Chapter Sixteen
Feralyn
The first thing I was aware of was pain.
The second was his scent.
It was gone.
Panic sliced through the fog clouding my brain. “Helios?” Raw and scratched and burning, I pushed the cry past my poor throat, but I couldn’t get my eyes to open, so I recklessly reached out. Blinding pain shot across my entire torso, and an animal let out a death wail.
“Right here, Haven.” A huge, calloused hand grabbed mine and gently lowered my arm. “Take it easy. Those ribs need time to heal.”
Everything came back. Again.
A sob reared up, but pure agony snuffed my breath. “Help.”
“Hitting your pain meds, Haven, but it hasn’t been four hours. Open your eyes, sweetheart. I need you to look at me.”
It hurt. Everything hurt. But I opened my eyes.
Too bright.
I closed them.
“Come on, Haven.”
I blinked, but even my eyelids hurt. Oh God, why did they hurt? “Please.”
Forceful and stern, he bit out a demand. “Look at me.”
I looked.
Too dark. Night. Helios. Helios. My relief was short-lived. “You. Left.”
“Not for a fucking second. Been here the whole time.” His stern gaze cut across my face, then met my eyes again.
“You need more pain meds, I’ll get the doc.
But if you’re just reacting to the movement of reaching out, you need to feel that.
You’re gonna have limited range of motion until you heal.
Better you know now how far you can push it. You hearing me?”
“Smell.” I took a shallow breath and tried again. “You left.”
For a second, his eyes closed and he muttered a curse. “Took a quick shower in your bathroom. But thanks for telling me I fucking stunk.”
“No.” I shook my head and immediately regretted it. “No stink.” I switched to a short breath through my mouth. “Smelled good.” But he didn’t now. The familiarity of his scent was gone.
My stepbrother stared at me.
Fighting not to close my eyes, I stared back.
Then he leaned down close and barely touched his forehead to mine. “Fuck, Haven.” His harsh exhale fanned across my face, and his voice became a low, grated, pained vibration that was more growl than whisper. “Seeing you like this is fucking killing me.”
A tear slid down my face.
Abruptly standing back up, he cleared his throat. “You need more pain meds.” His gaze drifted to my side. “Hitting the Call button now.”
“Wait.” I didn’t want anyone coming into… wherever we were. “No one,” I managed.
“Doc and nurses only. You’re secure.” He glanced toward the door.
I saw the gun in the holster at his waist that he wasn’t attempting to hide. I knew how brutal Helios could be. That wasn’t what I meant. “Home.”
He looked back at me. “Trust me, Haven, I want you out of here as soon as possible, but that’s not gonna happen until I know it’s safe to move you.”
Hurting, frustrated, hearing him call me Haven, more tears fell, and I turned my head.
A moment later, a male nurse came in.
“How is she—”
“Get the doc.” Helios didn’t even let the guy finish his sentence. “She needs her pain meds adjusted.”
Younger than Helios, shorter because everyone was shorter than Helios, his shoulders almost half the width of Helios’s, the nurse still held his own. “Sir, she’s already on a high dose of morphine.”
“Didn’t ask for your opinion. You’re not the attending physician. Get the doc in here. Now.”
Either intimidated or choosing his battles, the nurse nodded. “Yes, sir.”
The door snicked shut, and I took two shallow breaths to speak. “No more medicine.” I was groggy enough. “Home.”
“Not gonna ask for more.” A heavy hand gentled across my forehead. “Telling the doc to switch it up now that you’re awake and talking.”
I turned my head back toward Helios.
He was staring down at me, but he wasn’t the Helios I used to know. The boy who’d brought me wedding cake, the eighteen-year-old who’d left for basic training, the Delta Force operator who’d returned years later—he was none of those things now.
He was an avenging savior who had seen me naked.
I shifted against the uncomfortable tie of fabric at the back of my neck. “How long since…?”
A warfighter glanced at his watch. “Fifty-nine hours, forty-seven minutes.”
My heart stalled, then tumbled into an erratic pattern. Numbers and lines on a digital display in my peripheral fluttered and jumped. “Where did they….” The memory of putrid seawater and rank body odor filled my nostrils. “Where was I?”
Helios’s punishing stare cut to the door, then landed back on me as he stood. “You were in a car accident.” Leaning over me, he lowered his voice. “In front of the house.”
A man in a white coat walked into the room. “Master Sergeant, I see your wife’s awake.”
Wife?
Helios didn’t miss a beat. “She needs the morphine stepped down and Percocet added.”
Smiling at me as he stepped up to the bed, the older doctor with salt-and-pepper hair ignored Helios. “I’m Doctor Kinsale. How are you feeling?”
Dirty, terrified, drowning in pain. I said none of that. “I want to go home.”
“I can imagine. We’ll get you out of here as soon as possible.” The doctor unleashed a stethoscope from around his neck and placed the listening part against my chest. “Breathe as deep as you comfortably can.”
I forced myself to take more than a shallow breath.
“Good,” the doctor murmured, moving the stethoscope as Helios hovered on the other side of the bed. “On a scale of one to ten, how is your pain?”
One thousand. “Five.”
The doctor smiled like he knew I was full of shit as he returned the stethoscope to his neck. “All right, we’re going to step down on the morphine and introduce some oral pain medication. Can you comfortably swallow?”
I started to nod, then thought better of it. “Yes.”
“Good. I’ll put the order in, and we’ll see how you do.
” The doctor looked at Helios. “She’s scheduled for an MRI for her head and another CT scan so I can check those ribs.
The orthopedic surgeon took a look at her X-rays, and no surgery is needed on her wrist or ankle.
He’ll stop by during rounds tomorrow. In the meantime, see if you can get her to eat.
” The doctor looked back at me. “Any other questions?”
“Shower?” I didn’t know how I would get up, but ever since Helios had said he’d showered, my skin had been crawling. Itching to get the layers of filth and bad memories off me, I would find a way.
The doctor patted my arm. “After the scans and after you eat something, a nurse can help you.”
“I’ll help her,” Helios clipped with absolute authority.
My stomach dropped, and shame burned my cheeks.
The doctor’s mild smile held as he glanced from Helios to me. “You have quite the protector watching over you.”
“When are they gonna do the scans?” Helios demanded, saving me from a reply.
“I’ll tell the nurse to let you know when radiology is on their way up. They’re slightly backlogged at the moment, but it shouldn’t be long. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have the results. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Roger that,” Helios replied.
The doctor nodded at Helios. “Master Sergeant.” He smiled at me. “Ma’am.” Then he left.
Helios grabbed a corded phone from a table next to the side of the bed. “What do you want to eat, Haven?”
“Ginger ale.”
“Not a food.” He dialed, then held the phone to his ear.
I couldn’t think of anything I could stomach. Not food, not the pain, not this… this….
Wife.
A tear fell.
Rattling off a room number, then an order into the phone, Helios stared down at me with an expression that was lethally controlled.
Another tear fell, and I closed my eyes.