I didn’t know how I was going to pull this off. Why couldn’t Galen see Marius? Rodger? They’d be more objective, more clinical. They could talk to him without the anticipation, the fear, their heart pounding in their ears.
Galen had insisted I leave his memory behind and that I love again.
My stomach dropped into a large, black hole.
And so I had.
I skirted a beat-up VW bus, my foot catching a trip wire in the dark. Horace screamed as the door flew open. Hickey horns shot out like crazed bats. Half animal, half plant, their spindly bodies writhed and their sucking appendages waved like the legs of two dozen octopi.
One landed hard on my back. Before I could react, Marc swiped it off, knocking it into Horace, who already had two on him.
“Run!” the sprite screeched. “Leave me!”
I started to go, but Marc pulled me back. “What’ll they do to him?”
“He’ll live,” I said, urging Marc to follow. Horace would just look like he’d been making out under the high school bleachers.
We rushed out of the minefield and down through the cemetery to the MASH 3063
rd
. The low-slung buildings usually comforted me. Now I was acutely aware that every supply hut, tent, and torch post we passed brought me closer to Galen.
I blew out a breath, determined to get a choke hold on my emotions as I headed for the OR, with Marc at my side.
He didn’t know Galen had been my one and only lover besides him. I glanced up at Marc. Now certainly wouldn’t be the time to tell him that.
“Don’t worry,” he said, his breath coming in harsh bursts as we passed the recovery tent and rounded the corner toward surgery. “I’ve got your back.”
God. I’d broken his heart and he still wanted to help me. I was insane for not being able to feel more for this man. Had the war hardened me that much?
Jeffe stood watch at the entrance to pre-op. He wore his guard’s collar and the earrings he’d won from Holly at poker last night. Somebody should tell him modern guys didn’t wear dangly pearls.
“None shall pass,” he thundered. “Except for you, Petra,” he added happily.
No way. “There are two casualties,” I said to the cross-dressing sphinx. “I need Marc in there.”
Jeffe held up a paw. Darned if he didn’t have the matching bracelet. “Galen of Delphi’s orders are—”
Not worth anything if I was going to save his hide. “The handbook says you have to listen to me,” I insisted, thankful for military protocol for once in my life.
Jeffe tilted his head. “You actually read the handbook?”
“Told you I’d get around to it eventually,” I said, starting past the sphinx.
He blocked me, baring a lion’s mouth of teeth and two sets of razor-sharp claws.
Fuck. “Don’t you even think about slicing me with one of those.”
Jeffe’s snarl dropped. “It is just that it is a secret that Galen is even here and I’m not allowed to tell anybody but you and Horace.” He ducked his head around me. “And now he knows.” He gestured at Marc.
Yeah, well, Marc was about to find out a whole lot more. “We don’t have time for this.”
Marc rubbed at his temples. “What if I defeat you?” he asked. “Quick. Ask me a question.”
The sphinx perked up. “What is the nature of man?”
“An easier one,” Marc snapped.
“How hard would it be to strangle a sphinx?” I mused, not really expecting an answer.
“Oh, I know.” Jeffe brightened. “Are you getting married?”
My heart stuck in my throat.
“Not today,” Marc growled, shoving past him.
I followed, wincing.
“What?” Jeffe asked as he let us pass.
“Come on,” Marc said as he pushed open the door to pre-op.
I followed him. “I wish you’d just get mad.” Anger, I could deal with. Guilt was something else.
We stopped at the long sink by the entrance to the OR.
Marc handed me a flat, orange bar of soap. “I’m not going to get mad at you,” he said, scrubbing hard with his own bar. “I’m going to talk to you. Something’s holding you back and I need to know what it is if we’re going to move past it.”
I’d always tried to do the right thing, but these days, I wasn’t sure if I knew what that was anymore.
Anticipation hammered at me and, on its heels, shame like I’d never felt before. I dug the soap against my skin, as if I could scrub myself numb.
Marc was watching me. “This Galen of Delphi. Do you know him?”
In the biblical sense.
“He was a patient of mine before,” I said, not exactly lying. “He stayed in camp and a lot of us got to know him.”
