J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8 - J. R. Ward [604]
So all was not lost.
As Doc Jane stood before him, she crossed her arms, the lapels of her white coat bunching up. She was fully solid, her ghostly form as substantive as his or Beth’s, and he could practically smell the wood burning as she considered his case.
“Your pupils are virtually nonresponsive, but that’s because they are nearly contracted to begin with…. Damn it, I wish I’d done a baseline optical on you. You said the blindness came on suddenly?”
“I went to bed and woke up unable to see anything. I’m not sure when it happened.”
“Anything different?”
“Other than the fact that I didn’t have a headache?”
“Have you been getting them recently?”
“Yeah. It’s stress.”
Doc Jane frowned. Or at least he sensed that she did. To him, her face was a pale blur with short blond hair, the features of which were indistinct.
“I want you to get a CAT scan at Havers’s.”
“Why?”
“To see about a couple of things. So, wait, you just woke up and your sight was gone—”
“Why do you want the CAT scan?”
“I want to know if there’s anything abnormal in your brain.”
Beth’s hand tightened on his as if she were trying to get him to chill, but panic made him impolite. “As in what? For fuck’s sake, Doc, just talk to me.”
“A tumor.” As both he and Beth sucked in a breath, Doc Jane continued quickly, “Vampires do not get cancer. But there have been instances of benign growths and that might explain the headaches. Now tell me again, you woke up and…it was just gone. Was there anything unusual going on before you fell asleep? Afterward?”
“I…” Fuck. Shit. “I woke up and I fed.”
“How long had it been since you’d last done that?”
Beth answered. “Three months or so.”
“Long time,” the doctor murmured.
“So you think that could be it?” Wrath said. “I didn’t feed enough and lost it, but when I did take her vein, my vision came back and—”
“I think you need a CAT scan.”
There was no nonsense coming from her, nothing to argue with. So as he heard a phone getting flipped open and being dialed, he kept his piehole shut even though it killed him.
“I’ll see when Havers can get you in.”
Which was going to be at the drop of a hat, no doubt. Wrath and the race’s physician had had their differences, going way back to the Marissa days, but the male had always been front and center with the service when it was needed.
As Doc Jane started talking, Wrath cut in on her conversation. “Do not tell Havers what it’s for. And you and only you see the results. We clear?”
Last thing they needed was any speculation on his fitness to rule.
Beth spoke up. “Tell him it’s for me.”
Doc Jane nodded and smoothly lied, and as she arranged everything, Wrath pulled Beth up against his side.
Neither of them said anything, because what kind of conversation was there to be had? They were both scared shitless—his vision was crap, but he needed what little he had. Without it? What the hell was he going to do?
“I have to go to that council meeting at midnight,” he said softly. As Beth stiffened, he shook his head. “Politically speaking, I have to go. Things are too unstable right now for me to not show, or to try to move it to another night. I have to come from a position of strength.”
“And what if you lose your sight in the middle of it?” she hissed.
“Then I’m going to fake it until I can get out of there.”
“Wrath—”
Doc Jane clipped her phone shut. “He can see you right now.”
“How long will it take?”
“About an hour.”
“Good. I have somewhere I need to be at midnight.”
“Why don’t we see what the scan says—”
“I have to—”
Doc Jane cut him off with an authority that told him in this exchange he was a patient, not the king. “Have to is a relative term. We’ll see what’s doing in there and then you can decide just how much have to you’ve got.”
Ehlena could have stayed on the terrace with Rehvenge for twenty years, but he whispered in her ear that he’d made them something to eat, and sitting across from him in candlelight sounded equally as great.
After a final, lingering kiss, they went inside together, her tucked against