Her sharp intake of breath told him she hadn’t taken his comment favorably. “How do you know I won’t understand? You might be surprised.”
“I doubt it.” Again the sharp hiss of breath. His wolf had begun pacing, telling him he faced another epic battle if he didn’t wrap this up and find a place to change.
“I’m not going to argue with you,” she began.
“Good. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to review the data one more time.” He reached for the audio button and listened again as the robotic voice replayed the numbers. This time, she did not interrupt.
Chapter 4
Finally, after listening for the third time, he clicked it off and removed his headphones. “No answers,” he said with a sigh, wondering if she was still there. “Not a single, solitary clue.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But do not ever do that to me again.”
Honestly surprised, he cocked his head. “Do what to you again?”
“Shut me out.” A thin thread of anger made her melodic voice vibrate. “I’ll let you have a pass this one time, but if you want me to be part of this, you’ve got to make me a full part. I need to listen in. I’m not just a lab rat.”
With his wolf on full alert, he considered her words. For the first time he wondered if he might have a completely wrong picture of her. Maybe there was more to this princess than met the eye. Why else would she even care what he found out?
“My apologies.” Executing a half bow, hoping that such an old-fashioned gesture would please her, he managed a smile, even as he struggled to keep his wolf subdued. “You’re right, of course. It won’t happen again, I promise.”
“Thank you.” Rather than gloat, she sounded relieved. “I’ve been tested before, you know. There’s nothing abnormal about me. My parents have already consulted the foremost medical authorities in Teslinko and also in Rome.”
“So I’ve been told.” If she wanted to participate, then she needed to know the truth. “But those other doctors were looking for an illness, some hint of madness. I’m looking for something else entirely.”
“Like what?”
How could he explain, when he could hardly articulate what he knew even inside his own head? “As unscientific as it sounds, I’m trying to find the unthinkable. Magic that actually can be explained by science.”
“Very poetic,” she commented, pleasure thrumming in her tone. “I like that.”
His wolf stirred again, restless, eager to run. Slamming the lid back down on the place in his mind where his wolf-self resided, he took a moment to compose himself before answering. “Thank you, I guess.”
“You’re welcome.”
He cleared his throat, uncertain how to respond. “Let me check my notes one last time,” he said evenly, putting the discussion back where it belonged. Business. “Give me a moment, then we’ll start the next round of tests.”
To his surprise, she left him alone while he recalibrated his machines and readied his slides. This lasted all of five minutes.
“How did you lose your vision?” she asked, her voice an interesting combination of determined and hesitant. “I heard that you were involved in an accident. Is that true?”
Braden set down a slide and considered. Though normally he disliked talking about what had happened, he figured he owed her an explanation. After all, he’d already given one to the king.
“Yes, though I suspect it was no accident. I’d completed my surgery for the day and stopped by my lab at the university to retrieve some materials before giving a lecture.”
He took a deep breath, seeing it all again inside his head. “A few minutes after I arrived, there was an explosion in my lab. A fire. I was injured, badly burned but not incinerated since the explosion knocked me out of the lab itself. They found me unconscious in the parking lot.”
“You’re lucky you weren’t killed.”
With a nod, he acknowledged the truth of her words. “So they said. I had burns, a concussion and a few broken bones as well. They healed, but my vision did not come back.”
When she spoke again, her voice was low and serious. “Since you are Halfling, I know you don’t heal as quickly as a full shifter, but why have you not visited the Healer? I looked on a map and Texas is not all that far from Colorado.”
“I did visit her,” he said reluctantly. “Her name is Samantha. She’s a very nice woman and really tried to help.”
“And?”
“She put her hands on me, did whatever foolishness she apparently does. It didn’t work.”
She gasped. “I’ve never heard of a Healer failing.”
“Neither had she.” He shrugged. “She was shocked. She said there was no reason for me not to see.”
She’d also told him his blindness was all in his head and that she thought he felt he needed to make retribution for something. More bullcrap. Of course Samantha hadn’t been able to heal him, despite her much-touted successes with other Halflings.
But he was no ordinary Halfling. He was a doctor, a scientist. And, in the history of both mankind and Pack, snake charmers were never successful around those that really questioned.
He didn’t say those thoughts out loud. In the past, whenever he’d dared to voice them, the reactions had ranged from anger to derision. At him, rather than the Healer.
A brief, uncomfortable silence fell, during which he refused to fidget or otherwise reveal how uneasy this line of conversation made him feel. Instead, he went back to reviewing his notes, listening as the mechanical voice replayed them for the fourth time. This time, he eschewed the headphones and played them out loud so that she could hear, too.
Listening with him, she waited only a few moments before interrupting. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
With a sigh, he pushed Pause, then clicked the machine off. Why not? He wasn’t getting anywhere with these test results. “Another one?”
“Yes.” She must have leaned closer, because he caught a whisper of her unique scent. She smelled feminine and delicious, making his head spin and sending his wolf into bouts of pacing again.
“How did you manage to talk my parents into agreeing with this nonsense?”
He lifted his chin, wishing he could see her expression. “Your parents are honestly worried about you,” he told her. “After all, your ability to remain in the human form for so long is abnormal. Since this usually brings about madness, they didn’t want you to go insane.”
“Always? You said usually. Does it always bring about madness? Surely someone, somewhere has done this without going crazy?”
Aware that she—unless she’d been living under a rock—already knew the answer, he nodded. “Without exception, not changing often enough has always meant madness. Until now, until you. That’s why you’re such a puzzle.”
“In that case, let me give you another aspect to look at.” She sounded triumphant, as though he’d played right into her no doubt elegant and perfectly manicured hands. “How do you know I’m not already mad?”
After a second of startled silence, during which he imagined the horrified faces of her worried parents, he couldn’t help it, he threw back his head and laughed. Long and robustly and full of genuine amusement. Part of him was amazed. He hadn’t laughed like that since the explosion.
“I’m