The King

“No, you stay there, Marisol. We’ll come around to the other side.” The female doctor eased out and nodded to her team. “Vitals are low but stable. Gunshot wound to right thigh. Possible concussion. Shock’s a concern. May have suffered other trauma she doesn’t want to tell me about.”

Assail felt the blood leave his head, but he didn’t allow the inclination to pass out any further leeway—

“You,” he called out sharply. “Stay back.”

The male—or, God, was that actually a human man?—stopped short.

The main doctor, the female, spoke up. “This is my partner. Dr. Manello. He’s—”

“Not to treat her.” Assail bared his fangs. “She is unclothed from the waist down.”

He was vaguely aware that everyone had frozen and looked his way. Was also aware of a scent that had suddenly entered the scene. He lingered on neither as he stared that man down, prepared to lunge at his throat if he continued around the back of the Rover.

The guy put his hands up as if he were faced with a gun. “Okay, okay. Let’s relax. You want me out, I’m out.”

Backing up, he stood with the Brothers, shaking his head, but saying nothing.

The female doctor put her hand on Assail’s forearm. “We’re just going to get her on the gurney. Why don’t you come around with me. You can watch and stay close.”

Assail eased off on his growl and cleared his throat. “I shall do that. Thank you.”

Actually, he did more.

When the doctor opened Marisol’s door, he hated the way his woman shrank back before she could catch herself. And then her eyes locked on his.

“Would you like me to help you out?” he asked roughly before any of the medical staff could move in.

“Yes. Please.”

It felt so right to push everyone away and be the male who cared for her: Reaching into the SUV’s interior, he scooped her into his arms, being careful to take the sleeping bag along with so that she was not exposed—

The hiss she tried to hold in made him nauseous, but he had to get her out—and once he straightened, she seemed to find an accommodation in his arms that didn’t cause her too much discomfort.

Her head fell against his shoulder and stayed there.

“I shall carry her in,” he informed the doctor.

“It’s probably better to—ah, okay, all right.” The blond healer put her hands up as his fangs flashed again. “That’s fine. Just follow me.”

The Brother Rhage was the first into the corridor, and the other two warriors hung back, bringing up the rear along with the cousins.

Assail walked as smoothly as he could, each stiffening of Marisol’s limbs or sharp inhale communicating her pain directly into his own chest until it was his lungs burning, his breath catching, his leg that ached.

Going along, they passed by a seemingly endless number of rooms, some of which he looked into, most of which he didn’t bother turning his head for. From what little he noticed, there were classrooms, an office that was empty … something that looked like an interrogation room. Just as he was becoming convinced they were heading for another zip code, the female doctor finally stopped and indicated the way into an examination room.

The gurney in the center was directly underneath a hanging set of lights, and as he went over and began to transfer Marisol onto the sheeted, padded surface, he was glad the healer didn’t turn the chandelier on. It seemed far too bright already in the tiled room, the stainless-steel and glass cabinetry glinting at him, the rolling table with its instruments a threat even though those tools were supposed to help in the right hands.

Dearest Virgin in the Fade, Sola’s face was gray from pain and exhaustion as she sat there, her knees up tight to her chest, that navy blue sleeping bag wrapped tight as a second skin around her.

“I’m going to ask all nonessentials to stay out in the hall,” the doctor said, shooing the Brothers, the cousins, and that male healer out. “No, nope—we’ll be fine. Right, bye-bye.” Then in a lower tone, she hissed, “He’s a bonded male. You want to deal with that if I have to do an internal exam on her?”

Bonded … male? Him?

As the Brothers began to argue with her, Assail nodded grimly at the warriors and Rehvenge. “There shall be no problems from me. You have my word.”

Except then he wondered if Marisol’s privacy didn’t also deserve protecting from the likes of him.

“Marisol,” he said softly. “Mayhap it would be best if I—”

“Stay.”

He closed his eyes. “All right.”

Going over to her head, he turned his back on her body so she could return eye contact with his face, but he could see nothing that would compromise her privacy.

The doctor stepped in close to her and spoke softly. Kindly. “If you could lie back, that would be great. If you don’t feel safe, I understand, and I’ll put the top of the bed up for you.”

There was a long silence. “What was your name again?” Marisol asked roughly.

“Jane. I’m Jane. Behind me is my nurse, Ehlena. And nothing is going to happen here that you don’t consent to, okay? You are in charge.”

Indeed, he had a feeling he was going to like this physician.

“Okay. All right.” Marisol grabbed his hand and eased back, grimacing until she was fully prone. “Okay.”

He expected her to let go once she was settled. She did not—and her eyes didn’t budge from his. Not as the healer unwrapped the sleeping bag and covered her with a blanket. Not as questions about a possible concussion were asked, and reflexes tested. Not as that thigh wound was poked and prodded at. Not even as a portable X-ray machine was brought over and a picture taken from several different angles.

“So I have all kinds of good news,” the doctor said a little later as she approached with a laptop. On its monitor, there was the shadowy image of Marisol’s thick, strong thighbone. “Not only is your concussion mild, the bullet passed cleanly through. There’s no evidence that the bone is broken or chipped. So our main issue is the risk of infection. I’d like to clean things out thoroughly—and give you some antibiotics as well as some pain meds. Sound good?”

“I’m fine,” Marisol cut in.

The doctor laughed as she put the laptop aside. “I swear you fit in here so well. That’s what all my patients tell me. Still, I respect your intelligence—and I know that you’re not going to want to put your health at risk. What I’m worried about is sepsis—you told me in the car that you were shot twenty-four hours ago. That’s a long time for things to get cooking in there.”

“Let us see this through, Marisol,” Assail heard himself say. “Let us take the advice given.”

