"Stay still! Jesus Christ!" she admonished, knowing that if he didn't choose to, there was no way she could make him.

It was days later, and she had finally been able to coerce him into sitting down for five seconds to let her examine the wound she'd seen near his shoulder. The one she'd been carefully nagging him about letting her care for – or at the very least that he get himself seen by one of the "doctors" – for the past week or so.

Finally, he found the time in his busy schedule – as well as somehow managing to accrue the things necessary for her to treat him – to shirk out of his shirt and take his seat at the small table. Which really wasn't all that small, it just looked that way next to his imposing bulk – all while wearing a slightly amused expression that only deepened as she hovered around him, tsking and cringing every time she had to touch him, knowing she was hurting him.

Why she should react like that about him, she would never know. It wasn't as if he cringed when he spanked her or when he fucked her. But, as hard as she tried, she couldn't seem to prevent it. It was most unprofessional, and it only got worse once she had prepared him to the point where she was going to stitch up the wound. She knew she had to pierce him with the curved needle she'd been waiting for him to filch from somewhere for just this purpose.

Granted, it wasn't as if she'd done this a million times before – she hadn't. She'd done a surgical rotation and had stitched up some wounds, but this one was quite deep, and her equipment so poor – there would be no dulling what was bound to be the excruciating pain she was going to have to put him through.

Then, what she considered the worst thing that could possibly happen, happened. She was pinching his flesh as tightly together as she could with one hand – knowing that was hurting him, too, and holding the threaded needle in the other, and she began to cry.

A big, wet blotch appeared on his upper arm, and then another on his shoulder, much too close to the wound for her comfort. She leaned back, away from him, setting the equipment down on the table and covering her eyes with her hands, which meant she was just going to have to wash them again when she finally decided to buck up and do what she needed to do.

"What is it, Emmy?" he asked, and she knew that he was quite concerned for her by the soft, questioning tone of his voice and the fact that he called her by name. Names seemed to have lost some of their power in this era. He'd never even formally told her his, although he must've known she knew it.

He tugged at her wrists, and she resisted him as much as she could, but, as always, he got his own way, pulling them away from her face and gathering her onto his lap as he did so. "Why the tears? Are you hurting?" He made his questions in a voice he reserved just for her when she was sad for any reason. It was soft, low, and comforting in and of itself.

"No, you idiot," she snorted, "I'm crying because I don't want to hurt you, and that's just stupid!"

His smiles – the real ones, the ones that were so incredibly rare that they reached out and squeezed her heart, hard – were completely devastating, easily ruining all of the anger and resentment she had spent so long diligently building around it, laying waste to all of the mental and emotional defenses she'd tried to erect against him. She didn't want him to inspire tender feelings in her just because he could make her enjoy it when he raped her. Just because he could make her want him to…

"And I thank you for that. It's good to know you don't want to stab me with the needle instead of stitch me up with it."

"Don't press your luck," she shot back at him, still crying as he hugged her against his broad chest.

That just made him chuckle – another rarity. "Will it help if I tell you that I will probably barely feel it? Things like that don't hurt me much – certainly nowhere near what they would feel like to you."

"Do you have skin like a rhinoceros, or what?"

She could tell that he didn't recognize the word, but he didn't bother to ask about it, inferring from context and shrugging those massive shoulders of his – which didn't seem to hurt him, either, no matter how drastically it made his wound gape open. No wonder he'd been so reluctant to have her treat him. He couldn't feel the pain he should have with that kind of not-life-threatening-at-the-moment, but still serious wound.

And it wasn't as if she hadn't seen how many scars he already bore, all over his body, of various shapes and sizes, mostly looking like knife wounds, but there were some small burns and other penetrating wounds that suggested to her that she might not want to ask how he got them. She didn't think she could take hearing about him being in danger, which he obviously was and had been for most of his life, she'd bet.

Emily didn't know if that was a result of their bond or what. Whether or not he was in danger – whether or not he was hurt or injured – shouldn't have even been on her radar, but it most certainly was.

She guessed that it was probably the prevalence of those marks of bravery – or foolhardiness, she imagined, in some cases – that made him so enamored of her relatively flawless body. She had a small, puckered scar on the inside of her wrist from a rare bout of chicken pox when she was six. Her mother hadn't been very fond of the government or what she considered its invasive, fascist vaccination requirements. There was another on her calf from a stone that had been thrown by someone's lawn mower while she and her family were at their camp by the lake. And a barely visible – thanks to a good plastic surgeon – scar just below her hairline on her forehead, where her brother had hit her over the head with a very beautiful – and it turned out for her ten-year-old brother – expensive china teacup, when she beat him at chess at the ripe old age of eight.

Other than that, she had been very lucky, and although she had dutifully pointed out all of her rampant imperfections one night, he continued to marvel over the beauty of what he considered her perfect skin.

