Page 10 of The Warrior's Captive

Her heart was still racing as she leapt to her feet. She was about to let the wolf looseand fight to her death, but a spatter of red froze her mid-motion. Mid-thought. She stared down at the red drop on the dirty old floorboards. Another soon joined it. Blood.

She snatched her eyes to the roof. There was no horror movie style body strapped to the ceiling that she’d missed dripping gore. The blood was coming from an ever-darkening patch on Hades’s shirt. The black conveniently hid the stain from view.

“You’re hurt.” Understatement of the century. He was bleeding now like he was trying to single-handedly restock the nation’s supply.

In a daze, he hauled off his t-shirt. The ink did indeed extend up his arms and all down his chest. There wasn’t an inch of skin to be seen. She wasn’t wrong about the scars. They dotted his body, calling to her, a map for her fingers to explore and learn. Thankfully, her attention was immediately drawn to the once white bandage wrapped tight around his side. It was now a vivid crimson. Blood welled from beneath the makeshift wrapping and continued to spatter the floor.

“Fuck.” His hand shot to the wound like he could hold back his lifeforce.

“Were you shot?” Just how violent had that fight with his men been?

“Knife wound.”

He stormed over to his pack in the dusty corner. How much time had he spent getting her here? Barricading the place? Cleaning the little farmhouse to make it semi-habitable? All while he was injured like that?

“You need treatment.”

His jaw ticked as he pulled the bandage off, unwinding it from his thick torso. His abs flexed as he heaved a breath in and out. He was trying to measure his breathing. Control the pain so he could force himself not to feel it and not to react. As soon as that bloodied strip of cloth hit the floor, she was the one who couldn’t control her rough gasp.

That was no simple wound. As a shifter, he should have healed long ago, but he hadn’t. The wound went deep. She could see the layers of the cut. It was more than just a slash. It looked like he’d been stabbed with a serrated knife. Whoever had been wielding it clearly wanted to slice him in half.

The blood started flowing more freely and his chest heaved in and out once, the swirling ink coming alive. Two ancient warriors standing in a field of grass, a huge oak tree surrounding them. They had their heads bent almost touching. Overhead, the birds flew and above that, like it was both night and day at once, the stars. An endless sea of stars that covered his shoulders. Across his pecs, breaking the stars, was a Latin inscription, Memento Mori.

He was a giant, fearful and awe inspiring, oddly beautiful in a god of death kind of way. He seemed untouched by life, but he wasn’t. This wound was only proof. The inscription on his chest, a part of him until that death came, seemed to prove true when he faltered. He took one step forward and then went down on his knees. His eyes glazed over and blood poured from between his fingers.

He seemed as stunned as she was.

She could have run.

She should have run, but instead in that moment her only thoughts were of helping this man.

Her hand flew to his shoulder in a swift move to steady him, but he surged back, away from her touch. She glared at him. “You can tell me what you to do or your stubborn ass can bleed out right here and I’ll find my way back to my pack.”

“My death would be no great loss for you.”

“Too bad you didn’t think about that before you started this whole messy venture.”

She couldn’t pretend that she didn’t care. She wasn’t a good actress, and playing the merciless, soulless cad wasn’t in her. She’d already given up so many parts of herself. She’d dreamed of being someone else. Someone more adventurous and less afraid. How could she manage the world out there, when she was barely able to venture an hour away from her pack lands to Sheridan? It was just a small city, and the few times she’d gone, she’d felt put on display. Like she was just a few seconds away from being captured and shoved into some lab or zoo, forever experimented on and stared at, left to die the loneliest and most painful of deaths. She wanted to be someone bold. Someone another person desired and wanted to take for a mate. She’d wanted, more than anything, to be a mother. Even if those dreams were the ones she’d all but given up on, she refused to give up the parts of herself she was proud of. It wasn’t wrong to be kind and gentle. There was a fire in that too. She’d heard her father say that about her mother more times than she could count. That she had a heart of steel.

Hades swayed on his knees. His blood poured steadily onto the floor, the bright red puddle growing by the second. It smelled hot and metallic.

“Fuck this.” She stalked over to the corner where she’d seen his axes and that small black pack.

The fact that he didn’t stop her was proof enough that he was in serious trouble. She had no clue what she was doing and none of the vials were labeled. There were empty syringes and some that weren’t empty. Which one had he given her to make her sleep? How much and how often?

She passed them over quickly, before he could notice her thinking about it. His eyes might be ice, but they burned like fire as they took in her every movement. She finally found what looked like a first aid kit in a plastic bag. Bandages, antiseptic, swabs, gauze. Inside that bag was the kind of needle used for stitches and suturing thread. Tweezers of several different sizes. Pliers?

“You’re going to have to tell me what to do.” Her voice shook, which shot her authority to shit.

Hades tensed, obviously in pain, though his face didn’t change. Her heart beat hard as she took the whole bag over to him.

“You need to lie down. I can’t do this while you’re hovering over me.”

“Give it to me.” He tried to take the bag from her, but he swayed and nearly fell forward at that small movement.

“Do you want me to sedate you?” she asked as she looked at the bottles.

He shook his head and growled, “No sedation.”

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