We got into the room with little problem. There was one woman on the elevator getting out when we got on, but she was wrapped up in her own world like and didn’t notice the six foot six man with bullet holes in him. Probably because I was wrapped around him and glaring at her. We, as women, tend not to challenge situations like that, normally. There’s always a bitch in the crowd, sure. But generally, we wait until the woman goes to the powder room before swooping down for the first pass at a taken man.
Once in the room I began to feel panic. Kane took off his jacket, with my help. His white shirt looked like it was red with stains of white now. He got that off and my knees went weak. Three holes in his back. How the hell was he walking around?
“Misty, I need to get into the shower, hot as it will go.”
“You need more than body odor control,” I complained, but helped him into the bathroom, and then helped to get him out of his pants.
I wanted to be the purposeful nurse, with my head in the game, but when his cock popped out of his pants, I wanted nothing more than to swallow it right there. Angry at myself I turned away, and got the water running full steam. Kane stepped into the scorch without a wince or hesitation. There was a folding seat that came down off the wall and I pulled it out. He gave me a grateful grin as he sat down, letting the steaming stream course down his back and head.
“This one needs to be cut out,” he said, fingering a lump in the front of his right shoulder. “The others will manage on their own.”
Manage on their own? What the hell was he trying to say? I thought, but only asked, “What can I do?”
He looked up to me, but then dropped his eyes, and I noticed the wince he was attempting to hide. “There’s a sports bag out by the dresser. Inside is a green canvas medical kit with some surgical knives inside. Bring that, please.”
“Alright,” I said, sounding calmer than I felt.
Out in the room I began to freak out. I don’t care what the appropriate definition of a wife is, but I had this man’s ring on my finger and I didn’t want to be a widow. Not now, not later. Not like this.
I looked at the phone in the room, and then at the bag beside the dresser. He would be mad, but he would be alive.
Another part of me stepped through the events of the day so far. The strawberry, the ring, the moment of the attack. He knew who. He knew where. He knew he would be shot. He told me he knew that while we were laying on the floor, and he put his body between me and the bullets in his back. He had this room ready. He specifically said, the shower. He could have sat on the bed and asked for the med kit only a couple of feet away, but he said to take him to the shower. Then he asked for other things.
He knows what he’s doing, Misty. Do what he says, for now. If he passes out, then you’re on your own. Do what you think is best from that point. Right now, do what he says.
That made sense. It wasn’t panic or fear, just good clear thinking. Something I had some talent with. Snatching out the med kit, I kicked my shoes off and stripped out of my dress, then ran back into the bathroom. I opened the kit as I ran, and knelt in front of him, rolling it out on the floor.
“What do I do?” I asked him.
He sized me up, then nodded. “Just make a cut, vertical, across the lump, deep as you can, so we can get it out of there. Then we’ll use that tube of clear glue in the kit to seal the wound. Alright?”
“Can we do that with the holes too?” I asked, sliding out a long short bladed scalpel, only to have him point at one with a longer blade.
“No,” he said. “When the bullet went in, cloth and other things got pushed into the wound. Most gunshot wounds aren’t lethal. What kills the victims are infection. This one, however, will be clean, so we can close it up.”
“What do we do with them?” I asked, finding a good grip to use with the surgical knife for cutting into the man I was falling seriously in lust, love, intrigue, (or something of the sorts) with, while he bled in the shower. “I mean, the holes in your back. What about them?”
“Ah,” he sighed. “Well, that part’s never fun. A lot of work, too. Let’s just get through this one, first. Then, we’ll move on to the unpleasant part of our chore.”
He sounded out of breath, like it hurt to speak, even though he kept his lips curled and his face relaxed. It was time to quit talking. Time to stop being a pest. All it was doing was hurting him, not calming me.
“We need to get started though,” he added, and I re-centered myself and adjusted the scalpel in my hand.
I suppose it was a bit naive to be surprised by how well a scalpel is shaped and designed for that sort of thing — cutting through flesh. It really is though. The shape of the blade, the length, the way the back end of the handle is perfect for bracing into the palm as the blade is drawn down through skin and muscle. So well adapted in fact, I found myself far more interested in the sensation of the event than gored out by the fact of what I was doing to him. I began about an inch above the lump, and finished the same length below, then pulled out the blade.