As he patted her back, his mouth buried in the hair at the top of her head while she lay curled atop him, he murmured, "I would tell you not to worry about it, that I'll heal without your very capable assistance…" He had yet to come to terms with the idea that she'd had an actual profession "But I know that you are maternal, even with me – which is very endearing – and that you will worry if you do not do what you feel you need to for me." Having said that, he lifted her off him, setting her carefully onto her own feet beside him. "And I would much rather have you – even though you're a female – sewing me up than any of the doctors I've ever met in my life."

She took that as a compliment, which she thought was the way he actually meant it, however backhanded the delivery.

"I will remain completely still and quiet for you. If I feel any unpleasantness at all, I will only have to think of how many different ways I will make you scream in pleasure when you are done, and that will squelch any pain short of death."

Emmy sighed, pursing her lips at him. Regrouping both her equipment and her thoughts, moments later, with him not having moved a single muscle the entire time, it was done.

Not perfect, she thought, looking critically down at her work, certainly not surgeon quality stitching, but enough to keep the two sides of the skin together to promote healing and, hopefully, prevent infection.

The last thing she did was the only time she saw him acknowledge any amount of pain, and still, he didn't move. Even when she poured rubbing alcohol over the entire wound and left it to evaporate before she bandaged him, the only reaction she saw was his blinking, once, very slowly.

She, of course, was a wreck, a complete wreck. She managed to clean up the mess she'd made cleaning him up, trying to keep her mind busy before she completely broke down and ran around frantically, nervously, while putting things away.

Finally, he caught her around the middle, guiding her, as if they were dancing, onto the bed with him, falling onto it on his back, to make sure she came to no harm, buffering her landing with his own big body, then trying to curl her under him.

She knew what he wanted, knew what he was going to do to her and had – mostly – come to grips with the fact there was nothing she could do to stop him from taking her. Her attempts at resistance – partly because of her own instinctive reactions to him – had dwindled considerably of late to the occasionally interjected, "Please, no," as if she had forgotten that she should have been protesting and fighting – as he would put it – against her fate.

But this time, she put the palms of her hands on his chest – carefully avoiding the fresh bandage, and pushed, gently – not frantically – deliberately bringing her still very wet eyes to his.

"Would you – would you do something for me?" she asked.

In truth, he would have risked his own life a thousand times over to get her anything he could – anything – that he approved of – that would make her happy. He knew she thought he didn't smile much, but then, neither did she, and although he didn't show it much, he was acutely aware of her sadness.

More so than he wanted to be, by far.

More so than an Alpha should be, he thought.

And the last time he'd offered to get her something she might like, she'd asked him for the impossible. He could not – would not – set her free. Even if he did, because of their bond, she would never truly be free of him unless he was dead, but then she knew that. He had told her often enough when she became defiant that he would be the only man to bond with her – to knot her – until he was dead.

Not that others weren't going to try – and die in the attempt.

So, with no small amount of curiosity, he responded cautiously, "If I can."

Her answer surprised him. "Roll onto your back."

He was there before she finished her request, his eagerness prompting a giggle from her that he wished he could hear more often.

And it only got better. She sat up, and began to touch him. Voluntarily. With her own small hands.

He closed his eyes and shivered, making her stop and remove her hands from him as if she'd startled him. But then he caught them and pulled them back to him, putting them where they had been – however neutral – on his arm, knowing he was about as close to Paradise as he figured he would ever get in this life – short of her giving him a son.

And she wasn't even touching him anywhere interesting – yet.

And she was talking, too, which he could have done without, since she wasn't saying anything designed to heighten his desire for her, which was, as always, blatantly rampant. But, if she would continue doing just this, he would fight his baser instincts back for as long as he could.

Emmy had forgotten what it was like to have a man's body at her disposal, and she'd never had one – had never seen one really, until a short while ago – that was quite this impressive. It was a very big bed – even for someone who was accustomed, at one time, to sleeping in a king-sized bed – and he took up most of it. It was a very good thing that she was relatively small, because she didn't get very much room on it.

She knew that making her sleep on the inside – nearest the wall – was a method of keeping track of her, of closing her in with the imposing presence of his body. If she wanted to get up at all while they were sleeping, she could never – had never – managed to do it without waking him up, which inevitably led to sex.

She'd held herself away from him as much as she could and intended to continue to do so. He was not – would never be – the love of her life or anything resembling it. But she intended to indulge herself a bit right now, because – seeing his body as she had, seeing the hard toll his life had taken on him, knowing he put his life down for her – and everyone else in this little enclave – every time he stepped outside the walls – gave her a greater respect for him than she'd had before.

Yes, he had been horrible to her in a lot of ways.

