Page 28 of Full Moon Frenzy

“What’s going on?” their mother asked, innocent concern furrowing her brows.

“What do you think about the reflecting pool, Sandi?” Vanessa cut in cleanly, directing the question to her future mother-in-law, saving Trapp twice in the space of thirty minutes. “Is it necessary? Or is your son being ridiculous?”

“Hey, will Cecily be walking by the ceremony?” Grayson mused, thankfully following Vanessa’s lead. “Kids walk by the time they’re two, right? Do we think she’ll be able to hold a basket? Because we haven’t matched up the wedding party yet, and I could do the funniest thing to Lowell.”

Their father rolled his eyes as Victoria huffed at Grayson and Owen laughed, the topic of conversation fully routed. Trapp breathed out slowly. Perhaps he wasn’t losing his person at all. He might even be gaining additional backup, he thought as Vanessa met his eye quickly with an almost imperceptible nod.

It was a relief to leave his parents’ house that day, a relief to climb into his own bed, telling himself if he slept, this might all turn out to be a bad dream.

. . . At least, until the following day, when the very first call of his shift, an elderly wolf with a bad hip was directed to the urgent care clinic.

“The patient is eighty-two,” he pushed back. “Are we sure Healers wouldn’t be better—”

“Are you arguing with me?” the dispatcher demanded, a dryad he’d known all his life.

Trapp swallowed hard, forcing himself to internalize Grayson’s words. You’re going to fuck up your personal life? Things had better be immaculate professionally. He had no idea which gossip thread had reached whose ears, and he couldn’t afford to squander any more goodwill.

“Of course not, Relinda. Orders received; we’re en route.”

Oleg, at least, seemed blissfully unaware there was anything amiss as they rolled the grumpy geriatric werewolf into the clinic. “I’m just saying, Hemming, if you don’t take the top waiver wire, we’re giving the season to the guys over at Station Two in Starling Heights,” the troll droned, guiding the wheels through the doorway, having spent the whole drive chattering away about a local fantasy ketterling draft Trapp couldn’t care less about.

She was there, because fucking of course she was there.

Trapp watched Adriana Brunelli stiffen as the automatic doors pulled open. It was annoying how good she looked. He’d found her pretty in med school, part of the reason he’d pursued her in the first place, but now . . . she seemed softer now, the hard brashness she’d led with the whole time they were in school buffed away. The emergency department will do that, probably. Her skin was paler than it had been, likely owing to years of long shifts and no sun, and the contrast between her moon-white neck and the thick waterfall of black hair she had pulled behind her was striking.

He was struck with the memory of her that very first night at the library, all darting eyes and soft gasps, her panic that they would be caught catching in her throat as her fingers tightened in his hair. He could almost still feel the trembling of her white thighs around his face as his tongue worked against her slick center, licking her cunt until she’d flooded his mouth, studying forgotten.

Her pale skin flushed with fire now, red moving over her cheeks, fists tightening at her sides as Trapp cleared his throat for Oleg to start the hand-off, shaking off any consideration for how lovely she was. That was still the moon talking, the scent of her having invaded his nose too close to the turn, both deliciously familiar and excitingly foreign, leaving him achingly hard as his body shifted, desperate to fuck with no outlet to do so.

Don’t forget she’s the source of your problems. Get your head in the fucking game.

He forced himself to pay attention to Oleg’s recitation of old man Rudolph’s injuries when the troll was interrupted.

“I can’t accept a hand-off with abbreviated vitals,” she snapped, and any warm feelings nostalgia may have been brewing were immediately extinguished.

“He wasn’t finished,” Trapp countered. “And I correct him.”

Her spine lengthened, shoulders rolling back, as if she were attempting to stretch herself to meet his height. “I’m the attending physician in this clinic.”

He barked out a laugh, a sneer instead of one of his script-approved smiles taking up residence on his face. “This is urgent care, Adi. There’s no attending here. You’re a shift employee, no different than the maintenance crew. The vitals have already been recorded in the chart, which you’re free to look at, at any point.”

She stepped closer, invading his space as she glowered, bringing with her the faint scent of rain and sun-warmed cotton. When she spoke, it was through clenched teeth. “What I care about is professional competency. If this is your trainee, have you bothered to instruct him in the proper hand-off procedure? Or were you too busy practicing your hair flip for the pin-up calendar?”

Oleg was gaping, his head swiveling between them as if it were on a stick. This was how she’d always been, Trapp remembered. Fiery, argumentative, striving to beat him any way she could.

“Is someone in this place going to help me take a piss?” the old wolf in the bed raged.

“Eighty-two, male, werewolf, unwitnessed mechanical fall in garage on a concrete floor at approximately eleven hundred hours. Patient spent approximately thirty minutes on the ground. Suspected hairline fracture of the femoral neck.” Trapp’s voice was a pitch-black growl as he relayed Mr. Rudolph’s vitals, watching the slow spread of scarlet temper across her cheeks. He’d forgotten that her grey eyes were haloed in gold, like an eclipse, and wondered how it could have slipped from his memory. “I didn’t push him into a standard traction splint because it’s an intracapsular injury, but if you want to yank on his heel and override my field stabilization without taking a single plain film first, be my guest, Doctor Brunelli. Because this is a contest, after all.”

The automatic doors slid open as he and Oleg returned to the ambulance, his heart hammering against his ribs. Trapp had a feeling this was probably what Grayson would have classified as making it worse.

By the time they made it back to the firehouse, the claustrophobia of the ambulance was suffocating. He wasn’t sure how Julia leaving him was suddenly the unexpected high point of his month. It was foolish to have been as upset as he was, upset for all the wrong reasons, realizing Gray had been right about that as well. He never should have reacted the way he did with the two-day bender and subsequent flings. He could, it turned out, handle being dumped.

This, on the other hand? This was the foundation of his entire life being chipped away with an ice pick. He had spent years scrubbing the failure of his medical residency off his name, replacing it with being the Hemming everyone admired, the sterling, unshakeable reputation of a wolf who saved lives and helped his neighbors and never, ever asked for anything in return.

Trapp pushed through the bay doors, for once needing the mindless distraction of cleaning the trucks.

In the dayroom, the television was blaring a ketterling match, but the assembled crew wasn’t watching it. Vinlop and Drig were huddled near the water cooler, and the second Trapp’s boots hit the linoleum, the conversation died. Vinlop looked everywhere but at Trapp’s face, suddenly fascinated by the label on his energy drink. So much for brothers in uniform.