Fang Hospital

By Tanya Goodwin

Vampire doc, Dr. Gabriella Van Court, is content mingling with mortals at Fang Hospital. In love with a mortal colleague, Dr. Maxwell Cade, she's happy to stay a closeted vampire. She thought she was safe in the New World and away from her evil progenitor, Volk, who had vowed to find her and make her his queen. That is until her uncle, who she thought was "vampire dead", shows up in her ER after Volk attempts to assassinate him, preventing him from warning Gabriella that he is coming to get her. While battling Volk, Gabriella risks not only her "vampire life", but also revealing the truth about her immortality to Max.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tanya Goodwin
• Release date: Dec 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781628476460

Tanya Goodwin

Tanya Goodwin writes romantic suspense with a twist of medicine, medical romance, and mystery. Her experiences as a physician are reflected in her characters and in her stories. Tanya is a graduate of the University of Miami School of Medicine and completed her specialty training as an obstetrician and gynecologist in Tampa, Florida. A former New Yorker, she now resides in St. Petersburg, Fl. Her present life as a traveling doctor allows her to switch from stethoscope to keyboard. Tanya is a member of Romance Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime.

Book preview

Fang Hospital

By

Tanya Goodwin

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2013 by Tanya Goodwin

Cover design by Rae Monet, Inc.

Edited by Beth Bruno

Chapter One

Dr. Gabriella Van Court fished out the antique key from her backpack. Morning approached and she had to quickly dodge inside before the light could singe her. She unlocked the door to her sanctuary, swept in, and slammed the door.

Whew! That was cutting it close!

She had purposely chosen the secluded hilltop Dutch colonial. It was the perfect abode for her to keep her life, or rather undeath, a secret.

She tossed her key into a jade bowl, a gift from Genghis Khan.

Her graveyard shift as an emergency room doctor at Fang Hospital, also known as the Harry S. Fang Memorial Hospital, was running smoother than she had anticipated where she worked side-by-side with her colleague, Max Cade, the hottest mortal she’d ever let live. And bonus! With a fellow vampire working in the hospital laboratory, she had all the blood she needed to sustain her. Plus, she could use her supernatural gift of healing to give back to mortals instead of taking from them. It was a vamp win-win!

When others of her kind had sought treatment at Fang Hospital for whatever ailed vampires, Gabriella always got to them first. She would fix them up, and quickly usher them away before their status was revealed, and hence hers, too. She would have to work diligently to keep that up. The last thing she wanted was to be outed. Word would spread from vampire clan to vampire clan, ultimately revealing her secret existence to the European Contingent, and to Volk, head of the union, and her progenitor. She had escaped her evil master, and he’d been obsessed with capturing her ever since.

Gabriella shuddered. She shoved Volk from her mind and replaced him with thoughts of Max.

Dr. Maxwell Cade lurked at her heels every chance he got. Not that she minded. She didn’t need to hypnotize him. He followed her willingly, glued to her green eyes with flecks of gold, his deep brown eyes ironically as compelling to her. The warmth radiating from his solid specimen of a body teased her deliciously. Accustomed to dating dark, straight-hair and pale vampire men for centuries, Max, with his wavy, chestnut hair and ruddy complexion, wasn’t her usual type. He was the first mortal she fantasized about. But other than feeding off mortal men, relationships with them were strictly vampire verboten. Well, heck! Why not? She’d already broken two rules: ditching her progenitor and healing humans instead of killing them. What she wouldn’t give to bite into those juicy neck veins of his! But she’d restrained the urge night after night. She loved her job, and she certainly didn’t want to jeopardize it by killing off a colleague, or worst yet turning him. A feral vampire working in the emergency room would be disastrous.

Gabriella’s stomach growled. She put her thoughts of Max on hold and headed to her refrigerator. The lab had been extra busy last night, so she had skipped her break time cup of O negative, settling for a bowl of tomato soup instead. She discovered that human liquids were tolerable. They ran straight through her. Solids were a whole different matter. Now that she was mixing in with mortals, Gabriella learned that the hard way. The spaghetti she had once enjoyed ended up splattered on her walls. She had to repaint after that unfortunate gastric incident. Not having to hunt for her meals definitely had its drawbacks. But Gabriella had adjusted to this new world, and so far, this was the best time she’d had in centuries.

Reaching into the fridge, Gabriella grabbed a pint of blood and squeezed it into a glass. She snapped a celery stick in half and plunked it into her drink. Not that she was going to eat it, but she liked the decoration. It was her idea of a Bloody Mary, minus Mary, of course. The cocktail oozed down her throat like velvet. Gabriella licked the celery stick dry, and then tossed it out the window for some animal to nibble. She had no trash. A vampire perk.

She smacked her lips, savoring the last tinny drops, and rinsed her glass before retiring to her bedroom.

Gabriella pulled her black window shades down. Black shades were hellish to find. She’d ordered them on line. They were perfect, completely impervious to sunlight. She gave the shades a five-star review, just in case there was another vamp searching for the same. She donned her pink nightie, and wriggled between her black satin bed sheets, not a difficult item to find. She’d given up sleeping in her coffin. It was so stereotypic. Instead, she slept just as soundly in her four-poster bed. Gabriella bought the bed during a midnight madness sale. Why mortals called these things midnight madness, she had no clue. Midnight madness in vampire lingo meant something completely different.