But she was learning that there were degrees of horrible, and she knew that, without him, she'd likely already be dead – or sincerely wishing she were.

It may well still come down to that stark reality in the end, she didn't know. But right here, right now, she was taking the time to acknowledge the fact that he was the one keeping her from a fate worse than death.

And – if she admitted it to herself, which she refused to do – it was hardly a hardship to touch a man like him. He felt good – strong, steady – beneath her fingertips as she dragged them delicately over him, exploring the scars and the ripples of muscle and the occasional smoothness of him with equal interest, her eyes occasionally flickering to where she could see that he had already risen to greet her.

He had been out, so he was still wearing pants, and she tugged at them, although she knew she couldn't take them from him without his cooperation.

But again, he was eager to comply. They disappeared seconds later, and he lay back, throwing his arm over his eyes, completely naked – if not at all vulnerable in spite of it – before her.

And he was magnificent.

"Are all men like you now?" she asked, her voice unusually hoarse. She already knew the answer to that – she'd seen the doctors, who were sort of men.

"What do you mean?"

"So..." She blushed shyly, surprised she could still do so in front of a man who had known her so intimately. "So big. You're much bigger than most men of my time. And you have a much higher pain tolerance – few men in my time would have been able to sit still while I stitched them up without anesthetic."

"Anesthetic?" he said the word back to her as if it was foreign to him.

"Something that deadens pain, or knocks you unconscious so you don't feel anything until you awaken."

"Oh," he grunted. "No, not all men – although more than enough to cause wars."

Emmy nodded. His type, genetic mutation, or whatever he was, would have risen to the top in this barbaric, unforgiving culture.

"Why do you ask, little girl?"

"Just curious."

"You know what that did to the pussy..." he warned, as her hand roamed ever closer to where he wanted it to be, seconds before he grabbed her and lifted her onto him. "It got her fucked," he growled, before she could answer him, his voice choking as he felt himself slowly penetrating her, every bit of her fight to accept him. Every catch in her breath or plaintive mewl added fuel to his own passion, and that was more than enough to make him begin to swell even before she had settled onto him completely, making it a bit of a challenge for her to do so. He reveled in every whimper and cry of pseudo protest as she submitted herself to him fully.

He wasn't much of a fan of this position – although he could see – and touch – its advantages – but he preferred to be on top, where it was easier for him to control her, and to set himself into her.

When he had first begun taking her, she had begged him not to do that to her, complaining that it hurt too much.

But he had seen through her attempt at crying wolf. "But then?" he'd asked, eyebrows raised as he gazed down at her.

She had colored beautifully, knowing he wasn't going to let her settle for just complaining about the slight pain of it.

"What does it make you feel once I've done that, and we are knotted and barbed together, and I begin to move and spurt within you?"

She had become angry with him, which had made him almost smile at her fierceness. "That doesn't matter!"

"What's that? Answer me, girl, or you'll feel the flat of my hand on your backside as soon as we're finished."

He did not issue idle threats, and she knew him well enough to realize that.

"It makes me too terribly sensitive –" Her voice lowered to a whisper as she'd answered him reluctantly, "It gives me no choice but to cum."

He liked making her submit to him. He admired her strength. If what she said about where she'd come from was true, then she was a smart, accomplished woman in her own time, and he loved the idea that he could subdue her, to tame her to his hand.

Especially since he knew she didn't want him to.

But this – her curious compliance – at least outwardly so – had been interesting too, up to a point. He knew that the positions in which she was most likely to breed were those in which he was – where he belonged – on top of her, or where she was on her knees before him, and, at least until her womb was full of his offspring, he wouldn't waste a chance to get her pregnant.

She protested prettily when she felt that familiar pricking, and he knew it must've caused her some amount of discomfort. It was, after all, like a claw pressing into a very sensitive spot, but he knew the benefits of it far outweighed his desire to please her if he could. It prevented her from moving as much as she might without it. It activated something within an Omega woman that pushed her into an almost violently blissful state, her body spasming uncontrollably around his for long periods of time, which contributed to his own pleasure as well as milking his seed from him, softening both her demeanor and her flesh to him and making her much more receptive to both his mounting of her and her potential impregnation.

He wasn't sure exactly how it worked – he just knew it would, eventually – and he couldn't possibly wait until she was heavy with his child.

* * *

Just a few days later, she heard him at the door, fiddling impatiently with the lock. Somehow, she knew that it was an emergency, and she wasn't wrong.

He came into the room in a state much like the one he had been in when she'd been taken to the medical facility the last time, and she cooperated fully in him getting her there again, hoping against hope that what she thought had probably happened to their patient hadn't.

When she got there, it was worse than she had imagined. She could see the wound from where she stood when she first entered the room and could smell it a few steps later.

