Nial’s gaze devoured me as I lay back on the cold table so I could cross my arms over my breasts in an instinctive movement that instantly made me feel too weak, too vulnerable. This was not me. I didn’t cower to any man.
Slowly, I lowered my arms and lifted my chin. I was lying on my back on the exam table and could feel the sticky wet slide of my blood under my shoulder and thigh. I stared at him until he once more lifted his gaze to meet mine, a challenge in my eyes. Go ahead and look, I thought. Doesn’t mean I’ll let you touch me.
“What do we have here?” Warden Egara stepped between us and I breathed a sigh of relief at being released from the intensity of Nial’s gaze. I focused one hundred percent of my attention on the warden. It was much safer to completely ignore the giant alien looming over me like an overly protective, dominant alpha male, like I needed one of those in my life. I spoke to the warden.
“Twelve-gauge shotgun. My old boss was shooting the Hive scouts, but some of the buckshot must have ricocheted. I caught at least one in the shoulder, one in the thigh. If I have more, I didn’t feel them.” I tried to roll and found moving hurt exponentially more after every moment I remained still, as if I were becoming frozen and stiff. I winced, hissed at the pain and slumped back.
I still had the muscles that had helped me scale walls and carry heavy gear across the desert. I worked hard to keep in shape and I was grateful. If I hadn’t been running faithfully since my military discharge, that Hive scout would have run me down.
“And I’m sorry about your car.”
She frowned. “What about my car?”
“I bled all over the seat.”
“Oh. Hush. I don’t care about that.”
The warden tugged on my bicep, her other hand at my hip and I tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle the moan of pain as she helped me roll onto my side. She was smaller than I by several inches and her arms and shoulders were thinner as well, more delicate and feminine.
Nial was there instantly, his large hands lifting me off the wounds and settling me so she could see where I’d been injured.
I was grumpy and bleeding, but I wasn’t a total bitch. The weird reaction—the instant arousal—I’d had in the car, had faded, but with his hands on me, it returned. Just the simple placement of his palms on my skin felt hot. I savored his strength, which was odd and confusing, because I relied solely on myself. I didn’t want to need anyone else’s help, their strength. I needed to be strong enough on my own.
“Thanks,” the warden said as she rolled a tray of medical supplies beside her. She turned to face Nial, who still held me up so she could clean and bandage my wounds. I didn’t want to see what she was doing.
“This is going to hurt.” Her words were the only warning I received before a long, pointed metal object began to dig around in my flesh. Tweezers of some kind?
“Just make it fast.” I winced and reached for the edge of the table. I needed something to hold onto, something to ground me in reality as she dug around in my flesh.
A warm hand completely enveloped mine, wrapping around my shaking palm and squeezing. Nial. I held on for dear life as she dug around like she was trying to tenderize a steak, not remove shrapnel.
“Don’t you have something to numb it? Lidocaine or—” She stabbed deep and I sucked in air through clenched teeth. “—whiskey?”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.” Her voice was calm and sincere as she continued to poke and prod. “Those medications will interfere with the ReGen wand.”
I had no idea what a ReGen wand was, and I didn’t particularly care. But I started counting in my head, slowly, to a hundred. This wasn’t my first time on the table, and this wasn’t the worst wound I’d had to deal with. It hurt like a bitch, but survivable. The scars on my body were proof enough that I knew this from experience. Still, all those scars, those flaws, were one more reason I never felt comfortable naked around a man…
I opened my eyes then, curious to see Nial’s reaction to the scars on my back and hip. As expected, I watched his gaze travel from one pink patch of scar tissue to the next. I expected to see curiosity, or disgust. Not rage.
“Who injured you, mate?” His gaze returned to mine, his jaw clenched. The veins in his neck and temples bulged in response to his emotions. “Tell me now, and I will kill him.”
I laughed, then gasped as the warden, who had pulled the first piece of metal from my shoulder, dug in with vigor in the back of my thigh.
“You seem to want to kill a lot of things,” I replied through gritted teeth.
“I would destroy entire civilizations to protect you.”
Okay, whoa. He was getting a little intense for my taste. “There’s no one to kill. It was a roadside IED in Iraq.”
He traced a three-inch line on my thigh with a finger and I shivered. “What is an IED, mate? I do not understand. Why did it attack you?”
I held my breath as the warden pulled the second piece of buckshot from my leg, then placed the tweezers back on the cart. Short of air, but relieved that the digging portion of today’s medical procedure was over, my answer was barely more than a whisper. “It’s called an Improvised Explosive Device. That—” I nodded at the line down the front of my thigh, “—was caused by a four-inch nail.”
“Why were you attacked?”
I shrugged the best I could. “In a war, Nial, shit blows up. People die.” Like the private who’d been standing next to me when we tripped that IED three years ago. He’d taken the brunt of the strike and died in my arms.
“Women do not fight in war.”