Extremely well.
To the point where every instinct I had screamed at me to rush to Galen, to see how badly he was hurt.
But we didn’t have that luxury. He needed me to keep it together. For years, I’d prided myself on my cool detachment. Galen seemed to be the only one who could strip me of it in an instant.
Marc watched me, worry sharpening his features.
When he spoke, his tone was even, well thought out. “Let me handle this one. We’ll tell this Galen that you can’t treat him.”
The last thing I needed was Marc protecting me from Galen. “Thanks, but I’ve got it.”
He didn’t respond, but he watched me ominously, as if he could sense a threat.
He was right.
Without nurses, we helped each other into our gowns and masks before hurrying out into the OR.
Galen stood against my table, bloody and bruised. His expression was hard, his black special ops uniform torn, exposing a muscular shoulder.
Despite the dirt and the gore, he was strikingly beautiful.
I knew his strength and his power. I’d seen the scars slicing over his chest and abs, the old ones white against his deeply tanned skin, the new scars pink and raw. Once upon a time, I’d been the one to comfort him, to touch him.
He was fighting for every breath, most likely battling poison, as he cradled a gorgeous woman. She might as well have been naked as she swooned all over him in a minuscule bikini top that did nothing to hide her thrusting nipples. He had one hand wrapped around her bare midriff, the other tangled in the gauzy skirt that was cut all the way up to the vee between her legs.
I couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d started fucking her right then and there. “Who the hell is she?”
His eyes caught mine. “Her name is Leta.”
I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud.
He was close to passing out, but he clung to her as if he’d never held anything more precious.
“I need you to save her,” he said, almost desperate.
My pulse pounded in my ears. “I will,” I promised automatically. It was the only thing I could do.
chapter three
“Help me get her on my table,” I said, as Marc and I pried the woman from Galen’s arms.
His impossibly blue eyes locked with mine. Naked excitement rushed through me. I could see the love there, the longing.
Get a grip.
Most likely, it was for her now.
“Well, good thing I brought a friend,” I remarked as I adjusted the large silver light over my table.
“Petra,” Galen began, as if he too hadn’t expected the raw shock of being together again.
“What happened?” I asked, schooling myself, assessing her condition. One thing was certain—she wasn’t regular army.
His expression hardened. “We were attacked crossing the lines. Short daggers and three-headed hounds.”
Marc joined me. “She’s got a bite on her neck.”
I glanced back at Galen. “He’s about to fall over.”
Galen grimaced against the pain. “I took a few hits. It wouldn’t have been anything if I were still immortal.”
I examined the gash on his arm. “Yes, well, it could kill you now.”
His eyes blazed at me, bloodshot and hard. “Save her, Petra.”
“We need to give you a shot,” I said, tamping down my emotions, finding the syringe in my cart.
Galen gripped my shoulders as he struggled to stay upright. I staggered sideways under his weight. “Let him do it. You said you’d save her!”
“Fine,” I ground out, as Marc took hold of Galen, steadying him.
“Punctured carotid,” Marc said, as if he couldn’t quite believe we were switching places. Me either.
Since when did patients dictate treatment? They hadn’t, until Galen of Delphi came along. His years in special ops had made him way too used to giving orders.
And my weak heart made me listen.
Marc half lifted, half shoved Galen as he collapsed onto the table.
Hades. We’d gotten here just in time.
The poison was tearing through his system, eating away at his vital organs. And he was right—this time, he wasn’t immortal.
Marc worked with quiet efficiency.
It drove me crazy that I couldn’t control this, that I couldn’t help him.
I took stock of the woman on my table.
“My name is Dr. Robichaud. You’re safe with me.” I didn’t even know if she’d heard me. Her almond eyes were wide, her olive skin pale.
Her neck showed round, biting scars along with fresh puncture wounds. She’d been shackled with some sort of collar that drove spikes into her flesh. She had to be a shifter. Kept against her will.
Holy hell. “Are you from the old army?”
Galen had brought a hostile into camp. Sure, we sometimes treated the enemy—before putting them under guard. But I doubted that’s what Galen had in mind.
Shit.
We were harboring the enemy.