She threw the cloak off, and he handed her scrubs while she issued orders at the doctors, who were – as they had been before – reluctant to take orders from a woman, but one look at the dark face of the Lord who had brought her and they began to cooperate immediately.

She debrided the wound as much as she could. Then she asked for a scalpel.

The doctors surrounding her balked, until Vaudt, with a makeshift mask over his mouth – stepped up to stand behind her, grinding out, "You will give her anything she asks for. You will do anything she asks you to do. If he dies, you will die. She is your best hope for getting out of this room alive."

They were much more cooperative after that, but he didn't step back, even when she cut into the wound, releasing tons of infected, putrid fluids that they had to clean up, mumbling passive aggressive protests about how she shouldn't have done that the entire time.

Emmy flushed out and cleaned the wound, trying to make sure she'd gotten all of the infected tissue before sewing him back up again.

When she finally stepped away from the table, looking down at the poor young man who was going through so much, she walked right into his arms, which closed automatically around her.

"He's so sick. Do you have any antibiotics? Any aspirin to treat the fever?" She knew she was asking for things he probably knew nothing about, but she figured she had to. What she'd just done for him was only going to prolong the inevitable unless she could get him some systemic help with the raging infection.

"What are those?"

"Medicines. Do you have any medicines at all?"

He gave her a considering look, then grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him, out of the room and into the corridor, taking enormous steps that she could barely keep up with. Then suddenly, he stopped to produce a key to a padlock that held double doors together, relocking them once they were inside, where he used a flashlight to shine around. It was a cavernous room, stocked top to bottom with metal shelves full of drugs and medical equipment.

Although her first instinct was to ask why they were not using all of this stuff regularly, Emmy held her tongue in favor of getting her patient what he needed. Vaudt followed her around like a big puppy, and at one point, she caught the way he was looking at her.

With utter amazement.

"You – you can read all of this?" he asked, almost reverently and with great appreciation. "You know how to use them to help him?"

Emmy nodded grimly. "I can, and I am. I will not let him die."

But his reverence for her didn't stop her from adding copious amounts of something she'd found in the stockpiles that they obviously had no use for.

But then, neither did the man who was lying on the operating table, being ravaged by an infection.

No, what she'd taken was for her and her alone.

She could hardly believe her luck when she saw the small wheels of different colored pills, all piled together in an overflowing box, and, since they were generic, even if he could read the chemical names of them, he wouldn't have known what they were.

She'd worry later about how to get them back with her. If she had to, she'd shove a handful of them up inside her. Having found her saviors, she wasn't about to leave this place without plenty of the protection she so desperately needed.

They got nearly everything else, too, that he was likely to need – in the immediate future, anyway – and began to head back to her patient when they were confronted by a man brandishing a knife and sniffing the air like a dog.

His eyes were wild, and he looked totally out of control.

"I knew I smelled you! I knew you were here somewhere!" he screamed, lunging for her with one hand and holding that wicked looking blade threateningly in the other.

Seconds later, he lay on the floor, bleeding out, killed by his own weapon, and Vaudt was the proud owner of a magnificent new knife.

As he hustled her back to the room, she didn't think she'd ever get used to what life was going to be like for her now. When she first woke up, she thought rather fancifully that she might have to worry about zombies or some such other fictitious villains.

But it turned out that it was the same old villain as it had been since time began – men who couldn't control their sexual appetites or their lust for money and didn't even bother to try.

Moments later, with all of the men looking on in utter amazement, she had him on a drip – a not as well controlled one as she would have preferred – but a drip that was going to both hydrate him, address his fever, and fight the infection.

When she was finished, she stepped back to admire her handiwork, and Vaudt grabbed her wrist. "We need to get you out of here. It's not safe."

She pulled back against his hold. "I can't leave here. I have to stay with my patient."

"You cannot stay here. You saw what just happened. He was one of my best guards. I don't want to have to kill everyone else in this building just so you can play doctor."

He had never seen that particular look on her face, but he had an idea that it wasn't good. "We have to go," he reiterated.

But this time, when she jerked her arm, he let her go. She stood in front of the other men, giving them a list of instructions. "Send me word about how he's doing and any change for the worse in his condition."

She didn't care if that wasn't supposed to be done – she needed to keep an eye on him, even if she wasn't being given a choice but to do so from a distance.

Mid-word, he covered her again and began dragging her away. She continued to yell orders back at them for as long as she could, until his hand descended on her mouth and her bottom at the same time. "Quiet! I'd rather not have to kill anyone else for you while we're out here."

The ride back was conducted in the kind of silence no man – even such a hardened Alpha as himself – wanted to experience from his woman.

But she wasn't cold to him because he'd dragged her away from her patient – although she would definitely have preferred to stay with him. No, she was pissed because he'd dragged her away before she'd been able to palm any of those birth control pills.