Page 27 of Forbidden

As she turned from him, his attention never left Mara or her team. Unfortunately, when she bent over the patient to grab something just out of reach, the fabric of her pants stretched tightly across her backside. He blinked as an unbidden image of that shapely rear clothed in nothing but his hands stabbed into his consciousness.

Damn!

It took his team just shy of five minutes to ensure all was ready for Mara’s patient. Mikkarn looked down at the dying man just as Mara spoke to her nurses.

“No, squeeze them in. He needs blood too badly to let it drip on its own, and we don’t have a pump.”

“That’s not advisable, Dr. Jenson. This is untyped blood.” Mikkarn almost felt sorry for the nurse who spoke. Almost. Mara knew what she was doing, and any delay in carrying out her orders could very possibly cost this man his life.

“Just do it!” Mara snapped. “Or leave. I really don’t care which.”

Another nurse, who wisely kept her head down, squeezed a bag attached to a tube coming from the patient’s mouth, while another nurse pressed the man’s chest downward with a considerable amount of force in a steady rhythm. Mara had one hand inserted past her wrist inside the man’s gut.

Blood was everywhere.

“If you’re done fiddling with your fancy gizmos, we could really use a little help here.” Mara’s voice was strained, incensed. Almost accusing. She never even glanced at him.

Mikkarn ignored her biting comment. “You must remove your hand from his body.” His irritation was of no consequence. The only thing that mattered was getting this patient to a healing tube safely.

“If I do that, he’ll bleed to death in seconds. I’m plugging his aorta.”

“Transfer will be instantaneous. You will move on my mark.”

She looked at him then. “You better be right about this.”

Mikkarn didn’t flinch. “Ready? Now.”

Mara removed her hand.

?* * *

Mara’s first encounter with her mentor, Dr. Mikkarn Tovel, and the brooding bodyguard, Kiril Cha’marn, was a mixture of intense emotions. The instant she’d pulled her hand from the dying man’s belly, her patient simply vanished. For several seconds, Mara knelt where she was. Talk about anticlimactic.

Well, that was until she got a good look at Mikkarn, and his silent shadow. The adrenaline rush she had experienced during the life and death struggle was quickly replaced with a surge of lust so strong, she sat flat on her butt in dismay. These men were as different as daylight and dark, but she was hard-pressed to decide which man was the sexiest.

Mikkarn was exceedingly tall -- perhaps six feet seven inches -- towering over her own five foot three inch frame. Exceedingly tall and very lean, wearing a loose-fitting white shirt and pants. His muscled, vein-roped forearms were bare, and when he moved she caught glimpses of a nicely chiseled chest. His eyes, though ice blue, held a wealth of warmth in them, welcoming her within their depths. Lightly tanned skin and a lustrous head of long, blond hair completed a man she could have created in her fondest dreams.

The other one, the silent, looming one, probably sprang from her worst nightmares.

Kiril was heavily armored, but Mara doubted he was anything other than one solidly built warrior. He couldn’t be anything else. His skin was a rich mocha color and black eyebrows revealed the hair color hidden by his helmet. His eyes were so brown, they were almost black, and she knew those eyes saw straight to her soul… and found her lacking.

Once she recovered herself, and the necessary introductions were made, Mikkarn took Mara straight to her patient. She could see for herself the machine working to repair damage no Earth surgeon would have had a prayer of fixing.

“I greatly admire what you were able to accomplish today. I doubt anyone among my own people could have saved that man under the same circumstances.”

For a moment, she thought he might be making fun of her and Earth’s “primitive” medicine, but something in his eyes said otherwise. She just stared at him a moment, not sure what to say.

“Well, we didn’t save him, did we?” It was a statement more than a question. “You said the magic words and he vanished off to Neverland where he will emerge whole again. My thanks to you.” Mara was certain her irritation radiated off her in waves.

Mikkarn sighed. “I am trying to compliment your skill.”

“Coming from theMasters of the Universe, that’s a very great compliment indeed,” she drawled. “Why is it, by the way, that you can bring the dead back to life, but you have this aversion to a little blood?”

He blinked. “You think the blood bothered me?”

Mara shrugged. “It seemed the logical conclusion. Besides --” she did her best to pin him with a sharp look, difficult when looking so far up just to catch his gaze, “-- I’d rather think you didn’t likeanyblood than that you just didn’t want to dirty yourself withhumanblood.”

He backed away a step, surprise in his azure eyes. “Mara, I came here to help your people. All life is precious to me.”

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