by Raven Dark
When I looked up again, the remaining Rith slammed his staff into Z’pheer’s stomach, then ran at Raul. They fought, axe to staff, until the Rith knocked Raul’s feet from under him. The axe went flying. The Rith pointed his staff right at Raul’s head.
Malek grabbed at the creature, but the Rith whipped around, and his head dove for Malek’s shoulder, teeth dripping with saliva.
With the poison that had killed Gwen and Raul’s father.
“Malek!” I screamed.
Malek roared in pain. The Rith released him, running for the door while Malek crumbled to the floor, twitching.
The swish of an axe cutting through the air filled my ears. There was a meaty thwack, and then the Rith lay dead, blood painting the gorgeous red carpet an alien, glowing green. Raul’s axe was embedded in the creature’s back.
Now that the danger was gone, I heaved to my feet, shutting out the hammering pain in my skull, and fell to my knees at Malek’s side just as Raul did.
Oh, my God, he wasn’t moving. He didn’t seem to be breathing. I covered my mouth.
“Malek.” Raul rolled him gently onto his back and laid Malek over his knees, cradling his head on his arm.
“Jesus.” I covered my face with both hands. There was a horrible gash on Malek’s shoulder, the skin ripped open and bleeding heavily. His face was alarmingly pale and his eyes were closed.
Haruuk had told Raul there was no cure for a Rith bite…
“Malek?” Raul’s voice sounded choked and he shook him. “Malek!”
My purple-eyed master didn’t move.
“Z’pheer!” Raul screamed.
Fuck, I’d never heard him sound like that, as if his heart was being ripped out.
But Z’pheer was already beside Raul and looking Malek over, checking his pulse, then looking for other injuries. Making sure it was safe to move him. Z’pheer’s face went pale. “Raul, take him to the infirmary. Now.”
Raul scooped up Malek’s big bulk and stalked across the bridge, carrying his large form as if it were nothing.
With my legs like jelly and unable to hold me up, I crawled across the floor, looked around the room looking for Tarku.
“Tarku?” Shit, was he hurt, too?
“Nayna, here, I want you in the infirmary with Malek.” Raul was suddenly there, sweeping me up in his arms.
“Wait, Tarku,” I panted.
“I’ll take care of him. After I take care of you. Then I must secure the ship.” In long, swift strides, Raul made his way to the infirmary. His heart was beating like a drum against my ear. “Rosht! Laric, that evil…”
But he never finished whatever he was about to say, seeming too angry to find the right words.
In the ship’s infirmary, Raul set me on one of the cots, then turned around and left the room, bringing in Tarku seconds later.
Z’pheer was scrubbing his arms and hands at a sink across the room. “Tarku?” he asked Raul over his shoulder.
“He’s hurt but nothing major. I am sedating him now.” Raul opened a metal drawer nearby and administered the sedative into Tarku’s silky flank.
“Wash up, Raul. alia, are you hurt?” Z’pheer dried his hands and looked me over.
“I need to secure the ship and put us in orbit. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Raul ran back out of the room.
“Alia?” Z’pheer’s concerned voice pulled my focus back to him.
I cleared my dry throat, looking up at him. “No, no. I’m…fine.”
He must have agreed, because he nodded and crossed the room to his patient.
My eyes went to Malek, laying on an operating table in the middle of the room. He didn’t move or open his eyes. I hated the stillness of him, his short shallow breaths cutting at my heart.
After all Malek had done, after all the damage he’d wrought on me, now I felt as some vital part of me was being ripped away.
“He better be all right.” Z’pheer took scissors to Malek’s pants and tossed them aside. “You hear me? Stay with us.”
Malek’s eyes remained closed. His whole body was covered in a sheen of sweat.
I went to the table and helped Z’pheer undress Malek. “Z’pheer, is he going to be okay?” I removed Malek’s boots, my voice cracking.
“I don’t know yet.” Z’pheer looked over the nasty gash on Malek’s shoulder. “No one has ever been cured from one of these bites. Maybe if the bastard didn’t bite deep enough, and if I can flush out the poison somehow—”
“All secure,” Raul said, walking quickly to the sink and washing up.
