Chapter Three
Kristoff
I swam through drugged nightmares, fighting my way to the surface, only to be dragged down again and again. Over and over I saw my Empress in danger…over and over I saw her slain, the assassin-droid killing her in a hundred, a thousand different, awful ways.
Her face…the young one of the new Incarnation and the old one of the female I had served all of my adult life mixed and melded, melting and flowing into one another until I couldn’t tell which was which.
“Save me!” the old Goddess-Empress cried but when I turned to shield her, it was the new one I saw—her lovely face and sharp green eyes so like the ones of my former mistress.
“I’m coming, my Lady!” I cried but I could never quite reach her. Always the Assassin-droid got there before me. Always I was left holding her broken, bleeding body in my arms, her lovely blonde hair matted with crimson.
The dream reset itself over and over, I know not how many times. And all the time I prayed—not to the Goddess-Empress but to the Goddess of Mercy, she who made us all through the Ancient Ones.
“Goddess, please—let me reach her on time! Let me serve my Lady and keep her safe. Protect her while I am not able. Please, Goddess—help me to save her!”
I do not know if she who made us all heard me or not. I only know I struggled in the nightmare, longing to wake and shield my new mistress. But I was unable because of the drug flowing through my veins.
And yet—that was not the only thing in my veins. The Empress’s own blood was in me. Though the Council of Wisdom would call it blasphemy, it gave me strength. Somehow, I knew I would reach her.
I just hoped it wouldn’t be too late.
Charlotte
“Come on, Charlotte, this is a good thing. We actually get to go home to sleep.” Sebastian prodded me with one sharp finger. “Come on. Don’t tell me you don’t like that.”
I didn’t like it, though I couldn’t say why. I ought to be beyond grateful, after the night I had had.
Not long after my mysterious patient, the ER had been slammed with a ten car pileup and then several gunshot wounds and a heart-attack that turned out to be an aortic dissection.
By morning rounds Sebastian and I had been dragging. Even before the craziness in the Pit, we had been up for eighteen hours straight. So by the time morning rounds rolled around, we had both gone well over twenty-four hours without sleep. Even black coffee can only do so much and the two of us were yawning so much so that our attending, Dr. Calgary, had ordered us home for at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. I had tried to protest but he wasn’t having it.
“I appreciate that you interns think you have something to prove and normally I’d let you prove it,” he’d said sharply when I protested that I still had patients to see. “But you two are so tired you’re falling asleep on your feet—that’s no good for anyone. Especially not your patients. Go home, turn off your phones, and get some sleep. That’s an order.”
“Yes, Sir,” I had muttered. But I couldn’t help the sense of foreboding that filled me, even as Sebastian and I trudged out to the employee parking lot.
“You’re not still thinking about him are you?” Sebastian asked me. “You know—tall, gold, and grabby?”
I shrugged irritably.
“He only grabbed you because you were being a dick. And no—I wasn’t thinking of him.”
Which was a lie, of course.
It had been a crazy night—so crazy I could almost forget about Kristoff. But somehow, even after such an exhausting shift, I found he was still at the back of my mind like a piece of music I couldn’t forget.
“He’ll probably wake up and wonder where the hell he is,” Sebastian said, grinning tiredly. “Picture this— he’s actually a high-stakes attorney and he was at a fancy dress party last night. Some girl who wanted to hump him and dump him slipped something psychotic into his appletini, had her way with him, and then dumped him outside the ER when he started getting too wild to handle. Now, this morning, he opens his eyes and he’s strapped to a hospital bed and he has no idea how he got there.”
“You should have been a romance writer,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s a hell of a story.”
“Thank you.” Sebastian made an elaborate bow which almost ended with him face-planting onto the concrete because he was so tired.
I laughed at him. “You need to stop before you fall over and need stitches. I’m in no shape to sew up your pretty face right now.”
“I’m fine,” he declared, opening his eyes wide to show how awake he was. “Although I do appreciate you acknowledging my beauty.”
I barely held back a snort of laughter.
