Page 11 of Bond of Passion

Chapter 3

“Code Seven, Code Seven. All available staff to the Emergency Department. Code Seven!”

The tinny voice came over the hospital’s intercom system and echoed through the dentist’s office. Tavin glanced across the Guai patient at Dr. Shipp. “Should I go, or do you need help?”

The dentist, a thirty-something female werewolf who’d been working for Underworld General for a couple of years, nodded. “I got this. The tusk is too mangled to save anyway.”

A godawful squeal came from the Guai lying in the chair, his furred body restrained, his boar-like snout propped open with hard rubber wedges.

“Knock it off,” Shipp snapped. “It’s what you get when you take on a dryad in his home territory,” she said in a voice as sharp as her canines. “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

Tavin suctioned saliva from the back of the patient’s throat. “You sound like you know something about winning stupid prizes.”

She shot Tavin a frustrated look and jabbed her gloved finger into her breastbone. “How do you think I ended up like this?”

“What, four-foot nothing and sixty pounds?”

“A werewolf,” she growled. “And I’m four-foot-six, thank you very much.”

He laughed, but he did feel for her. The curvy little blonde looked like a child playing a doctor in scrubs. He wondered if she was a miniature werewolf when she shifted. Like a Chihuahua. Or a corgi.

Tavreally wanted to hear the story of the stupid game that’d ended in her becoming a werewolf, but not badly enough to hang around for a boring-asstuskectomy when something more interesting was happening on the other side of the building. He’d been a paramedic at the hospital run by demons and other assorted underworlders for almost a year now, but as the newest rescue staff member, he was the one who always got assigned to other jobs when things were slow and various departments were short-staffed.

Freaking dental clinic. That was the worst. Demons were not generally known for their oral hygiene. The last patient had nearly killed them all with toxic breath and cavities so large maggots had been living in them. Tavin’s stomach rolled just thinking about it, and he’d seen a lot of shit in his life.

He trashed his gloves and mask and then hightailed it to the ED where, as he approached, he realized that he didn’t know what a Code Seven was. And from the confused looks the others hurrying through the dark hallways gave him, no one else did either.

Laughter and music came from ahead, and when the swinging doors opened into a crowd of partying staff, he caught the mouthwatering aromas of spicy meat dishes and sweet pastries. So this was definitely some kind of celebration and not a mass casualty event, angelic attack, or ghost infestation…all of which had apparently happened before.

A female in black-and-white-skull-print scrubs brushed by him on her way to the table laden with the food he’d smelled when he entered.

“Excuse me,” she said, and then her brilliant blue eyes, framed by long, sable lashes flared wide as if she were surprised to see him. Which was weird because he’d never seen her before. He would have remembered seeing a Neebless demon. Rumored to be long-lost relatives of the Neethul, they were an uncommon, reclusive race that rarely left the Khargrave region of Sheoul.

“S’okay,” he said, giving her lean, athletic body a leisurely once-over. “You must be new here. I’m Tavin.”

She swallowed. “I, uh, I’m Deja.”

“As in déjà vu?”

“As in déjà ven.” She searched his expression as if looking for a specific response. “It means to take revenge over and over.”

Huh. “Sounds like your parents had an ax to grind.”

Full, glossy lips the color of midnight twitched in amusement. “Something like that.”

That mouth. Sensual. Lush. Made to make a male worship at her feet. Damn, he wanted it on his body. “Maybe you could tell me about it sometime.”

Her shrug was coy, but the flutter of her long, ebony lashes over azure eyes was pure flirt. “Maybe.”

He loved the way she’d dragged out the word, her husky voice going even deeper. He wondered how deep it would go while in the throes of passion.

Oh, he was so going to do this chick, and going by her signals, she was on board with that.

“So, you said you’re new here?”

“It’s actually my first day.” She waved enthusiastically at a bright crimson Sora female before turning back to Tavin. “Sorry. That’s my friend Ronnie. We graduated nursing school together.”

“Hey, Tav!” Shade, one of three Seminus brothers who ran the place, gestured from where he was filling a Solo cup at the punch bowl near the nurse’s station.