler, then stretched out on one of the benches. As he cracked the cap he was dimly aware of Wrath and Rhage coming over and saying something to him, but he wasn't tracking.

That he wanted Jane to care about him drove him nuts. That he was hurt when she didn't was even more of an ego fuck.

He closed his eyes and tried to be logical. He hadn't slept in weeks. He'd been plagued by that nightmare. He'd almost died.

He'd met his frickin' mommy.

V sucked back most of the water. He was beyond off-kilter, and that had to be why he was catching feelings. It really wasn't about Jane. It was situational. His life was a fruit salad of fuck-mes, and that was the reason he was getting chicky about her. Because sure as shit she was giving him nothing to go on. She treated him as a patient and as a scientific curiosity. And that orgasm he'd almost given her? He was damn sure that if she'd been wide-awake it never would have happened: Those images she'd had of him were a woman's fantasy about being with a dangerous monster. They were not about her wanting him in real life.

"Hey."

V opened his eyes and looked up at Butch. "Hey." The cop shoved V's feet aside and sat down on the bench. "Man, she did a bang-up job with Phury, didn't she?"

"Yeah." V glanced at the open door to the PT suite. "What's she doing in there?"

"Going through all the cabinets. Said she wanted to know what the inventory was, but I really think she's just hanging around Phury and trying to be casual about it."

"She doesn't have to watch him all the time," V muttered.

As the sentence flew out of his mouth, he couldn't believe he was jealous of his injured brother. "What I mean is-"

"Nah. Don't worry. I gotchu."

As Butch started to crack his knuckles, V cursed in his head and thought about leaving. Those popping sounds tended to be the prelude to Meaningful Conversation. "What."

Butch flexed his arms, his Gucci button-down stretching tight over his shoulders. "Nada. Well, other than… I do want you to know that I approve."

"Of what?"

"Her. You and her." Butch glanced over, then looked away. "It's a good combo."

In the silence that followed, V traced the profile of his best friend, from the dark hair that fell over a smart forehead to the busted nose to the jutting jaw. For the first time in quite a while he didn't crave Butch. Which should have been classed as an improvement. Instead, he felt worse for a different reason.

"There is no her and me, buddy."

"Bullshit. I saw it right after you healed me. And the connected's getting stronger by the hour."