“Good, you’re back. Get over here.” Z’pheer switched on the bright operating lights above Malek. “We may not have much time.”
Raul dried his hands and took the surgical gloves Z’pheer handed him.
“Vahashitai, go rest in your room. It is safe now.” Raul’s voice was surprisingly tender as he nodded to the doors.
But I couldn’t leave Malek like this. He’d given his life to save me and Raul both. I looked Raul in the eyes, then did the same with Z’pheer.
“I’m not leaving him.”
Z’pheer’s brows rose in surprise. I was sure he was going to order me out. And if he didn’t, Raul would. Raul was staring at me, looking almost startled.
I was going to get it later. From both of them.
But instead, Raul turned away and set to work, snapping on his gloves without a word. Z’pheer’s eyes took in the pain that must have been written all over my face. He sighed and gave a nod.
“Stay back, alia. This is going to take some time.”
They were letting me stay. I was too relieved to question it. “Can you save him?” I whispered.
“I will try, little flower. I will try.”
I didn’t leave the room for a long, long time.
The next few hours were the longest of my life.
I knew nothing of surgery or poisoning, and honestly, I spent most of the time looking anywhere but at the table where Malek lay. Everything seemed to happen in a blur, sounds around me seeming to come down a long tunnel.
I remembered Z’pheer carrying and hooking up what looked like a bag of blood to an IV. An injection of what I thought was anesthetic going into Malek’s arm. The flash of a scalpel. Raul always pressing fresh cloths to Malek’s wound. I remembered a lot of soaked white rags turned crimson with Malek’s blood.
When I grew too tired to stand, I pulled up a chair and sat behind Malek’s head while the other two men worked, keeping out of their way.
I’d never have pegged Raul for a doctor, but I guessed with him and I being the only ones on the ship to help Z’pheer, he had to act as one. He seemed to know what he was doing with little direction, so perhaps he had some medical training. Maybe it was a requirement of being a ruler on Xandar. Or maybe it was part of being an Atan within the Order.
When Raul was able to step away during the surgery, he left and got us in flight, putting the ship on autopilot, headed toward our destination. Before he’d left, I’d half registered him saying something about jettisoning the bodies into space, and my stomach roiled at the thought. He was gone for several minutes before he returned to help Z’pheer.
The men said little, except when they had to. I kept my focus on Malek, instead of on what they were doing.
When the men asked, I checked on Tarku occasionally, the only time I left Malek’s side. The dog was knocked-out for most of Malek’s surgery, but he started having doggie dreams, so I sat with him and stroked his fur until he calmed down. I still couldn’t believe the mutt had played a role in saving our lives. The way he’d jumped on Laric and fought with him… He’d been every bit the brave warrior as the men.
Battle Wolf indeed.
By the time the men were wrapping up with Malek’s surgery, his breathing was still unsteady. God, even sickly, he looked so beautiful, with his dark hair framing his too pale face, his normally hard features boyish and relaxed in sleep. It was almost painful to look at him, but I was afraid if I look
ed away, his breathing would stop.
Since I’d known him, most of the time I’d been afraid to touch him, as if doing so would wake a sleeping beast, but now I laid my hands on the sides of his face, loving the feel of the slight stubble under my fingers. He didn’t move, didn’t suddenly devour me in a hot kiss. The absence of the roughness I’d grown so used to threatened to shatter me.
I wanted to say something to comfort him, anything to let him know I was there, but my voice choked in my throat. I settled for resting my cheek on his forehead.
Son of a bitch, his own brother had done this. Laric had tried to kill us and sacrifice who knew how many other worlds to the Rith in order to make himself look good and get himself crowned king. The betrayal I’d heard in Malek’s voice, the pain I’d seen in his eyes…
Unfortunately, I couldn’t say I didn’t understand what he was going through on some level, or the hurt he would be feeling when he woke up. Shelly’s betrayal didn’t approach the same level as Laric’s, not with his willingness to sell whole worlds out to the Rith. But I knew what it was like to suddenly discover that someone you loved and trusted wasn’t the person you thought they were. That Laric was dead now would make things so much more complicated. For him, and for Raul, since Raul had been forced to kill him.
