“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” she said good-naturedly. “Hey, maybe you can fix me up with some of your clients.”
“We only have three werewolves, and they’re all mated.”
“Rats.”
“‘Rats’ as in ‘Oh, rats’ or rats as in ‘They’re rats to be married’?”
She pondered that one for a moment, then finally said, “Both.” She looked around at all the paperwork with distaste. “Saul, when was the last time you had a vacation?”
“What year is it?”
“If you have to ask, it’s been too damn long.”
He shrugged. “I like my work.”
“Yeah, that’s fine, but you should think about settling down, too. You don’t want to be the only one in the old gang not mated.”
“God forbid,” he said dryly. “Plague and famine would be more welcome.” There was a polite rap on his door. “Ah. Prince Charming has arrived.”
“Please God,” Cain said fervently, and went to answer the door.
Chapter 5
My patients are really my life, and they’re all so different, that’s what I love about my work, the constant variety, I mean, every single day is different—”
Oh my God. This guy hasn’t stopped talking since he picked me up at Saul’s.
“—Dr. Williams is so arrogant, he just won’t tolerate any nurses, thinks we’re all trained monkeys—badly trained monkeys—and—”
Jesus. He’s never going to stop talking.
“—and then there was Mrs. Jenkins, boy, she was a firecracker! D’you know she was friends with Michael’s mother? Man, the stories she told! They were—”
I’m going to have to kill him and escape.
“—of course, what I’d really like is to go back to school and become a nurse practitioner. With the national nursing shortage, I can pretty much—”
Should I hit him until he shuts up? With what? A fire extinguisher?
“—they can write prescriptions and the money’s really great, not to mention—”
I’ll hit Saul. That’s what I’ll do.
“—you’re really great to talk to, you know how to listen, which I really—”
First this guy, then Saul, then myself. A double murder/suicide.
“—work such long hours, it’s so hard to meet people, but of course it’s worth it for the job, I mean, it’s just so rewarding—”
Oh my God. Where is that waitress? I need another drink so badly.
“—couldn’t believe it when Saul called me up and said you wanted to go out, I mean, we’ve all wondered why you haven’t settled down—”
At this rate, I’ll be unmated when I’m fifty.
“—then you had that cool mission to Minnesota, something about Antonia and—can this be right?—a vampire queen? I mean, it’s like something out of a Stephen King novel—”
Stupid vampire queen.
Chapter 6
Come on,” Saul said, setting a plate of steak and fries in front of her, along with a glass of six raw eggs. Among other things, Saul was a good cook and knew all her favorites.
“What, come on? It was awful!”
It was eleven o’clock at night; her date had ended early. Except it hadn’t felt early, God no.
Saul was unruffled. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”
“He never shut up! It was work, work, work, and blah, blah, blah—he doesn’t know a thing about me because I couldn’t get a word in edgewise!”
“He’s single, makes a good living, good-looking (not that I see him that way), and wants to settle down.”
“No, he’s looking for a blow-up doll that will listen all day and all night. God!” She drained her glass of eggs in three swallows. “I didn’t think I’d ever get out of there.”
“Well, you did. And here you are. Again.”
“You never used to mind when I dropped by,” she grumped. She chewed her steak furiously, then said, “You look like hell. You’re working too hard. Take a damned vacation already.”
He shrugged. “From what? Excel, or you?”
“You’re hilarious.”
“The good news—if you can call it that—is that I’ve set you up with another date for tomorrow night. Word’s getting around that you’re looking to settle down.”
“Excellent! There’s no way this guy can be worse than the other six.”
“You really do like to jinx yourself, don’t you?”
“Nuh-uh! Okay, maybe that was a dumb thing to say. I guess we’ll wait and see how it goes tomorrow night.” She chewed another piece. Then: “Word’s really getting around?”
He shrugged and flipped his black hair out of his eyes. “You know how our kind are. We’re genetically inclined to settle down young and have cubs. So the news that the infamous Cain, single for almost thirty years—”
“Because of the pact!”
“—wanting to settle down is pretty good gossip.”
“A dream come true. I’m gossip fodder.”
“There’s worse things,” he said, and cracked two more eggs into her glass.
Chapter 7
She didn’t care for number seven—Geoff Ren—and she couldn’t put her finger on why. Certainly he was smooth, and handsome (in a distant, icy blond, blue-eyed way), and charming. He listened to her, courteously offered to move them away from a cigarette smoker, and sent her steak back when it showed up overcooked. He made sure her drink glass was always full, and offered to take her somewhere else for dessert when nothing really grabbed her on the menu.
Maybe he was a little too—controlling?
Stop it, she scolded herself. You’ll never get mated at this rate. Now you’re just looking for reasons to reject these guys. Geoff’s been a great date. The best of a bad lot, that’s for damn sure.
They had pulled up to Saul’s house in his Lexus hybrid, and she turned to him to say, “Maybe we could get together tom—” when all of a sudden he’d yanked her toward him (breaking her seat belt) and mashed his mouth down on hers.
Outraged and startled, she tried to shove him away. When that didn’t work (he was over six feet tall, and much, much stronger), she bit him.
“Ouch! You little bitch. Why did you come out if you didn’t want some?”
“It’s our first date, Geoff, you ass! Jeez, I’m gonna have a friction burn on my neck from the seat belt.”
“You’ll heal,” he snapped, then snatched at her again, this time shoving his tongue into her mouth. Her back slammed against the steering wheel and there was a sonorous honk. His hands groped, reached, grabbed, and she could feel him yanking at her bra.
She fumbled for the driver’s side door handle and, when the door swung open, tumbled out and hit the pavement with a teeth-rattling thud.
He jumped out, his legs landing on either side of her back, and she scrambled to get away from him. He caught the back of her T-shirt and she wrenched away, hearing the fabric tear.
“Cut the shit!” she yelled, only to hit the side of the Lexus with a bang when the back of his hand caught her full across the jaw. God, he was fast! She hadn’t even seen his arm move. “Geoff, stop it!”
“You stop it, you fucking cocktease.”
Well, at least now she could put her finger on what was wrong with number seven.