Page 17 of Damien’s Mate

“Or possibly the guy who saved her life.”

James grunted, “We’ll see about that.”

He did a series of X-rays to see about chest, spinal and pelvic damage.

“She really should have a CAT scan,” he was muttering. “If she doesn’t wake up soon…”

“You think there’s a brain bleed?” Would her special shifter healing deal fix that? Damien felt helpless. There was so much he didn’t know, and Lila looked so pale and vulnerable lying there.

For some reason, he didn’t want to let go of her hand. Her vitals were strong, but he still felt like she was going to slip away if he didn’t hold on to her.

And what are you planning on doing with her if you never let go of her? a little voice in his head asked. You’re nothing to her, and she’s nothing to you—just a reckless thief, out for herself, who did one good thing.

Kind of like him, he realized. He was a bad guy who’d done one good thing, for Jaeda Harris, and gotten his knee wrecked.

And Lila’s reward for her one good thing was getting run over by a fucking Russian mobster.

Maybe they both should stop doing good deeds.

James finished the X-rays and put the images up on the array of computer screens in his examining room, scrolling through them and studying each one.

None of it made any sense to Damien, so he just held Lila’s hand and tried to be patient, which was not his most noticeable personality trait.

As James studied the photos, his frown grew deeper and deeper. “This doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “You said this just happened now, right? Before you called me?”

“Um, yeah,” Damien said. “Why? What’s the matter?”

James flipped back through the photos. “These are the X-rays I took of her ribs and pelvis on the left side, where that huge contusion shows she took the brunt of the impact.”

“You mean the big-ass bruise shows where she got hit, college boy?”

James flipped him off. “See these white lines? Here, and here, and here?” He ran his fingers over bright white streaks on the X-rays.

“Yeah. Are those broken bones?” Damien winced. Damn, that was a lot of damage.

James glared at him. “Those are remodeling broken bones.”

Damien got it, and the pit of his stomach went cold. Uh-oh. “Bones that have started to heal?”

“Yeah. Like, at least a few days’ worth of healing. They don’t show up the same way on X-rays if the break is fresh. So at first I’m thinking maybe she had another accident, but there was no sign of old bruising when I examined her. And there’s no new damage to the bones.”

He turned right around and eyeballed Damien. “From these X-rays, it seems like any bones broken in today’s accident have already started to heal. But that’s impossible, right?”

Damien didn’t answer.

James folded his arms. “Okay, D. Who is this woman, and what the fuck is really going on with her?”

Chapter 8

Damien and James stared at each other. James was clearly not backing down on this one—his blue eyes practically pinned Damien to the wall. One lock of black hair was falling down his forehead like it always did when he was excited or perplexed and ran his fingers through it.

Damien would trust James with his life—he often had—but he’d made a promise to the Wild Blood Crew, never to tell anyone that shifters existed. Their lives depended on it. And he owed them.

Added to that was the knowledge that, as with so many things Damien had been into over the years, the less James knew, the safer he was.

Finally he said, “Look, I don’t know that much about it, but I do know that if anyone found out she’s… different, she’d be screwed.”

James looked back at the X-rays. “Yeah, but this kind of healing—it’s miraculous! If it could be replicated… just think of the lives that could be saved, the—”