Free Immortally Ever After by Angie Fox Page B

“At least I didn’t turn your former spot into an exercise room.”
    No, he hadn’t. When we made it back to my old place, I saw he’d removed my cot completely and had installed cement-block shelves.
    I glanced at him. “Not that I’m picky about where I sleep, but…”
    “Bah, I can change it back. Take a load off,” he said, dumping my footlocker and duffel just inside the hutch door.
    He didn’t have to ask me twice. I stretched out on Rodger’s cot while he banged around. How was it that his pillow was better than mine? I raised my head a little. “What about you?”
    We’d be back on in five hours, maybe less with all the cases we had in Recovery.
    “Super werewolf strength.”
    Now he was just being nice.
    “It won’t take long to get your side back together,” he said, grunting as he hefted. “Want me to make it dark in here?”
    “God, no.” Let there be light.
    And shedded fur balls in the corners.
    I closed my eyes, smelling the tar swamp, listening to the familiar bubbling out back. It hurt to know that things were never going to be the way they had been with Marc. But at the same time, it felt good to be home.
    *   *   *
    Five hours later, we were back in Recovery. The place was packed. Burns were excruciating, physically draining, and ugly in so many ways. Beds full of bodies lined both sides of the long, rectangular room.
    We’d squeezed temporary cots in between, and the hall in the middle was jammed with doctors, nurses, orderlies, and even the entire bar crew from the officers’ club, who had shut down in order to stock supplies and offer nonmedical help.
    As soon as Rodger and I walked in the door, there were nurses handing us charts on the most critical cases. Marius arrived as soon as dark fell. And it was well after that before I could even inquire about the corporal I’d found yesterday in the yard. I hadn’t seen him among the men, but at this point I wasn’t even sure if I’d recognize him if I’d tripped over him.
    I was washing my hands, rinsing the slick burn ointment away, sterilizing myself for the next case.
    Nurse Hume stood next to me. “What’s his name again?” he asked.
    I tried to remember the dog tags. “Zanas, Zara?”
    “Zern,” he said. “The were.”
    “Yes.” The one who’d gone without painkillers.
    “He died.”
    My heart squeezed. “Oh. Okay.”
    Goddamn it.
    This needed to end. The sooner the better. It was all up to me and I had to wait around for a fucking knife.
    We worked another six hours before we had everyone settled for the night.
    The lights flickered and dimmed until the room was bathed in shadows. Blue lights lined the walls, illuminating individual patient areas enough for us to monitor them while they slept.
    I knew I should go talk to Marc. I’d caught him watching me a few times. Still, I wasn’t sure what to say to him. I didn’t want him to think he had a shot when there wasn’t one.
    Ending it with him had been the right call. It was hard, but it was also a relief.
    Unlike my breakup with Galen, which had shattered me to the core.
    I handed a chart off at the nurses’ station and lingered on that thought for a long moment. What would it be like if I could actually have Galen in my life?
    A familiar voice from behind startled me. “A word, doctor?”
    I turned and the air left my lungs in a whoosh.
    Galen stood there, at the front of Recovery. He had gauze wrapped around his head and over the lower part of his face, like some kind of Bedouin sheikh on a desert hike.
    “What are you doing?” My whisper was about nine octaves too high as I glanced down the line to see if anyone was watching.
    He stood in front of me as if he had nothing to hide. He drew close, far too confident for his own good—or mine. “You haven’t been by to see me today.”
    “I’ve been busy,” I said. That’s when I noticed he’d also stolen a shapeless examination gown, as if that would hide his power, his raw masculinity. I