The Demon's Forbidden Passion (4 page)

Chapter Six

When Tina woke up to her alarm an hour later, her head was pounding and her bed was cold...and empty. She tapped the clock off and bolted upright, searching the room around her. But the moment she sat up the ache in her head intensified into a sharp pain, as if a butcher knife cleaved the front of her skull in two. She blinked a few times, trying to shake the heaviness of sleep from her eyes, but her vision was blurred.

“Ethan?” she asked groggily. There was no response, no sounds of the shower running or breakfast cooking to greet her, only her headache pulsing harder in her ears.

She called his name again. Even the sound of her own speech aggravated her headache further. But her physical pain was quickly replaced with devastation when she realized that Ethan was nowhere to be found. He had slipped out sometime while she was sleeping.

Tears of embarrassment and mortification stung her eyes.
The first time I open myself up to someone
,
the first time I let my guard down
,
and this is what it gets me?
He said he’d go to the hospital with her in the morning. He’d
promised.

You can mess with me all you like
,
but don’t jerk around the emotions of a five-year-old kid
, she thought resentfully.

She threw on some clothes, popped double the recommended dose of aspirin and headed to the hospital. She’d gone into work under worse circumstances before; a migraine wasn’t going to make her call in sick. If he wasn’t going to go and see that sweet Danny, she was. Her promise to get Ethan to come with her was out of her hands. She hoped Danny would forgive her; she knew the look of disappointment on his face would be enough to send her over the edge.

She drove there in silence, replaying the night before in her mind.
Did I do something...say something...?
But all she could think of was her and Ethan’s naked bodies tangling in the sheets, the way he looked at her with something in his eyes that was more than desire, something deeper. The way he rubbed the small of her back as she fell asleep. What had gone wrong?

She was still agonizing over the question when she looked at the master chart and saw that Danny wasn’t in a normal room, but the ICU. Confused, she jogged to the east wing of the hospital. When she found his bed, she gasped. Gus was standing over the boy, who was out cold, as he attached an IV into the back of his tiny hand. A bag of what looked like morphine dripped silently nearby.

Tina’s mind began to spin. Besides the burn, Danny had been fine when he left in the ambulance. All of his vitals were textbook, he was sitting up and talking without any problems. And now he was laid up in bed, the starchy white sheet pulled up to his chin, on pain meds. The boy, who was already small, now looked frighteningly gaunt, like he’d lost ten pounds overnight.

Gus turned around and frowned.

“What the hell happened?” Tina demanded. “Why is he like this?” She was practically hysterical, having never seen such a deep decline in a patient before.

“I’m at a loss for words myself, kiddo. He fell asleep last night and never woke up.” He sighed heavily.

“But he was fine, Gus. He was alert and speaking—” Tina was interrupted by an electric tone from the intercom above the doorway.

“Nurse Diaz, please come to the nurses’ station. Nurse Diaz, please report to the nurses’ station,” buzzed a voice thick with static.

Gus sighed impatiently. “Karen, what could be so urgent?”

“We’ve found another discrepancy in the schedule that you need to take a look at immediately.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Gus muttered under his breath. He turned to Tina. “Do you mind staying here for a second while I take care of this?” He gestured at the speaker.

“Of course,” Tina answered.

“That’s my girl,” Gus replied, patting her on the shoulder once before leaving her and Danny alone. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

She was still frozen in her place. She willed her now stiffened legs to walk over to the bed. Pulling a chair up to the bed’s rail, knowing that he couldn’t hear her, she whispered more to herself, “What happened to you, Danny?”

The hum of machines was all that answered her. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Wake up,” she pleaded into his ear. “Wake up for me. Please.”

Nothing. He continued to lie there like a body in a casket.

She reached out to him, hoping her touch would will him back to life. But the moment she smoothed his hair away from his face, his eyelids fluttered. Hope surged within her chest until she saw his face twist in pain. His eyes closed tightly and he bared his teeth, grunting wildly.

