“Not my hospital. I don’t like to intrude unless I saw some danger to our young Declan. He’s under fine care and completely well guarded,” Dr. Singh said, nodding at the sleeping young man in the bed and the platinum blonde lying next to him, her eyes flicking up from her fashion magazine periodically. Two of the small silver orbs were floating motionless above the bed. Chris had seen the big one parked over top of the entire hospital, the object of numerous cameras and cell phone shots.

“Could we maybe ask you a few questions?” the chief asked Singh, who just smiled and motioned for them to show him the way out of the room. “Oh yes, of course we don’t want to disturb the patient,” she agreed, eagerly heading toward the door.

“Because that would be bad,” Stacia said without looking up from her magazine.

The doctors frowned but took the hint, leaving quietly. Chris was glad. Werewolves were notoriously bad tempered when their mates were wounded or ill. When the trio of physicians was truly gone, Stacia looked up at Chris.

“Senka stopped by last night. Just after they got him into the room.”

“Ah. We wondered where she vanished to. Knee-deep in great-grandbabies one moment then gone the next. Did she… behave?” Chris asked.

Stacia nodded. “Oddly enough, she did. Omega warned me and then she was suddenly there. None of the hospital staff noticed her, or if they did, they paid no attention. But she was very careful to not surprise me. Or maybe not surprise Omega, I’m not sure. But she just stood in the doorway and studied Declan. Then she offered to help him.”

“What? How?”

“Two things. He was in a lot of pain and couldn’t get comfortable. Then she told him the pain was leaving his body and that he would only be aware of it in an abstract kind of way, but that it would in no way bother him. Just like that, his breathing settled down and he stopped twitching,” Stacia said, brushing his hair lightly.

“He’s also awake and right here,” Declan said suddenly, eyes still closed.

“I think one of her powers is the power of suggestion—cubed,” Chris said.

“Yeah. I was perfectly aware, didn’t feel any magic or power of any type, but it just made sense. So I listened to her and the pain just faded till it was a sort of mild background kind of thing,” the witch said, finally opening his eyes.

“And the second part?” Chris asked, already having a pretty good idea what it was.

“She gave me exactly three drops of her blood. On my tongue. Said it would sort of reinforce the proteins from your blood.”

“And how do you feel?”

“Pretty good. I’ve been able to sleep, at least as much as anyone can in a hospital, although me maybe more because of my beautiful bodyguard,” Declan said.