Although the coffin had to go, no way was Gabriella going to get rid of it. She’d disguised it as a planter on her porch, in case anyone came a calling, especially Max. She didn’t want to explain the whole coffin thing. Cascades of ivy camouflaged the casket, and rows of peonies and snapdragons filled the lining. She’d actually crafted that after a group of girl scouts selling cookies had invaded her secluded home. They nervously eyed the coffin while taking her order and then, realizing what it was, ran down the hill screaming. Mistakenly, she had opened the door a smidge too wide. In a flash, she redecorated the coffin before their troop leader returned to assess the validity of the rumor. Finding no such thing, the leader shook her head and waggled her finger at her charges. Two weeks later, a dozen boxes of cookies lay stacked next to the disguised casket. Unable to consume them, she gave the cookies to Max.

Gabriella yawned. It’d been a hectic night in the ER. She had just crossed her hands over her chest, out of habit, and closed her eyes, when her ears perked. She shot her eyes open and grabbed her cell phone off the nightstand. With her hearing supersonic, Gabriella knew it was Max before her cell even chirped.

Gabriella held the phone to her ear and waited five seconds. Five seconds in vampire time was more like five days. She tapped her two-inch fingernails onto the back of her cell. Damn! She’d just trimmed them, in fact, twice, once before her shift, and once during. The suckers grew like wild fire. Gabriella sighed. Come on, Max. I hear your voice streaming straight at me. Finally the cell rang. It’s about time!

Hi, Max. What’s up?

Besides him, she mused! He hadn’t spoken a word yet, but she could sense his excitement. She would have to act on that soon. She needed it. She needed him.

How did you know it was me?

Caller ID. I have you in my cell phone contacts, she lied. She had no use for contacts, much less a cell. But she carried it around to mix in with the mortals.

Sorry to call you so late...or so early. I wanted to get with you before you left. God, I didn’t even see you leave.

God aside, she wanted to get with him, too! Badly! Her fangs began to grow.

Listen, he continued.

She was all ears.

I see that we both have tonight off—a breather before Halloween night tomorrow, when the crazies all come out.

Gabriella hissed. Is he calling my kind crazy?

Did you hear that?

Hear what? Gabriella grimaced.

She was being overly sensitive. He didn’t mean it that way. Emergency rooms were infamously crazy on Halloween. But he didn’t understand that Halloween was the happiest holiday for vamps.

Hmm. Nothing. We must have a bad connection, he said. Anyway, I’d like to take you to dinner. And then we could just hang out. You know, kind of see what happens next.

Dinner? He’d be very tasty. She knew definitely what would come next. Gabriella licked her lips. It was so great of him to offer himself up like that!

Sure. That would be fun.

Fabulous! I’ll pick you up at six.

It was fall, and yes, it was fairly dark by 6 p.m., but she wasn’t going to take any chances. Besides, she adored the moonlight, and the moon wouldn’t spin its magic until later.

Uh, how about more like eight? she asked.

Okay. No problem. I should’ve remembered that you’re a late night eater.

Gabriella grinned. See you then, Max.

I’m looking forward to it. Goodnight, Gabriella.

Later.

Gabriella ended the call. Yes, definitely later.

She snapped on her eyeshades. Being 850 years old, she needed the rest. If Max only knew of her strict supper after sundown rule, she mused. But he’d soon find out.

Chapter Two

Gabriella stretched beneath her satin covers and flicked off her eyeshades. An undead’s day sleep could certainly make her feel alive again. Her brain sped to vampire mode. She darted her eyes to her cell. Crap! She’d overslept. She hadn’t set her cell phone alarm. She would blame it on human error, but she wasn’t mortal. It was 7:55 p.m. and Max was due at her door step in five minutes. Gabriella had planned on arising a half an hour earlier. That way she could scarf down a quickie and get away with ordering a consommé for dinner, then coffee for dessert. She’d save Max as a nightcap!

Gabriella sprang to her closet and sped through her choices. Eight centuries of women’s apparel flashed past her like an old-time movie reel wound too tightly, each potential choice given a millisecond preview. Deep purple Victorian bodice with lace overlay? Nice, but, no.  Bone breaking corsette?  No, but maybe another time. Kimono? Nope. Southern belle hoop skirt? No, prefer to forget that whole era. Ah, stop! Ooh, Stella McCartney black satin shift dress. Gabriella pumped her fist at the top-notch contemporary pick. And she knew just the shoes to match the cocktail dress -her Jimmy Choo black strappy sandals-autographed on the bottom by him after she nipped his neck. Gabriella grinned. That was the best fashion show ever! Transfixed, Jimmy followed her around the whole night.

She zipped the little black dress on and flew into her Choo’s. All she needed was the perfect accessory. Gabriella tugged her hair drawer open. There it was, Catherine the Great’s birthday gift to her. She slid the ruby and diamond encrusted comb into the side of her black hair. She had lied to the Russian Queen, announcing it was her 28th birthday. Well, it was her 28th, she just hadn’t included the 7 before the 28. But she was perpetually youthful, having been turned, coincidentally, at age 28. No one had been the wiser, except for the vampire clan she’d been running from.

Gabriella had hid in Asia and Europe, escaping the advances of Volk. She had no desire to entwine with him, much less become his queen. But he vowed that no country or continent would keep him away. She felt safer in the new world, among the nouveau riche vampires. The European Contingent disowned them, never dreaming to mix with such traitors, such watered down vampires. The Europeans had sneered at Gabriella’s compulsion to mix with mortals. They’d finish her off if they knew she was helping humans instead of feeding off of them, turning a few to keep the clan’s numbers competitive with other clans. At first she settled in Salem, Massachusetts, having been