Page 11 of The Warrior's Captive

“Look, you don’t have to be so damn macho. If I was going to run away, I would have, it’s not like you’re in any fit state to stop me now. I want to help you.”

“No sedation,” he repeated.

She grasped his shoulder again, the heat of his skin sizzling under her palms. He was either running a fever or she imagined that heat. She wanted to get him onto the mattress, but instead he sprawled out there, pushing his legs out. His boots knocked against the floorboards. Stretched to his full length, he seemed to take up the whole room. He certainly sucked all the oxygen out of it. Out of her lungs.

“Clean it first,” he barked out.

“With the antiseptic?”

“Yes. That’s all I have.”

“That’s going to hurt.”

“Do it.”

By the time she got the bottle and knelt over him, he was braced for the pain. That was only going to make it hurt worse, but she poured fast, covering the whole wound. Hades’s body tensed and shook, but he never let out a single sound. Not even so much as a breath, and when it came, it came impossibly quiet.

“Good.”

She felt like she’d already killed him. Her heart was doing something it shouldn’t be doing. It was somewhere in her belly, and her belly was in her throat. All her insides were all mixed up, in a strange and horrible jumble. If she’d had half a mind to think, she might have given more consideration to the traitorous thought, that part of what she was feeling now had more to do with the aftereffects of his kiss, rather than this. But she was too busy running on adrenaline to give that much consideration.

“Start sewing.”

“I have no idea how!”

He grabbed the needle from her, the thread. He made his hands work. He pinched the wound together as much as he could, the blood welling and spilling, spilling, spilling, and then he started sewing. Until his hands paused and his eyes shut. His eyelashes fanned out over his cheeks, long and flaxen, a shade darker than his hair.

Had he passed out? She needed to get the rest of that wound closed up. She reached for the needle, but he knocked her hand away. Forced his eyes open. They were glazed over, he looked fuzzy with pain, but he continued stitching a messy, crooked line over his abdomen.

“How are you not dead?”

He snorted. Exhaled a little too long and sharp. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead, shining in the sunlight spilling through the glassless window. “I’m good at not dying. It’s what a warrior does. What a soldier does. He stays alive to carry out his orders and complete his mission.”

“What kinds of missions?”

“The kinds you don’t want to know about.”

“How many people have you killed?” She wanted to grab the words and shove them back down her throat. She watched his neck, the straining tendons there, the muscles in his jaw cloaked by the beard, but still jumping as his teeth clenched, the vein throbbing in his forehead.

“I don’t know. I’ve lost count.” He was lying. “I was a soldier. Legit. In the Army and all. That’s not a thing you ask a man who did something like that.”

“How many have you killed outside of the army, then?”

The needle paused. He was only halfway there. She’d probably do a better job of it than he did, but he didn’t seem bothered by how it looked. Only that the wound stayed shut and the bleeding stopped.

“I’m not going to tell you that. You know I’m a killer. Let that suffice.”

His pulse thrashed in his neck. Too fast. He wouldn’t look at her. His hand shook ever so slightly as he pulled the needle through his own skin again. It was all signs that it hurt. A lot. He was good at hiding his suffering. Had he grown up in a culture where showing weakness or fear or emotion was enough to get you hurt? Killed? Was it drilled out of him? Beaten out of him? Or did that come later, when he crossed whatever lines officially made him call himself a killer?

“For hire?” She wished she could shut up.

His eyes finally snapped to her even though his hands kept working. “I don’t do it for pleasure.”

She sat back on her heels, heart now hammering desperately. “That’s a relief.”

He was clearly struggling to finish off the last few stitches. His eyes weren’t right. They were even more glazed over when he blinked. They wouldn’t focus on her any longer. His hands paused. She surged forward, but he knocked her hands away again as soon as they brushed his.

He looked like he was barely holding on to consciousness, but he slipped the needle through over and over. When he reached the end, he tied it off and finally let his head slump to the wooden floorboards.

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