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  “Sebastian!” I hissed in frustration. I had been going to give the patient a little disclaimer about how all transfusion blood is carefully checked and completely anonymous but my big-mouthed friend had ruined that.

  “Goddess…my Lady, you cannot!”

  My patient reached for the line in his arm, about to yank it out. I dropped my curving suture needle and grabbed for his big hand instead.

  “Stop!” I put as much command as I could into my voice and stared him right in his rainbow-shifting eyes. “You stop that right now Mr.…” I had to trail off there, because I didn’t know his name.

  “Verrai. Captain Kristoff Verrai of her majesty’s Imperial Guard of Femme One.”

  “Okay, Kristoff,” I said. “That’s quite a title and I bet there’s a long story behind it. But I’ve got a short story for you right now—you try to rip that line out of your arm and I’ll have you in restraints so fast your head will spin.”

  “But…” He shook his head helplessly. “You have the rainbow aura. I am not worthy to receive the sacred blood. My mother was only a lesser noble—I have no royal lineage.”

  “Uh, well that’s okay,” I said, patting his arm. Now he was just spouting nonsense but at least he didn’t seem inclined to pull the line out anymore. “I don’t care about your, uh, lineage,” I told him. “It’s my blood and I say you can have it. All right?”

  He looked deeply troubled but I held his eyes with my own until, at last, he nodded and sank back on the gurney.

  “Very well. But I fear there will be grave repercussions when we get to Court. Or perhaps even before.”

  “Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, all right?” I said, using one of my dad’s favorite expressions. “For right now, just leave the line alone and let me finish stitching you up.”

  He nodded, his eyes still fixed on my face.

  “I knew you were a La-ti-zal but I never thought you’d be a Healer. The old Goddess-Empress—she whom I still mourn—was a Seer. And so was the Incarnation before her and the Incarnation before her. I thought all of them had the gift of Sight or Knowing in some way.”

  “Uh…sure,” I said, nodding again. Behind me I heard Sebastian whisper to Gloria,

  “Are you hearing this stuff? Better check his blood alcohol level.”

  “On it,” she whispered back.

  I had thought that my patient was settling down again, but then he started shifting on the bed, his hips moving from side to side uncomfortably.

  “What’s wrong, Kristoff?” I asked, frowning at him. “Are you experiencing discomfort? Do you have another wound we should know about?”

  “A wound? No. But discomfort…” He shifted again, one big hand coming to cover his groin. My eyes were drawn to his pelvis and behind me I heard Sebastian give a long, low whistle.

  “Oh my Gawd,” he muttered. “It’s fucking huge.”

  That was when I saw what the patient was trying to hide—a perfectly enormous erection. Seriously, it looked like something out of a porno. The leather kilt was flipped up from Sebastian’s earlier search for another wound and the white under-kilt didn’t hide much. The thin fabric was stretched tight over the patient’s burgeoning member, which he tried vainly to hide with one big hand.

  “Forgive me,” he muttered, his face turning crimson. “It is the effect of your blood, Goddess. I cannot help it.”

  “You can stop calling me that. Dr. Walker will do just fine,” I said, trying to ignore his obvious “problem.”

  “But you are a Goddess—or most believe that you are,” he said, looking at me earnestly. “It is a title of respect.”

  Behind us, Sebastian snorted.

  “Right. The Goddess of Trauma, maybe. You better stop or Miss Goddess’s head will swell too big to fit in the door of the hospital.”

  The patient glared at him.

  “Be still, commoner. I know you cannot see it, but this female has the rainbow aura—she is in fact the true Incarnation of the Goddess-Empress. You are not fit to stand upright in her presence. Better you should grovel on your knees before her and beg her forgiveness for daring to speak so disrespectfully in her presence.”

  “Hey!” Sebastian put a hand on his hip and frowned. “Look, we’re going to just pass that kind of talk off as blood loss. But for your information, Dr. Walker here is just an intern. A very good intern and apparently one with an incredibly rare blood type…” He gave me a speculative look. “But just an intern all the same.”

  “Sebastian…” I glared at him in exasperation. Never knowing when to shut up was my friend’s defining personality trait. Discussing me with a patient was extremely unprofessional and probably broke all kinds of Hippa laws. Not to mention that it was also kind of insulting.

  “Well, it’s true,” he said airily. “Sorry to burst your royal bubble, Goddess, but—”

  The last word ended in a choked gurgle. My patient had sat straight up on the gurney and reached one long arm out to grab Sebastian by the throat. Without any apparent effort, he raised the intern with one hand and glared at him.

  “You do not speak so to the Goddess-Empress,” he said, his deep voice a menacing growl. “It is disrespectful and rude. Were you on Femme One it would be grounds for immediate execution and I would gladly swing the axe myself.”

  “Shit!” I shot to my feet as Sebastian’s sneakered feet kicked a good twelve inches off the floor. “Gloria—give me ten of Haldol now.”

  “Yes, doctor!” Gloria could move fast and she was back with a syringe almost before I could blink. I darted around the side of the bed and injected directly into the patient’s left deltoid. It was twice the dose I would have given anyone else but Kristoff was so big and from the way Sebastian’s face was turning the color of a ripe eggplant, he was strong too.

  The meds kicked in quickly. Kristoff’s muscular arm sagged and Gloria and I were able to get Sebastian away from him.

  My friend coughed and choked, his hand going to his throat to explore for injuries. I thought he might have some bruising but I doubted there was any permanent damage—I hoped not, anyway. Sebastian could be an annoying, arrogant prick at times but he was still the closest thing I had to a friend now that Zoe had disappeared and Leah had moved to Virginia with her jerk of a fiancé who was now her husband.

  Kristoff’s eyelids fluttered over those amazing, rainbow eyes and he seemed to realize what had happened.

  “What is this…this feeling? This lethargy?” he demanded, his deep voice starting to slur. “Wha…what have you done?”

  “I’ve given you something to help you calm down,” I said firmly. “It’s for your own good.” I tried to help guide him back down to the gurney but he resisted.

  “But…how…how can I protect you if I’m…if I can’t…” His eyelids were drooping and his broad shoulders started to sag.

  “Look,” I said, “I don’t know how you know my name but you have a wrong idea. I’m not any kind of Goddess or Empress or anything like that. I’m just a medical intern and you don’t have to protect me.”

  “Yes, I…I do,” he protested. “I…” Suddenly his eyes snapped open and he lifted a wavering arm, pointing to something beyond the pale blue curtain which was still hanging open. His lips moved but for a moment it seemed like he couldn’t speak.

  “What? What is it?” I asked, frowning. Outside the curtain it was just business as usual in the ER. I could see that we were starting to get busier. Interns and attending moved around the beds as well as nurses, techs, and other support staff.

  But one person in particular seemed to bother my patient.

  “D-danger,” he stuttered hoarsely, his wavering arm still outstretched.

  I frowned at what he was pointing at. It was just Carlos, our elderly janitor, emptying the trash. He was a nice old guy with gray hair—probably in his late sixties with a slightly hunched back. He never complained about cleaning up when a patient was sick or incontinent and he was always there to lend a hand when