“Seriously Sebastian, do not make me laugh right now—I don’t know if I could stop. Okay, this is me.” We had stopped in front of my little blue Spark.
“I don’t know why you even bother to drive to work,” Sebastian grumbled. “You only live a few blocks away.”
“I drive to work because on the off-chance that I get to go home and sleep, I don’t want to spend half my time walking there,” I said. “You’ve got a lot further to drive than I do, though. You want to crash at my place? You can have the couch.”
Sebastian considered it for a minute, then shook his head.
“No, I’m going home. I might be able to get Lalo, that hot Latin guy I met at the club the other night, to come over.”
“Sebastian!” I exclaimed, frowning at him. “We’re supposed to be going home to sleep—not get laid.”
“Who said anything about getting laid—I just want to cuddle,” he said coyly. Then, when I continued to glare at him he shrugged his shoulders. “Fine, so I want to get some. So what? You know, you wouldn’t be so judgmental if you ever got laid yourself.”
“Leave me out of this,” I said.
“No, seriously.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re pretty, Charlotte—hell, you’re gorgeous. And I can say that without things getting weird between us because you know I have absolutely no urge to be with you.”
“Oh, thanks,” I said dryly. “You’re right—zero weirdness.”
“No, I mean it,” he insisted. “You’re gorgeous—so why aren’t you with anyone?”
“With the life we lead?” I said, raising my eyebrows. “Crazy-busy morning, noon, and night? Who would have me?”
“Any number of the guys at the hospital,” Sebastian said quietly. “Like Dr. Hunter, who I heard you turned down last week. Seriously, you can’t use our schedule as an excuse. Anybody who works here would understand.”
“Well maybe I don’t want to date anyone where I work,” I said crisply. “Besides, Drake Hunter is a predatory jerk.”
“Maybe you just don’t want to date anyone at all,” my friend said quietly.
“Maybe it’s none of your business,” I snapped back.
“All right. Okay.” Sebastian put up both hands in a ‘don’t shoot’ gesture. “Wasn’t trying to piss you off. I’m just saying—you should get some once in a while. It really helps to take the edge off.”
“I don’t want to lose my edge,” I said. “Which is why I’m going home to sleep—not get laid.”
“Geeze, I’m sorry, Charlotte, I was just trying to be a friend.” He looked really offended now. “Forget I said anything.”
I knew I had gone too far and I felt bad about it. But still, my romantic life—or lack thereof—was a sore subject with me. Leah and Zoe had always assumed I almost never dated anyone because I was attacked once in college and it put me off men in general.
I let them think that—and that was part of it, I admit. It was also why I carried a taser in my purse everywhere I went. But there was more to the story than just a drunken frat guy and an attempted rape. There was also that fact that I had never been sexually turned on by any guy I’d ever met and that included Dr. Drake Hunter, who every other single woman (and some that weren’t so single) in the hospital, was panting after.
I don’t mean I?
??m gay—in the past I had often wished that I was. How much easier it would have been! But women didn’t attract me either. No one attracted me and no one would—that was the thing I always knew through my touch-sense when I was touching a man—whether he could turn me on or not. And I had never found anyone who could. Until…
“Look, I’d better just go,” Sebastian said, breaking my dismal train of thought.
“Sebastian, I’m sorry,” I said lamely. “I just…don’t like talking about that kind of stuff.”
“Fine. I’ll remember that,” he said frostily. “Bye, Charlotte. Have a good time sleeping.”
Before I could say anything else, he had turned and was trudging down the rows of parked cars, looking for his Jeep. I thought about calling him back, but what else could I say?
Reluctantly, I unlocked my little Spark and got inside. It was stifling already thanks to the Florida weather. I cranked up the AC and headed for home which was an apartment complex just a few blocks from the hospital.
Well, even if my only remaining friend was mad at me, at least I could get some sleep, I told myself. After a good eight hours in bed, I would wake up feeling like a new woman. Everything would be better soon.
I had no idea how wrong I was.