“Yes,” Landyn says, taking the broken dictation board from my hands. “I assumed it was one of the werewolves tearingthrough the cafeteria. Didn’t the family bring like ten wolves to tour the maternity ward?”
“No, the human bit Liam and escaped through the air ventilation system. That was after she fought Bonk to escape from her wheelchair. Luckily, the werewolves were raiding the cafeteria while the chaos was upstairs. Liam backtracked to support Bonk and sports teeth marks for his troubles.”
“A human fought an ogre and won?” Landyn asks what we’re all thinking. Unless this lady was a ten-foot sumo wrestler, there’s no way she could overpower our biggest member of staff.
“No way,” Drake says, leaning forward in her chair. “I like her already. What? It was total bullshit that her pack leader picked for her to have surgery and arranged it with us. If you recall, I voted against it. Now I hope she gives you hell for trying to control her.”
“Mission accomplished,” Bracken says with a huff. “I was pulled out of my consultation with the Magnolia family to keep her weresister from figuring out what was going on. The sister is about to pop with a litter of five. I didn’t want an emergency birth with that many puppies while the hospital was on lockdown because her human sister was crawling through the vents. What if she ends up in a vamp’s room?”
“Magnolia family?” My blood runs cold. It could be a coincidence. Bracken knows we have a strict no-Fae policy in our hospital, but he loves to bend the rules. It’s why I both love him like a brother and can’t let my guard down for a second. All the Fae families are named after flowers…but other families can be named after flowers, too. Am I paranoid?
“The vampires are in the basement with the morgue and the zombies, so I doubt she would crawl out of the shafts down there. Any human would avoid the smell of blood and deathdown there. It’s in our DNA,” Landyn says. “I would be more worried about the other patients siding with her and giving us a PR nightmare.”
“I didn’t think of that. I’ll text Cathy about a possible press release…just in case,” Bracken says, whipping out his phone. The cracked screen sparkles as he taps on the screen.
I ask again, “Who’s the Magnolia family?”
“Cathy says she was on it from the second the alarms put us in lockdown. She’s a gem. We should give her something nice for Summer Solstice—anyone know what she does for fun?”
“What does a lady goblin do for fun?” Drake asks, draining the last of her coffee with a wince.
“Her favorite flowers are African violets. She’s on a roller derby team, and loves visiting wineries,” Landyn reads from his phone as he returns to his chair. He plants himself next to Bracken, smiling at his phone with his fingers flying.
Another sexy text message, no doubt.
“You banged Cathy, too? Cathy in the front office? How have the females of this hospital not ganged up on you for being a manwhore?” Drake rolls her eyes and crushes her cup in her fist.
“Magic touch,” he says with a toothy grin he must have learned from our were-visitors.
The man becomes more feral the longer we stay in the monster world. Sometimes I wonder if he would have settled down and had a family if he’d stayed on the human side of things, but then I remember how he leaned on his photographic memory in medical school. He never spent a night in his own bed, let alone one at the library studying. Eek, that was ages ago…before I knew weres, Fae, and night creatures were real.
Simpler times…
“Who in the hospital haven’t you banged?”
“You,” Landyn says, rubbing his chin and looking toward the ceiling.
“Because there aren’t enough antibiotics in the world—”
“And I love you like a little sister,” he says, closing her mouth on the insult she was about to volley. “I want to walk you down the aisle…”
“Really?” she says, tearing up a little.
“…without the guilt of knowing your groom will never satisfy you as I did. I’d never doom you to a life of subpar sex.”
“You had me for a moment. I hate you!” She yells, throwing her empty Styrofoam cup at him. “Frank, skewer him!”
“He may have to get in line. I’m waiting for Bracken to tell me who the Magnolia family is,” I say in a tone that brooks no argument.
While the four of us are equal shareholders in Haunted Health, they know it's my surgical skills that keep us in business. My department buys their departments’ fancy equipment and specialized staff. Monsters from all realms come to my OR—all realms except Magmell. If the Magnolia family is a bunch of fairies and Bracken gave them false hope, I’ll…I’ll…I’ll chop off his hair with my scissor fingers!
“The Magnolias are expecting twins. They need a hospital and have come to our realm to ask me to deliver the twins—”
“Which realm?” I say as the hairs on my arms raise in alarm.
“Frank, I know—”
“Which realm?” I repeat in a darker tone.