The heart monitor in the corner started beeping like mad; his pulse was skyrocketing. Tina stared back in horror. “What’s going—”

Tina removed her hand and, in the blink of an eye, the sense of stillness took over the room again. The beeping stopped and Danny fell gently back to sleep.

Tina looked down at her hands; they were pale and clammy. She spread her fingers wide and studied them, as if something on her skin could explain what had just happened.

When Gus entered the room again, the look of pure terror on her face stopped him dead in his tracks, causing him to block the doorway.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I gotta go, Gus,” Tina said, panicked. She made a move to walk past him. “I can’t explain it, but something is just not right with me today.”

He planted his feet firmly, still standing in the doorway. “Listen, Tina, I know you haven’t lost a patient yet and that this may be the first time you’ve ever seen someone suffer. This must be hard for you, but it’s—”

“I know, part of the job.” Her voice was cracking. “But I—”

“That’s right,” Gus said, stopping her. He took one of her hands in his. “And Lord knows I’ve been through this plenty of times. The first time is always the hardest, I know.”

“I feel like it’s all my fault. That I’ve done something wrong.”

He looked her dead in the eye. “Now you listen to me, Miss Driscoll. You’re the most talented nurse on my staff, but everyone hits a wall sometimes. Sometimes it’s just out of your hands, do you understand me?”

Tina sniffled. “Yes.”

“Why don’t you go to the waiting room, grab a cup of coffee and calm yourself down before going home? Take a rest, work this out.”

Tina took a breath. “You’re right, Gus.” She smiled faintly. “As always.”

“That’s right,” Gus laughed softly. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Okay.”

Tina walked down the corridor toward the waiting room, trying to steady her breath. She thought about how lucky she was to have such a supportive boss like Gus. She knew he gave her preferential treatment and she was appreciative. It came in handy on tough days like today.

But the moment she dug into the pocket of her scrubs for a rumpled dollar bill, her fleeting sense of relief crumbled. The waiting room was empty except for one person sitting in the far corner. He was there. Ethan was sitting in the waiting room, his gaze on the shiny, polished floor.

He looked agitated, his left knee bouncing up and down with nerves. She knew it must’ve taken a lot for him to come here.
At least he made good on his promise
, a small voice told her. The waiting room was probably the farthest he could make himself go, she thought sadly. But her pity for him didn’t damper the intense blaze of anger that flickered within her. The moment she walked into the shadow he cast on the floor in front of him, he looked up.

“How nice of you to show up,” Tina said.

“You’re angry. You have every right to be angry—” Ethan began.

“Why did you run out on me this morning?” she asked him point-blank.

“Listen, I should’ve explained—”

“You’re damn right you should’ve explained,” Tina countered, raising her voice slightly. “First we share one—” she paused, looking Ethan up and down before continuing “—
memorable
night together, we stay up half the night talking, and then the next thing I know you’re making your perfect getaway as I sleep?”

“That’s not what it was—I swear, I didn’t mean for it to be a getaway. I just saw the welt on my shoulder and knew you were in grave danger—”

Tina shook her head. “What? What are you even talking about?”

“I need to talk to you,” Ethan said, taking her hands in his and gently pulling her down to sit next to him. “You know that bruise you saw on my shoulder last night?” he asked evenly.

“Yeah...” Tina drawled, her patience wearing thin. “What about it?”

“It looks different today.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Tina asked with a helpless laugh. “That’s usually how bruises work. They fade from black to purple to—”

Ethan squeezed her hands, massaging her palms with his thumbs. “No, no, it’s more than that. There are fingerprints visible in the bruise. Wherever you touched me healed and the skin around stayed as it should.” He pulled down the collar of his shirt, revealing his shoulder. He was right—there were her small ovals within the bruise, and they were just as smooth and pink as the rest of his back. The same size and shape of her fingerprints. “I don’t feel
any
pain there anymore. None. Your touch healed me, Tina.”

When she didn’t answer, he asked gently, “You’ve never lost a patient, have you?”

“No, but I—”

“You’re an exceptional nurse. You’re smart, you’re nurturing, you care about your job. But even the best nurse can’t help everyone.”

Tina didn’t move a muscle. He continued.