Marisol closed her eyes. “Okay.”

“Good, good.” The doctor made some notes on the laptop. “There’s just one other thing.”

“What?” Assail asked, when there was a lengthy pause.

“Marisol, I need to know if there’s anywhere else you might have been hurt.”

“Anywhere … else?” came a mumbled response.

Assail could feel the doctor staring at him. “Would you mind excusing us for a minute?”

Before he could answer, Marisol squeezed his hand so hard, he winced. “No,” she said stiffly. “Nowhere else.”

The doctor cleared her throat. “You can tell me anything, you know. Anything that is pertinent to your treatment.”

Abruptly, Marisol’s body started trembling again—the way it had in the backseat of the Range Rover. In a rush, like she was ripping something off her skin, she said, “He tried to rape me. It didn’t happen. I got him first—”

All at once, the sounds in the room receded. The idea—no, the reality—that someone had mistreated her, hurt her, scarred her precious body, tried to …

“Are you okay?” someone asked. The nurse. It must be the—

“He’s going over!” the doctor barked.

Assail wondered about whom they were speaking … as he lost consciousness.

TWENTY-THREE

“Speak, healer,” Wrath demanded as he stood over the motionless body of his shellan. “Speak!”

Dearest Virgin Scribe, she looked dead.

Indeed, immediately following his Anha’s collapse, he had carried her back to their mated room, the Brothers going with him, the aristocrats and their worthless social gaming left behind. It was he who had laid his beloved out upon the bedding platform as the healer was summoned, and he who had been the one to loosen her bodice. The Brothers had departed as soon as the trusted physician arrived with the tools of his healing trade, and then it had been only the three of them, the crackling fire, and the scream that rebounded in his soul.

“Healer, what say thou?”

The male looked over his shoulder from his crouch beside Anha. With the black robes of his station flowing to the floor, he rather resembled a giant bird, imminently due to take flight.

“She is dangerously compromised, my lord.” As Wrath recoiled, the healer rose. “I believe she is with young.”

A cold draft hit him, rushing from his head to his feet, wiping out the feeling in his entire form. “She is…”

“With young. Aye. I could tell when I felt her belly. It is hard and distended, and you did say she recently was upon her needing.”

“Yes,” he whispered. “So this is caused by the—”

“’Tis not a symptom of early pregnancy as she is not bleeding. No, I do believe this malaise is accounted for by something different. Please, my lord, let us approach the fire to speak so as not to disturb her.”

Wrath allowed himself to be drawn closer to the banked flames. “Is she ill then with fever?”

“My lord…” The healer cleared his throat, as if mayhap he was worried about a death that had naught to do with the queen. “Forgive me, my lord…”

“Tell me not that you have no explanation,” Wrath hissed.

“Would you prefer I mislead you? Her heart is sluggish, her pallor is gray, her breathing is shallow and intermittent. There could be some internal difficulty that I cannae measure that she is succumbing to. I do not know.”

Wrath shifted his eyes back to his mate. He had never been one to feel fear o’ermuch. Now terror slipped into his skin, possessing him as an evil spirit would, taking him o’er.

“My lord, I would tell you to feed her. Now and for as often as she may take the proceeds of your vein. Mayhap the charge of energy that comes with it with turn this about … certainly, if she has any hope, it is you. And if she rouses, I shall give her fresh water only, no ale. Nothing that will cause a further depression of her systems—”

“Get out.”

“My lord, she is—”

“Leave us—now!”

Wrath was aware of the male stumbling to the door. And well the healer might—a murderous rage was risen in the chest of his King and liable to be directed upon any bodily form within reach.

As the door was shut once more, Wrath approached the bedding platform. “My love,” he said desperately. “Anha, my love, rise unto my voice.”

Back on his knees.

Wrath fell back upon his knees at the floor by her head. Stroking her hair upon her shoulder and down upon her arm, he was of care not to put any weight into his touch.

Measuring her breathing, he tried to will her into deeper breaths. He wanted to return to the night before, when they had awoken together and he had looked into her eyes and watched them sparkle with life. For truth, it twisted his mind to think he could remember with such specificity everything about that moment, that hour, that night, the smells of the meal they ate, and the conversations they had about the future, and the audiences they went down to take in at court.

He felt as though the clarity of the remembrances should have been a door that he could go through and thereby take her hand, and smell her scent, and feel the lightness in the heart that came with health and well-being … and pull her back to the present in that state.

But that was only fantasy, of course.

Unsheathing his ceremonial dagger, he brought the flashing, polished blade up. When his heavy sleeve with its jewels and settings of precious gold got in the way, he tore his fine coat from his torso, pitching it behind him. As it landed with a scraping sound, all those meticulously affixed gems scratching at the hard oak, he slashed the knife edge across his wrist.

Lo, he wished it was his throat.

“Anha, verily, sit up for me. Lift your head, my love.”

Propping her upon his free forearm, he brought the wellspring of his blood to her lips. “Anha, partake from me … partake for me…”

Her lips fell open, but it was not her sweet acquiescence that rendered it such. Nay, it was only the angle of her head.

“Anha, drink … come back unto me.”

As red drops fell into her mouth, he prayed that they somehow proceeded down the back of her throat, and thusly into her veins, reviving her by their purity.

This was not their destiny, he thought. They were to be together for centuries, not parted but a year after meeting. This was not … them.

“Drink, my love…”

He kept his wrist in place until the blood threatened to pool out from her lips. “Anha?”

Dropping his head down onto the back of her cold hand, he prayed for a miracle. And the longer he stayed there, the more he joined her in a state that was but one heartbeat away from death.

If she passed, he was going to go with her. One way or the other …