Worse still, Shelly wasn’t family to me. For Malek, Laric was.
Empathy for Malek tugged hard at me. My eyes stung and a single tear dripped from my eyes onto his forehead. I turned my head and kissed it away. His skin was hot to the touch, burning my lips, and I squeezed his hand in a death-grip.
Malek’s fingers gave a spasm around mine.
I startled, jerking my head up. “Z’pheer…”
“It’s all right. He’s out. It’s just a reflex. It happens sometimes.” He worked a needle and thread through Malek’s shoulder, suturing the wound.
I closed my eyes. I was glad he hadn’t started to wake up in the middle of surgery, but I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of disappointment that he hadn’t been responding to me.
Choosing to believe he knew I was there, I squeezed his hand anyway,
trying to give him all the warmth and strength I had.
There was no cure for a Rith bite, but I wouldn’t give up on him, I wouldn’t give up hope.
“Fight this, Malek. You can do this. I won’t let you leave me.”
Shit, this didn’t even make sense. Malek had done nothing but tear me down and remind me again and again that I was his slave, and yet the thought of losing him now was too painful to even think about. He’d ruined me, but he’d also saved my life, and now he might lay for it with his life. The look on his face when Laric had come at me… Malek hadn’t saved me as a master preserving his property. I was bound to him somehow, and it felt like the tether that connected us was constantly on the verge of breaking.
How did that even work?
“Fight this, you jerk. Fight.” I sniffed and kissed his forehead again.
He said nothing, of course, and the silence was crushing.
Z’pheer and Raul finished up the surgery, and I looked up when both of them stepped away, scrubbing down. Malek had a large bandage over his shoulder where the Rith had bitten him. The IV had been unhooked, but a monitor beeped nearby, attached to his chest by electrodes.
Was it over?
No. I’d heard Z’pheer say there was still poison in his system.
Z’pheer’s hand rested on my shoulder. I hadn’t even noticed he’d crossed the room to me.
“We’re done now,” he said gently in my ear. “You want to stay with him?”
I nodded. He stroked my hair and closed his hand around mine. “Come here, alia.” He pulled up a chair beside Malek and sat in it, then drew me into his lap. His big arms folded around me. My chest constricted, and I couldn’t keep from resting my head in the crook of his neck.
“So…what now? Is he going to be okay?”
“We have no way of knowing. He shouldn’t even be alive. That he is still alive is a good sign.” His cheek rested warmly against my forehead, his wide palm massaging my nape. “A good sign, alia.”
The concern that underlay his assurance made my eyes sting.
Shit, I wouldn’t cry in front of this man. Not again. Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded mutely.
Raul finished cleaning up and came to stand in front of us. I looked up at him.
His huge hand cupped my chin. The touch was so fleeting that I couldn’t tell what it meant. Except for the worry for Malek in his eyes, his expression was unreadable, but somehow I knew he was considering what I’d done out there on the bridge.
My pushing that weapon away to throw off Laric’s aim from hitting Raul.
My telling Laric I would give him the codes in order to give Raul time to save everyone.
My challenging his authority and remaining in the room.
How many slave laws had I broken doing those things? A rational person couldn’t be pissed at me for my actions, but Raul was my kidnapper, and Xandari men were big on a woman’s place, with not a lot of room for leniency. Uncertainty squirmed in my gut. I wished I could have known what he thought about any of what I’d done.
“I’m going to clean up the mess out here.” He squeezed Z’pheer’s shoulder. “I’ll be back for Tarku soon.” Then he left without another word.
I sighed and laid my head back on Z’pheer’s shoulder, watching Malek’s chest rise and fall. My own chest tightened all over again.
I couldn’t worry about what would happen between Raul and me now. I had enough to deal with right now without borrowing trouble.
