Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Scout, put your guns away! They have to treat Xoe,” Gage ordered, his tone full of exasperation.
“We know you’re worried, so are we, but they really just want to help your master,” Wayne said softly, like he was coaxing a scared child. “Please, let them work on her leg.”
My leg? The one that the lusca had bitten?
Scout gave an angry beep, but I could hear the sound of their body shifting.
“W-W-We’ll begin working on her leg now,” a man stuttered as he neared me.
“Y-Your Highness, could you please step back?” another unfamiliar male voice asked.
“No,” Zeke growled and I felt his hand tighten around mine.
My eyes refused to open no matter how hard I tried.
At least until pain surged from below my right knee all the way up my body, causing me to jerk upright and scream, my eyes fully open.
Zeke growled, Scout still in her drone form with guns out hovered over my head, and Wayne’s eyes glowed.
The two unfamiliar men by my leg stilled, their eyes wide in terror.
I looked down and my brain took several moments to comprehend what I was looking at. What I wasn’t seeing.
There was nothing from my knee down on my right leg. It was … missing.
“M-My leg,” I gasped and tears built in my eyes.
Preston set a hand on my cheek, turning my face until I looked at him. “It’s going to be alright. They’re going to give you a prosthetic. You’ll be able to run around and stress us out to your heart’s content in no time.”
I had an IV in my hand and lay in a white room that looked like a medical room. Wayne and Gage stood at the end of my bed while Zeke sat in a chair beside me, his hand gripping mine. They all looked furious and sad at the same time.
“We need to sedate her if it hurts this much from a single touch,” one of the healers said.
Zeke growled again.
“At …” I swallowed hard around my dry throat. “At least make sure it looks cool,” I said as I lay back down, trying to lighten the mood despite the situation.
Preston stroked his thumb over my cheek, his eyes full of emotion. “You’ll have the best leg in the galaxy,” he promised.
“I’ll make sure of it,” Wayne promised. “The best technology available. I’ve designed it myself already and we can make adjustments until you’re satisfied with it.”
“Scout,” I whispered. She hadn’t stopped pointing her weapons at the men. “Scout, you need to let them do their jobs. I could die if they don’t treat it.”
That seemed to snap her out of it and she shrank back down and zipped to her resting spot behind my ear.
Preston brushed hair out of my face and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “One of us will be with you at all times. Let the medicine put you to sleep while the healers do their jobs. You’re safe, I promise.”
“Okay,” I said with a nod, my eyes already growing heavy from the sedative the healer had put into the IV.
What felt like moments later, my eyes opened again, but the lights were thankfully dimmed this time. My body felt heavy, but when I looked down, I realized it was because Zeke lay across my waist, his head rested on his folded arms.
I brushed hair out of his face and noticed the thick stubble on his jaw that indicated he hadn’t shaved recently.
How long had I been out?
Zeke stirred from my touch, his eyes snapped open, and he jerked upright, reaching forward to set his hands on my face. “Are you in pain?”
I shook my head and opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out due to how dry my throat was.
Gage held out a cup of water with a straw, startling me since I hadn’t realized he was sitting in a chair next to my hospital bed.
The rest of the room was empty, just Gage and Zeke were with me.
After taking several small drinks, I asked, “How long have I been out?”
“Two days,” Gage answered. “They said it was most likely from the trauma your body went through.”
“The Games?” There was still one more round that I hadn’t participated in.
“You won,” Preston said as he entered the room.
My head snapped up to meet his eyes. “What? But the final round—”
“You were the only one who defeated a lusca after falling in. The others fled, giving up instead of hanging on the bar, and the ones who fell in either died or fled without killing one. You’re the winner of the Games,” Preston answered.
My mouth dropped.
“My parents will host the awards ceremony once you’re cleared to leave the medic ward,” he said and leaned his hip against the side of my hospital bed. His expression shifted and he asked, “Are you in pain?”
“I haven’t tried or looked yet,” I admitted. “I don’t feel pain right now, but I haven’t moved my body much.” I was scared, but didn’t want to say that out loud.
“Wayne worked really hard on your leg,” Gage said. “He went two days without sleep, actually.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s on his way here,” Zeke answered. “I let him know you’re awake.”
“Did anything else happen while I was out? Did you find out how they managed to obtain lusca when my planet is destroyed?”
