Lover Unleashed - J. R. Ward [125]
She would have been a stellar mother, though. She was good at everything she did.
Did she miss being alive?
Why had he never asked her that?
The return of the surgeon’s face cut off his thinking. “Your hip’s dislocated. I’m going to have to set it before I work on the knee because I’m worried about your circulation. Okay?”
“Just fix me,” V moaned. “Whatever it takes.”
“Good. I’ve put the knee in a temporary brace for this.” The human looked over to Butch, who, shower-request notwithstanding, had propped himself up against the wall no less than two feet away. “I need your help. There’s no one else around with free hands.”
The cop was right on it, shoring up his strength and coming over. “What do you want me to do?”
“Hold his pelvis in place.” The human hopped up onto the stainless-steel table at V’s legs, crouching down to avoid banging his head on the chandelier. “This is going to be a muscle job—there’s no other way to do it. I want you facing me, and I’ll show you where to put your hands.”
Butch got right with the program, sidling in close and reaching down. “Where?”
“Here.” V had some vague sensation of warm weight on both sides of his hips. “Little more to the outside—right. Good.”
Butch looked around his own shoulder at V. “You ready for this?”
Silly question. Like asking someone if they were prepared for a head-on collision.
“Stoked,” V muttered.
“Just focus on me.”
And V did . . . seeing the flecks of green in the cop’s hazel eyes and the contours of that busted nose and the five-o’clock shadow.
When the human grabbed V’s lower thigh and started lifting, V jacked up against the table, his head kicking back, his jaw straining.
“Easy, there,” the cop said. “Focus on me.”
Uh-huh, right. There was pain, and then there was PAIN. This was PAIN.
Vishous labored for breath, his neural pathways crammed with signals, his body exploding even as his outer skin stayed intact.
“Tell him to breathe,” someone said. Probably the human.
Yeah, that was going to happen. Not.
“Okay, on three I’m going to force the joint back into place—you ready?”
V had no clue who the guy was talking to, but if it was him, there was no way to answer. His heart was jumping and his lungs were stone and his brain was Las Vegas at night and—
“Three!”
Vishous screamed.
The only thing that was louder was the pop as the hip was relocated, as it were. And the last thing he saw before he checked out of the Conscious Inn & Suites was Jane’s head whipping around in a panic. In her eyes was stark terror, as if the single worst thing that she could imagine was him in agony. . . .
And that was when he knew that he still loved her.
THIRTY-TWO
Up at the mansion, in Qhuinn’s bedroom, there was nothing but a whole lot of silence—which was typical when you dropped a bomb, be it real or metaphorical.
Jesus Christ, he couldn’t believe he’d said the words: Even though only he and Layla were in here, he felt like he’d gone to the top of a building in downtown Caldwell and bullhorned the announcement.
“Your friend,” Layla whispered. “Blaylock.”
Qhuinn’s heart froze. But after a moment, he forced himself to nod. “Yeah. It’s him.”
He waited for some kind of disgust or grimace or . . . even shock. Coming from where he did, he was all too versed in homophobia—and Layla was a Chosen, for godsakes, which made that old-school-glymera bull crap look positively enlightened.
Her beautiful stare lingered on his face. “I think I knew. I saw the way he looked at you.”
Well, that was no more. And . . . “It doesn’t bother you? That he’s another male?”
There was a slight pause. And then the answer she gave him transformed him in a curious way: “Not in the slightest. Why would it?”
Qhuinn had to look away. Because he worried about what was shining in his eyes. “Thank you.”
“Whatever for?”
All he could do was shrug.
Who’d have thought acceptance would be as