32
Just a Man
Three days had passed since Malek had been bitten by the Rith, and he still hadn’t opened his eyes once.
I spent most of my time with him, and thankfully, neither Z’pheer nor Raul tried to make me leave him. Surprisingly, they’d even set up a bed for me in the infirmary, so I could sleep at his side and be there to help Malek when the need arose. They’d moved him to one of the infirmary beds, covering him with plenty of warm blankets.
Malek developed a fever the first day after the surgery, and it rarely broke. Plus, his breathing started growing erratic. Z’pheer gave him what he said were antibiotics, hooking him to several IV’s. I didn’t know shit about treating him medically, but Z’pheer let me help when I could. I bathed Malek once a day and helped keep his fever down. At some point, I had become a nursemaid, a kind of assistant to Z’pheer.
While it hurt like hell to see Malek suffering, I loved knowing I could help him instead of just sitting there watching him fight for his life. I loved that Z’pheer was willing to let me lend a hand, teaching me how, even though I was pretty sure women on their world would never ordinarily be allowed to do such things.
Most of the time, it was just a matter of caring for Malek and waiting for the smallest changes that never came. But a few times, I’d woken in the night to find him convulsing. At which time I’d end up screaming for Z’pheer who would rush in and get his fever down.
“Z’pheer! He’s convulsing again!” I held Malek by the shoulders, trying to prevent him from shaking himself off the bed and onto the floor.
“Again?” Z’pheer cursed as he stormed into the infirmary. “He shouldn’t be reacting this way still.” He went to the IV bag and injected something from a syringe into the main feed.
“What should be happening?”
He glanced up at me. “Truthfully, he should be dead.”
My face drained of blood.
“Or he should be getting better,” he added. “But it’s as if he’s in limbo. The poison isn’t killing him, but he’s not recovering, either. It makes no sense.”
Malek’s body went still, and we both held our breath, waiting. He didn’t move and his breathing went back to normal.
We both sighed and slumped into chairs to either side of the bed.
“There’s nothing more we can do for him?” I hated just waiting, never knowing if
he would fully recover.
Z’pheer shook his head. “It’s a waiting game. If there’s anything I hate about being a healer, this would be it. The waiting. The not knowing.”
The agony in his eyes tugged at my heart. For all that the two of them constantly jabbed at and insulted each other, I could see how close Z’pheer and Malek were. I reached across the bed and squeezed his hand.
“I wish I knew more.” I leaned forward, rubbing my tired eyes. I’d barely slept in days.
He shook his head and scrubbed his face with his palms, looking as worn out as me. “No. You did good. Nice job.” He gave me a tired smile.
I gave him a weak smile in return. “How many laws are you breaking letting me help treat him? As a woman, I mean?”
He shrugged. “Plenty. But frankly, I don’t care right now. It’s like you said before, you need to be here. You need to be doing something. I get it. Besides, I like having you here. And I would like to believe Malek does, too.”
“You think he knows I’m here, then?”
“I think so.” He nodded.
“Will Malek have enough time to recover before we get to wherever we’re going?” My voice trembled, and I closed my hand over Malek’s. “What if he doesn’t? I don’t want to leave him on the ship in this condition. The Rith already got on here once.”
“With the second stop for fuel, we will reach Gandris Four in about a week.” He kept his eyes on Malek, intent.
“Gandris Four?” He’d mentioned that name before. “That’s where the weapon is, right?”
“Yes. The weapon is in possession of Kudar Gavik, one of the worst pirates within twenty star systems. Gandris Four is the trading post he owns. He will not make it easy to get the weapon from him. If we have to retrieve it without Malek, we may fail.”
I licked my lips again. “Will he pull through this?”
Z’pheer sighed and made his way over to me. He ran his hand over my back, squeezing my shoulder. “The truth is, if he does not recover by then, he won’t recover. His system cannot take much more of this. The longer he has these fevers, the longer he’s in this state, the more risk there is of brain damage or organ failure. And even if he does wake up, the poison may have affected his brain. He may not be the Malek we knew.”