“But there’s a reason for all of that. A gift. You’re an angel, Tina. You’re one of the most powerful healers on the planet.”

“I don’t—” But Tina stopped herself. She thought to all the patients she’d ever saved, an internal Rolodex flipping in her brain. All the times her coworkers stared at her in amazement after helping a stroke victim walk again, a case of pneumonia clear up overnight, even the most destitute of drug addicts’ withdrawal symptoms vanishing minutes after she soothingly rubbed their backs while they retched over the toilet. How even Gus, a man with so much more experience on the job than she had, seemed to lose more patients than he saved. Losing a patient had happened to everyone, except her. That is until, it seemed, with Danny, today.

“Listen, even I didn’t think so at first. But the healing you did to my shoulder is undeniable.”

“But didn’t you say last night that angels have a marking?” She pinched a strand of her hair between her fingers. “I don’t have anything, Ethan.”

“I did. Full blood angels have a streak of white-blond hair near their temple. But then I realized something this morning. That there’s a possible explanation as to why you don’t...”

Tina opened her eyes wider, urging him to go on, but he was hesitating, perhaps to spare her feelings. “What is it?”

“It’s because the marking is given to angels after their mother’s first embrace.”

“
Mother’s first embrace?
” Tina asked uneasily. “Do you mean the first time a mother holds her child?”

“And when you told me you were a foster child, that your mother died in childbirth, I realized...”

“That my mother never got to hold me.”

Tina’s mouth went dry. Danny’s words echoed in her head.
You look like my mother except for her hair.
Danny!
she suddenly thought again. She couldn’t be a healer.

“You’re wrong,” Tina said, raising her voice. “I wasn’t able to heal Danny today. So you’re wrong.”

“What do you mean you weren’t able to heal him?”

“I touched him and it seemed to make him worse.” His pained face flashed in her mind and her headache came back stronger than ever.

“Oh god, it’s already starting,” Ethan moaned. His hands balled into fists. “You’re an angel and that’s why we can’t be together. I’m not supposed to be with anyone, but the consequences for angels are especially more perilous. Just as you’ve found out today.”

“What do you mean perilous? What are you talking about?” She was starting to panic.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you last night.” He looked up at the ceiling as if debating to continue. “Something I usually don’t have to tell anyone because I never stick around long enough,” he added softly.

“Ethan, you’re scaring me. What on earth is going on?”

The hurt on his face was undeniable, but he continued. “When my parents died, the attacker didn’t spare me. He didn’t kill me because he had a more torturous, more sadistic punishment in mind. He wanted to make an example out of me, he was so incensed that his best friend would have a Half Blood child. And so he cursed me, Tina. He put a curse upon me that dictates that I never fall in love with anyone.”

Tina’s brows knit in confusion. It seemed Ethan could barely look at her when he uttered the next sentence.

“Because if I do, it will end up killing them.”

Tina felt like she was going to faint. “Killing them?”

“That’s why I have such a reputation, that’s why I sleep with a different girl every night. Not because I want to, but because I figured out a long time ago that it was the only loophole in the curse. It was the only way I could control my needs as a Lust and prevent me from getting attached.”

Tina couldn’t believe it, refused to believe it. “Ethan, this is all crazy talk. If you want to break promises, that’s fine. If you don’t want me around, that’s fine. But please don’t make up some fantasy. First you’re a demon, then you tell me I’m an angel—I can’t wrap my mind around any of this.”

Ethan looked at her with a distinct sadness.

“You’re not feeling well, are you?” he asked quietly. “You felt different this morning, right? Sick? In pain?”

Terror seized in her chest. “How do you—”

“I’ve feared all my life that this day would come. I’m telling you the truth.”

Tina wanted to fight back, but she couldn’t argue with anything Ethan was saying. It was all true, every word of it. She felt her heart sink as she considered the striking contrast of the two incredible sensations she felt in the last day—the unbelievable pleasure of being with Ethan and now the agonizing pain as her headache pounded in time with her quickening pulse. And he was telling her that these two sensations were connected, irrevocably linked. Forever.