We could be executed for this.
She stared at me, glassy-eyed. I needed a chart, damn it. I needed to know what I was dealing with, and what I could give her.
“Are you a werewolf?” I asked, frustration rising as I inspected the tears in her larynx. If she were human, she’d be dead.
I glanced to the table next to me. Galen convulsed as Marc gave him 20 cc’s of toxopren. The shot was as big as a horse tranquilizer and neutralized poisons. It also burned with a fire that made grown men scream.
If it had been anyone else on the table next to mine, I would have called for backup, screw the consequences. Galen had no right to bring me into this. I didn’t know what he was thinking—secretly harboring a soldier from the old army.
It was his sheer dumb luck that I trusted him implicitly.
I was such a fool.
Shaking my head, I covered her lower body with a blanket and reached for a clamp of sterile gauze. “Suction,” I said, out of habit. I didn’t have a nurse.
The blood seeped out as fast as I could wipe it away. Whatever had tried to take a bite out of her neck had nicked her carotid artery. I stitched up one hole. Two. There had to be at least one more. I couldn’t see with all the blood. My own pulse hammered in my ears. I needed to stanch the flow. I needed to stitch. I couldn’t do both at the same time.
This secrecy might just kill her.
But if I called in help, chances were I’d be signing her death warrant.
Sweat and steam gathered under my surgical cap. “Marc?” I called, unable to keep the worry from my voice.
“He’s not responding,” he said, his voice sharp. I knew that tone. Death usually followed.
Heat tore through me and it took every fiber of my being to stay with my own patient. I promised him I’d save her.
Her heart rate monitor let out a pulsing, high-pitched warning. One hundred eighty beats a minute. She was losing too much blood.
I stanched the bleeding. Found another hole. Stanched the blood. Lost the hole. Her very life seeped through my fingers.
Alarms screamed as her vitals plummeted.
And then I saw her spirit begin to rise.
“Goddamn it!” I snatched for the adrenaline on my cart. It should have been ready for me. I should have had a nurse. Hands shaking, I prepared the shot.
Galen had risked too much bringing her here. It was impossible to work like this.
And it was my fault. I should have called a halt to this the minute I saw how serious her condition was.
If anybody killed her, it would be me.
Limbs molten, I plunged the adrenaline into her battered artery.
Her spirit faltered. She bent over her body, watching it for a long slow moment. Then she continued to rise.
I pulled the shot out, tired, defeated, and sick with the whole damned thing. It was too late. I’d failed her and Galen. “Leta,” I said, remembering her name, angry at her, pissed as hell at myself, wishing to God I’d been quicker, better.
She lifted her head at the sound of her name. She was beautiful, with pronounced, sculpted features and lush lips that fell open when she saw me watching her.
“You can see me,” she said, breathless as she drew a hand down her long neck. The scars from her collar were raw and pink against her pale skin, which was surprising to say the least. Normally, spirits manifested without injuries. Her pain must have run deep enough to reach her soul. I shuddered. I’d never seen anything like it.
Marc came up on my side as she began to rise. I shook my head and pulled off my mask. “It’s too late.”
The spirit clamped a hand over her mouth and let out a small shriek. “You’re her!” Leta whispered.
Jesus Christ on a biscuit.
Marc exhaled sharply. “This woman’s a dragon.” He pulled down the blanket covering her, exposing a winged mark at her hip.
Leta’s soul paid no attention, her focus on me. “You’re the one I’ve been dreaming about!”
I stared at her, shock warring with complete and utter what-the-hell as Marc climbed up onto the table. He yanked at the waistband of his scrubs to reveal the dragon symbol on his hip. He positioned them together—brand against brand.
She was dead. I didn’t understand it. Besides, her brand looked different. They had to be from separate tribes or species or something.
He pressed against her and murmured words in a language I didn’t understand. The air thickened.
Her spirit hesitated.
He touched his chest over his heart,
reached inside himself,
and drew out what appeared to be a glimmering strand. It was so thin and light I could barely see it.
With great care, he placed whatever he’d drawn from his own heart over hers. It disappeared into her skin, as if it had never been there at all.