The Moonlight Breed 8: Leap in the Dark by Gabrielle Evans (chrysanthemum read aloud .txt) 📕

Keeton snorted and shoved him out the front door. “Right.” He shook his head in clear exasperation as he turned back to his mate. “Don’t wait up.”

* * * *

“Hello, Xander. How are you feeling today?”

Xander eyed the stranger, found him lacking, and wrinkled his nose in contempt. He’d dragged his ass out of bed and showered like his mate had asked of him, all to find out that Braxton had just up and left, leaving him to face this shrink on his own. The whole thing had been Braxton’s idea to begin with, but no, he couldn’t even be there to see it through.

“Look, Doc—”

“Please, call me Spiro.”

“Fine. Spiro, I don’t know what you heard, but I don’t need some quack messing around inside my head.” The guy seemed friendly enough, and Xander didn’t want to be a complete prick, but he hadn’t agreed to this in the first place.

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not a quack, isn’t it?” His smile never wavered, and he tucked a long strand of silvery hair behind his ear with calm and grace. “Let me be perfectly blunt, Xander. No one is paying me to be here. I’m not getting anything out of this, and to be honest, I don’t want to waste my time any more than you do.” He settled back into the armchair and waved a hand around the living room. “So, you can either cooperate, or I can leave. Which is it going to be?”

Braxton would have his balls on a dirty plate if he kicked the guy out, but damn, he just wanted to be left alone. “If you aren’t being paid, why are you here?”

“Braxton asked.”

“That’s it?”

Spiro steepled his fingers under his chin and nodded. “That’s it.”

Jealousy he hadn’t felt in a long time bubbled up inside him, and Xander barely managed to contain the growl that swelled in his chest.

How close was this man with his mate that he would offer his assistance without any kind of compensation?

“Let me ask you the most logical questions,” Spiro continued when Xander made no further comment. “Have you tried to shift since you were shot?”

“No.” It was bad enough that he didn’t have the use of his arm while in human form. He certainly didn’t want to be reduced to a three-legged animal on top of it.

“Did it ever occur to you that shifting could fix whatever is damaged in your arm?”

No, it hadn’t occurred to him at all. He’d been shot while in his tiger form and made the painful transition back to human. The situation seemed pretty cut-and-dry to him, and he didn’t see how see how another shift would change anything.

“Braxton says that you’ve refused physical therapy.”

“Yes,” Xander growled, not even bothering to hide it this time. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m just trying to figure out why you’re so against getting better.”

“What the hell makes you think that?” He was sick and tired of feeling so damn useless. He hadn’t returned to his duties as an Enforcer since he was released from the hospital, and he didn’t see it happening anytime in the near future. How was he supposed to protect or guard anything when he couldn’t even button his jeans without assistance?

Spiro smirked and tilted his head to the side. “You have done absolutely nothing to make me think otherwise.”

“You arrogant, pompous, insen—”

“I’m going to stop you right there.” Leaning forward in his chair, Spiro looked him right in the eyes, abandoning all traces of his former pleasantness. “It is not arrogant to point out facts. Pompous is just redundant. Finally, I’m going to assume you meant to call me insensitive.” His eyes narrowed, and his voice dropped an octave lower. “It does not make me insensitive simply because I refuse to put up with your bullshit like everyone else.”

There was a charge in the air that Xander hadn’t noticed before, and the air around him practically sizzled with it. The man sitting across from him was not only a shifter, but he was powerful, more powerful than even Xander. “Are you a Moonlighter?”

“I prefer the term Lunician. That’s what we were called, after all, before those idiots on the former Council decided they were so clever.” Spiro settled back into the cushions and adopted a friendly air once more.

“How old are you?” Shifters didn’t live much longer than a normal human, but the guy talked as though he’d been around for a while.

“That’s not important right now. I’m not here to talk about me.”

“Well, it’s going to be pretty damn quiet, because I don’t have anything to talk about, either.”

“Okay.” Spiro rose from his seat, brushed the wrinkles from his slacks, and proceeded to the door.

“That’s it?”

Pausing with his hand on the doorknob, Spiro looked over his shoulder and shrugged. “I can’t force you to talk to me. I’m not even going to try. Quite honestly, people like you just piss me off.”

“People like me?” What the hell was wrong with him?

“Yes, people like you who have so much going for them, and they just spit on it because they encounter a little bump in the road. You have a mate who thinks you hung the moon and stars, and yet you’re so wrapped up in your own misery that you can’t even see what you’re doing to him.”

“What kind of doctor are you?” Since when did it become okay for doctors to berate their patients, especially someone in Spiro’s field of medicine?

“A damn good one,” Spiro answered with a hard edge to his tone. “I know a lost cause when I see one, though. You’ve given up, Xander, and I can’t make you care.” He dipped his head curtly and opened the door. “Good luck.”

“Wait a damn minute.” Yeah, he’d been a little self-involved lately, but he figured he should get a pass on that, considering he’d been shot and nearly died. “I’m