Page 4 of Tempting Jupiter
The pulse field flickered back on. Fitz tipped his head. “No, I think we all know you’re nothing more than a common thief.”
Feeona watched the men file out of the room. As he was being led away, the prisoner shot her a glance from beneath long lashes. His big eyes blinked then caressed the prone form on her floor.
As they disappeared, Feeona kneeled next to the bleeding man and popped open the kit. She pulled out some gauze pads and tugged him onto his back.
There was a lot of blood.
The wounds weren’t new. Traces of bandage and sealant residue clung around the injuries. The reopened puncture wounds had been deep and could have killed him. They still could, but she wasn’t going to let that happen. Someone had taken the time to patch him up, and it would be a shame to let that effort go to waste.
She leaned over him, her lips near his unusual ears. “Lucky for you I’m not really a common thief,” she said. “I’m abrilliantthief.” She laid the gauze over the big wound in his abdomen and pressed down hard. She engaged her link with Bug and redirected the small mechanical assistant to locate the med-bay. Bug wasn’t really designed for carrying things. It would take a few trips to get everything she needed. First priority was a shot of blood-doubler. She sent the command, leaving the link open in case Bug needed additional input.
“Hang in there, big guy.” As Feeona kept pressure on the biggest wound, she studied his face. He and the other prisoner might both be Arena Dogs, but they didn’t look all that much alike. In addition to his dark copper coloring, this one had a wide jaw and nose and his wolf-like ears were much larger. She couldn’t tell about his eyes. “I can wait,” she told him. “You sleep and get some rest. I’ll see those eyes when you’re feeling better.”
He had plump lips and the tips of overdeveloped canines pressed against them. It all added up to something not quite human. Maybe they were both alien. But what she’d heard of the Arena Dogs had always led her to believe they were of Earth descent, just like the original gladiators they were meant to recreate. She’d never seen one, of course. And the sum total of her knowledge came from transmissions advertising luxury excursions to Roma—home to the sector’s legendary and brutal Roma Rex Arena. Proof of that brutality had been carved into this man’s body. She could only guess what it had done to his soul.
She shifted, still hunched over him, letting her weight do most of the work. It was all she could do for him while she directed Bug to the medical area, but she found her attention divided. The stranger’s chestnut hair had been cropped close, leaving his softly curved ears exposed. They looked soft as velvet and thin as parchment. She wanted to stroke them and see if they were as soft as they looked. The thought of indulging that whim made her belly clench. With his eyes closed and his face slack, he looked vulnerable, something she’d bet a big man like him would deny.
She couldn’t help the smile that forced its way onto her face. “I hope you don’t turn out to be a total ass. It would ruin these little fantasies forming in my head.” And she couldn’t remember the last time she’d fantasized about any man. She normally avoided the bruiser type as much as she could. If this guy was what it took to wake up her feminine hormones, she was in trouble. “No. You’re not any ordinary bruiser, are you?” But she figured she was right about the trouble.
Chapter Three
TheSalleyHo
EarthAllianceBeta Sector
2210.146
Jupiter woke to a sharp spasm in his belly and a confusing mix of scents. An unfamiliar figure leaned over him. Acting on instinct, he tried to shove the shadowy attacker away, but his muscles were weak. The silhouette hunched over him blurred at the edges as light bled around to reveal hints of the creature’s identity. Clothed, small, bloody—with Jupiter’s blood. When he lurched forward, the flex of his abdominals shot shards of icy, strength-stealing pain through his muscles. His right arm didn’t respond at all, and the left moved only inches before it bumped benignly against his torturer.
“Hey, hold still, big guy. I’m working here.”
The voice was gruff, annoyed, and female. As she looked up from her task, light painted her features and Jupiter’s vision adjusted to his current reality. She was human. He lay on the floor and she kneeled beside him. There was something chemical overpowering her feminine scent markers. What hecouldread from her, told him she was anxious but not why. Despite her demanding tone, she was not a guard. Not a threat.
“What are you doing?” Forcing out the words helped focus his mind. Roma had few females on staff. Most were medics.
“I’m trying to close this wound. I’ve got sealer here, but it’s a mess.”
He lifted his head to look down his body. The woman’s hands were steady, but she was trying to push the edges of the wound closed with only her fingers and they kept slipping in the blood.
“I said hold still, damn it. You’ll only make it bleed more.” She reached for a crimson-soaked wad of gauze and wiped futilely at the blood. “Crap! The sealer won’t bond if I can’t get the edges together. I think the major repair job inside is okay, but you’ve ripped the wound open and torn it even farther. What did this, anyway? Looks like someone tried to punch a hole in your chest.”
The memory of the spike stabbing into his chest flashed in and out of his thoughts. It had been an accident. A misplaced elbow and a spiked gauntlet worn by his opponent. Jupiter’s thoughts went to Seneca. They both were meant to die in that match. The ache of worry for his pack brother rivaled the pain of the hole in his gut.
“Damn.” The woman’s curse refocused his attention on the present.
Herfocus was entirely on her task.
It was going badly.
Where were the tools of her trade? He’d spent enough time in the med center to know them all on sight. Clamps? A suture threader? No arena healer lowered themselves to the floor to treat a Dog. No, she was no medic. He looked around but recognized nothing. The unadorned walls were close. A bunk hung from one wall, and an energy field of some kind filled the only exit.
Jupiter tried again to lift his left hand. His arm stretched out along the floor until it bumped against the woman. He managed to bend it, but lifting it clear of her was beyond his strength. “Help me pull my arm over you.”
“Uh, I’m a little busy—”
He growled with all his strength to stop her flow of words and gain her compliance.
Her head lifted and she met his stare with wide, surprised eyes. The vivid green of them startled him when everything else about her was muted and unadorned. She wore her hair in a skull-hugging style that ended in a knot at her neck. Her clothes were a dull black and they covered her skin, neck to toe.
