“I’m sorry!”
Another ragged breath. Ian forced himself to relax. “Keep going.”
Her hands again. The knife. As he felt his flesh part, Ian was glad she’d thought of the belt. He bore down and fought not to tense any other part of his body.
“It’s healed more inside. I can’t see the bullet track.” The tenor of her voice had changed. Still anxious but committed now.
Ian said nothing, recognizing the statement for the warning it was.
The knife pressed deeper. Ian felt his eyes roll back, felt his grip on consciousness slipping in the face of the white hot agony. The knife clattered as she laid it aside. The forceps were cold. That was the thought lodged in his brain as she began to probe, shoving aside severed muscle in pursuit of the goddamned bullet. He lost the details, though he knew she’d be blotting, digging, cutting more. It was all more pain.
“Got it!” Marley’s triumphant shout roused him. She dropped the forceps, leaned down to put pressure on the wound. “You still with me?”
Ian managed a grunt.
“Do I need to sew up anything on the inside? I had to go pretty deep. Might have done less damage to come at it from the front.”
Too little, too late. He tried to focus on her
question. “Just outside. Stop bleeding. Disinfect.”
“You’re gonna want to hang on to that belt,” she said.
As the disinfectant hit, he was grateful to the torture training he’d endured so he didn’t bellow in pain. She went through more patting, pressing, until at last he felt the tell-tale pull of sutures as she stitched him back up. Somehow the whole process seemed to take longer than the actual bullet removal.
“I’m not worried about pretty, neat stitches,” he said. “You can see that’s never been a priority.”
A light finger traced some of the old scars, an oddly sensual gesture, despite the pain in his shoulder. “Yeah, well, you can’t be picky about your available nurse.” Scissors snipped. She laid a fresh stack of gauze pads over the wound, taped them down. “Done.”
Ian struggled to rise and roll, managed it only with Marley’s assistance.
As he collapsed back against the cave wall, she said, “You need to feed.”
“No.” The answer was instant.
“Ian, you said yourself you burned through everything.”
And so he had. Which made him about as dangerous as a pit viper. “I can’t feed from you just now. My control isn’t steady enough, and I’m not willing to risk you.”
Hands balled on her hips, Marley glared at him. “And exactly how is your control going to get any better if you don’t feed?”
It was a point, one he didn’t have enough brain cells left to counter. But he was not going to feed from her in this condition. Not when he wasn’t positive he could control how much he took.
“Need to eat,” he said. “Food. There are more MREs in the pack and some energy bars. And I need sleep. My body heals better if I’m under. Once I’m leveled off there, I should be steady enough to feed.” He hoped. “But not before, Marley. I mean it. It’s not safe. If you try to do what you did in Tennessee, I might not be able to stop.”
She dug through the supplies, came up with a bar and a bottle of water. Handing him both, she said, “Fine. But when you wake up, we’re taking care of this. You look like shit.”
Eying her bloody hands, she strode to the mouth of the cave, stuck them out into the pouring rain.
Ian tore into the energy bar, scarfed it down in half a dozen bites before guzzling the water. Both hit his empty stomach somewhere around his toes. He’d need more. A lot more. At least a couple of the MREs.
At the cave entrance, Marley went motionless, head cocked as she peered out into the storm.
“What is it?” he asked, his hand already reaching for the bloody knife.
“Someone’s coming.”
Chapter 12