Page 2 of Venomous Heart
“Stop talking.” Her voice was weak and low and she couldn’t suppress the pain behind it. Not this time. “I swear, old man, if you ever speak of Uril again, I’ll leave you like you are now and you’ll never walk again!”
His mouth twisted within his dirty beard and he glared at her, but didn’t make another sound. This was better. She could take those two eyes filled with disgust and hatred, but not the words. The words always had a way of burrowing under her skin, replaying at night in her mind when all she wanted was to sleep.
Now that Will Harl was silent, she had to focus on her work.
Ava lifted the blanket and couldn’t suppress her grimace of disgust at the stench coming from the man’s body. His leg was mangled, the bone gleaming shocking white against the red of the wound. It was an open fracture, but not a recent one.
Discolored flesh bloomed all around the gaping wound, oozing pus as dark red tendrils of infection ran across his skin to the thigh.
“You should not have waited so long to come here.” She shook her head. “What happened to you?”
“I fell down the wall during a patrol.” The man bit out his words but they sounded true enough. “Then there was a storm. They couldn’t bring me in for a week. “
Ava bit the inside of her cheek. This wasn’t the first time a patient got to her so late because the facility he called home was too far from the medical clinic. Most of them were still reluctant to move in to what people called The Tower, a dizzying building capable of housing all the humans, which overlooked a large square not far from the mansion.
She understood why people were reluctant to move, but she also knew it was impractical and dangerous to leave the population scattered to the far corners of the planet with only one doctor to care for them. She had to talk to Jonah about this. What if someone was truly injured at one of the most remote locations? What if someone died out there because they couldn’t get to her?
But now, she couldn’t think of those people out there. What mattered was this man, lying in pain in front of her.
“Another day and there would have been little I could have done for that leg. I would have had to cut it off.”
“I’d sooner cut your throat than let you cut my leg.”
Ava dropped the sheets back down and braced her hands on the sides of the bed. Her jaw clenched so hard it hurt as she bent ever so slightly over him, glaring openly until he blinked, then looked away. Pain washed over his features, smeared with dirt and despair. Her sudden flare of anger receded.
It’s not his fault he’s cruel and hateful. He’s just weak, like most of them.
Holding her mixed blood heritage against her gave these people a purpose. Something to focus their anger on.
Will Harl needed her. She had the power of life or death over him, a power she would never misuse, no matter how much she was hurt.
I’m better than this.
Her temper abated, deflating as easily as it was awoken. This man was not the enemy. The enemy was gone, and now she had to fight her own battle to gain her place as one ofthem. Aveyn was her only home, the only place in the Ring where she had a chance at a life. A real life. And she wasn’t going to give up without a fight.
“I won’t amputate your leg.” She spoke in a calm voice, falling back easily into her medical role. “But the treatment will be long. There will be pain.”
“Can’t be worse than this.” Will pushed his head hard against the pillow, the tendons in his neck standing up with the strain of controlling his fear and pain.
“You’re wrong.” She shook her head slightly. “I will have to clean the wound before I can administer the nanites to fight the infection.”
“That’s okay.” He nodded. “Just get on with it.”
“I’m afraid you don’t understand.” She turned and picked up a scalpel and ionic wand. “I have no pain control medicine in this facility. I can’t put you under. I’ll have to clean the wound with you wide awake.”
Will’s eyes grew wide but he remained silent. It was better that way. There was nothing to say anyway.
He didn’t remain silent for long. Soon, the small surgical room was filled with his screams.
* * *
Arlen
Arlen stared hard through the large window at the green orb that was the planet Aveyn, floating in the aseptic void of space but getting closer and closer. As the interstellar transport ship—one of the Eokian fleet’s jewels—approached his next assignment, he was having more and more trouble keeping his temper in check. This was an assignment he would give anything to avoid.
He turned toward his brother, Karian, who standing silently at his side, then immediately regretted it. Pain and anger still flared inside him at the sight of his brother, even after over a year.
It will never be the same as before. He should know that. Why doesn’t he leave me alone?