He looked down, pressed a towel to the wound, looked at it, and said, “Well done. One slice, clean and even. Well done indeed. Have you done this sort of thing before?”
I shook my head, grinning like an idiot under his praise, then the blood swelled out from the slice in his shoulder, and the fact of what I just did caught up with me, sending me in a rush to the toilet.
Just as I came back up, and washed my mouth out, I heard, then saw the lead bullet fall and clack on the shower floor. Grabbing a towel, I returned to him, moving the water and snatching up the tube of stuff he said needed to be used on the wound.
My head remained clear now as I dabbed the slice clean, then squished out of the tube a bead of clear stuff down the wound. In seconds it closed.
“What the hell is this stuff?” I asked, marveling at the tube.
“Super glue.”
“You’re kidding of course.”
“No, it’s super glue, just like in the stores. That’s what it was invented for, fast closing agent for wounds on the battle field,” he explained.
“Shit,” I said, looking back at the tube.
“Doesn’t work so well on gapping or bullet wounds. Tears and the like it’s pretty useless for, but for a scalpel cut it does nicely.”
“Shit yeah it does,” I agreed, putting the cap back on, and replacing it in the med kit. “And, now? These?” I asked, looking at the bullet holes in his back.
“Yeah,” Kane sighed, sounding like he was about to take on an unpleasant task, that involved shit and sticks. “Look, Misty. You’re going to have at least a hundred questions. All of them valid, and I have no problem answering any or all. But I need to do this all the way through, and I need your help. Can you hold off until we’re done?”
“Um,” I tried, and then just nodded my head. “As long as I get the exclusive.”
“It’s yours. Hands down, no competition,” he told me, breathing a little heavy.
“Deal. What do you need me to do?”
“Turn the water to full cold, and make sure it is streaming on the right hole. Don’t let up, don’t touch the wound. Just keep the water on the hole. Good?”
“How will…?”
“You’ll know,” he said and I flipped the water over to cold, and stood over him. “You’ll have no doubts in a moment.”
He was right.
It’s hard to tell what I saw then. I thought maybe the water blurred my vision, but there was more to it than that — something went sideways. Something at the foundation of things, the underneath of things — something that never went sideways. Then the bottom hole of the three, the one closest to his spine, began to smoke. It wasn’t steam. I knew what steam looked like. This was smoke. And it was hot. Way hot.
I pointed the shower head so that the water hit that area of his back and turned the head to focus the stream down to as narrow a stream as it would allow, without going into massage mode. He shuddered, his fists clenched, and then a bullet came out of the hole, and the wound filled with molten flesh. It bubbled out of him, and then set like cooling lava. Then the bullet hole up from there to his right began to smoke. I moved the stream, my mind blank. I had no reference for this. He was wrong about the questions. I didn’t know what questions to ask! What was happening? Well, that was a stupid one. He was healing, that’s what was happening. How? Again, pretty obvious there. Molten flesh. Right?
Fuck!
This was not super glue, however. This was nothing like super glue.
Once the third was out, he slumped forward and as soon as that hole quit smoking I widened the shower to cover his back, because it looked red and inflamed. He shuddered a little, and I thought it might be in relief. I hoped it was, and I was so glad I didn’t call an ambulance.
Kneeling down beside him, I ran my hand through his soaked hair, “Kane? You going to be alright?”
“Sure,” he said, with the whisper of a voice. Nothing close to the powerful voice he had in the restaurant. “Just hope I made it in time.”
“Time for what?” I asked.
“Before my brothers figured out I was injured. That would be bad. An hour’s sleep now, I should be fine. Help me to the bed?” he asked.
“Thought you’d never ask,” I said, feeling nothing like wanting sex, and everything like getting him healthy.
Brothers? More like him?
“How many brothers?” I asked, getting out from under his arm, and letting him sit on the edge of the bed.
“Four. Four princes. Here we are…” His voice far away and he fell back onto the mattress, and down into sleep.
Four? Four princes? Princes?
He didn’t want them to know he was injured.
Did that mean, he was in line for a throne, and so were they?
“Oh shit, this can’t be good.”