“Someone had taken some baby luscas off-planet before it was destroyed,” Preston answered. “The one who obtained them for the Games swears they didn’t know how vicious the creatures were, that they were told they were only as dangerous as a normal shark.”
“So, you don’t think it was done intentionally to try to kill me,” I confirmed and he nodded.
“We’ve waited to deal with Vicky until you were awake,” Zeke said, his voice full of growling and hard to understand due to it.
“Since she tried to murder you, we though you should get the say in how to deal with her. I wanted to rip her head off in a public execution, but Wayne and Preston forced me to wait. So, what would you like to do? Do you want to execute her yourself?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted and looked at Preston. “What would you advise?”
“Zeke is the military head,” Preston said. “I can offer my suggestion, but you should listen to him.”
Zeke looked murderous, but I knew it wasn’t aimed at me. “Clearly, you think I should execute her,” I said softly.
He nodded. “The more public, the better. They need to know that harming you is akin to harming one of us. That we won’t accept such a blatant attempt on your life without severe consequences.”
“So, a public execution as a deterrent for others,” I said and sighed.
“This is not how I wanted to start my life here … with death.” I did understand what he was saying, though.
If we didn’t make an example out of her, we could look weak and others that were considering it would be emboldened.
“Wouldn’t it be better to give her some other severe punishment, but allow her to live since she’s one of your rare females?
There were two lost during the Games already, wouldn’t losing another be a hit to your race? ”
“Four,” Gage whispered.
“What?” I asked as I turned to him.
“Four females died during the Games from the luscas,” he answered.
I dropped my head down and covered my face with my hands. Four innocent women killed by the luscas in what was supposed to be a non-lethal event. Terrible.
“Can’t I just say that due to the deaths of the women in the Games and the dwindling female population, that I won’t shed more blood by killing Vicky and instead banish her?”
“Banishing her might work,” Gage said. “Especially if we banish her to off-planet.”
Zeke growled. “She should die.”
Reaching over, I took one of his hands in mine and raised my head to look at him.
“I’m not dead, Giant. I understand you want blood …
” I would too if I was in his shoes and someone had tried to kill one of them.
“… but I want to show them that I’m empathetic and understanding of the fertility concerns of the Dragonkin.
Plus, she wasn’t the one who obtained the lusca. ”
He growled and dropped his head, but didn’t reply.
Wayne entered and rushed over to hug me, smiling. “I’m so glad you’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“She hasn’t tried her new leg out yet, we’ve been waiting for you,” Gage answered for me. “She hasn’t even looked at it.”
Wayne’s smile fell away. “Oh, okay.” He fidgeted with his hands as he stepped back and looked at where my leg was hidden beneath the blanket. He took a deep breath and pulled the cover back to expose my leg.
I stared in shock as I had expected metal, but instead found an almost normal looking leg, the “skin” the same color as my upper leg. The only reason I could tell it wasn’t my leg was because just below the knee there was a quarter inch or small gap all the way around my leg.
“There’s tape in the same skin tone that you can put around the gap to hide it,” Wayne said quickly, noticing my stare.
“What is it made of?” I asked.
“I got the best quality cybernetics and worked with a top android scientist to ensure what I created would work. This leg will have no pain receptors, but if you stub your toe or cut it, an alert will pop up in your display.”
“Can you wiggle your toes?” Zeke asked.
Staring at my toes, my new toes, I thought of wiggling them and they immediately did. It even felt like when I wiggled them on my real foot.
I tossed the bedsheet all the way off so I could see both legs and wiggled the toes on both feet. It felt the same.
“Wow,” I whispered.
Wayne reached out and brushed a finger from my heel up on the underside of my foot. I chuckled and pulled my leg up. “It tickles!”
He smiled. “Great! I was worried it might not work properly. Even though you won’t feel pain, I wanted you to still feel most other sensations.”
Pulling my knee up, I ran a hand down the fake bottom half of my leg. It felt real, though a bit firmer than a normal leg. “This is incredible.”
“Let’s have you try to stand on it,” Wayne said and held out his hands.
“Isn’t it too soon for that,” Zeke said and jumped to his feet.
“She’s not in any pain,” Gage reminded him quickly. “And she’s been asleep for several days, so she shouldn’t feel any pain when she stands on it. Wayne and the doctors spent a lot of time ensuring the nerve connections were right.”