Page 10 of White Rabbit
The sheets beneath me.
The room was cold. It smelled antiseptic like the hospital where I used to work. In my old life. Before the Rusty Spike and Rad.
“It’s been almost three weeks, doctor,” my prince snarled. “Your brain shocks donothing.Nothing but put her in pain!” He sounded so angry. So protective. Of me. Me? No one cared about me anymore. But he seemed to. Who was he? I’d never heard his voice until it started entering my dreamless void.
“Mr. Kloboucnik…”
Another voice started. Kloboucnik? Another Russian? Like Rad and his associates? Did Rad sell me to him like he’d threatened to do so many times, telling me I was useless to him? What about my things? I’d been so close to being able to leave when Rad had attacked me.
“Nii!” Kloboucnik growled. “No excuses.”
Nii?That didn’t sound Russian.
Opening my eyes strained me more than lifting hundred pound weights at the gym. Somehow, I managed to push the lids up and almost dropped them immediately against the burn of the bright light. After a moment, I realized it wasn’t all that bright. My eyes were just accustomed to the dark.
My gaze shifted over to the man arguing with the doctor. Tall. Dark. Handsome—no. Drop-dead gorgeous. So cliche I would have laughed if I’d been able. My throat didn’t seem to be working.
His brilliant blue eyes were looking to the other side of me, fastened on the man which who he argued. A doctor? I would have looked by I couldn’t take my gaze from my prince…Mr. Kloboucnik. My attention scanned over him, taking in his window-pane patterned, charcoal-on-black suit that fit to him as if it were made for him. Judging by the Patek Philippe watch on his wrist, I’d guess it was bespoke.
Wide chest, slim hips, flat belly, thighs and ass that challenged his pants to contain their muscles—another sign that the suit was custom. No rack garment would contain him without sizing up and bagging at the waist. My attention moved upward before I could linger at the bulge his trousers didn’t quite disguise then tripped over another bulge that sent a shiver down my spine.
He was packing more than the lethal weapon in his pants. He had a gun tucked under his arm, one I wouldn’t detected if I hadn’t spent far too much time with thugs over the past two years.
“What have I been paying you for?” he demanded. “She was injured under your care and shestillisn’t awake despite all thepoking and prodding and putting her through God knows what trauma, atop all she’s already suffered.”
“I told you from day one that it’s not an exact science.”
“Unacceptable! I’ll find someone else—”
My fingers finally obeyed my command to move. I tightened my hand on his.
“Please…” I rasped. The word sounded like something from a reanimated mummy. I swallowed, desperately trying to lubricate my throat.
Kloboucnik’s gasp tore through the room, his striking blue gaze meeting my eyes. He sank down, his hand cupping my face.
“Moya kokhána,” he breathed.
“Who…?” I breathed more than spoke. I needed to know who my prince charming was. He’d been fighting my battle, fierce while he was gentle with me. The tenderness in his eyes when he looked at me—no one had ever looked at me like that. Especially Rad.
I shivered at the memory of that unending horror.
“Yours. I am yours,” the man said.
“Ms. Winchell, I’m Dr. Mason,” the other man interjected, moving in to my other side. For a moment, I’d forgotten he was there in the room, too. “You’re at Everand General, and you’ve been in a coma for nearly two months.”
“Okay,” I managed.
“Let’s get you checked out, shall we?” He looked over at my prince. “We need to run some pathology and do some diagnostic tests—CT and EEG. And I need to do a physical exam—”
“I’m staying.”
“I’m afraid that’s no longer up to you,” the doctor said, and despite his bravado, I could see he was taking his life into his hands here. Didn’t he know the other man was armed. “It’s up to Ms. Winchell now.”
Up to me? I didn’t want him to go!
My eyes went back to him. His sharp jaw clenched while he held himself in rigid control, becoming as immovable as a mountain.
I wanted him to stand between me and the world. Especially between me and Rad. That might be foolish of me. Something warned me this powerful, obviously rich man might me more dangerous than any I’d encountered.
