She threw the cloak off, and he handed her scrubs while she issued orders at the doctors, who were – as they had been before – reluctant to take orders from a woman, but one look at the dark face of the Lord who had brought her and they began to cooperate immediately.
She debrided the wound as much as she could. Then she asked for a scalpel.
The doctors surrounding her balked, until Vaudt, with a makeshift mask over his mouth – stepped up to stand behind her, grinding out, "You will give her anything she asks for. You will do anything she asks you to do. If he dies, you will die. She is your best hope for getting out of this room alive."
They were much more cooperative after that, but he didn't step back, even when she cut into the wound, releasing tons of infected, putrid fluids that they had to clean up, mumbling passive aggressive protests about how she shouldn't have done that the entire time.
Emmy flushed out and cleaned the wound, trying to make sure she'd gotten all of the infected tissue before sewing him back up again.
When she finally stepped away from the table, looking down at the poor young man who was going through so much, she walked right into his arms, which closed automatically around her.
"He's so sick. Do you have any antibiotics? Any aspirin to treat the fever?" She knew she was asking for things he probably knew nothing about, but she figured she had to. What she'd just done for him was only going to prolong the inevitable unless she could get him some systemic help with the raging infection.
"What are those?"
"Medicines. Do you have any medicines at all?"
He gave her a considering look, then grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him, out of the room and into the corridor, taking enormous steps that she could barely keep up with. Then suddenly, he stopped to produce a key to a padlock that held double doors together, relocking them once they were inside, where he used a flashlight to shine around. It was a cavernous room, stocked top to bottom with metal shelves full of drugs and medical equipment.
Although her first instinct was to ask why they were not using all of this stuff regularly, Emmy held her tongue in favor of getting her patient what he needed. Vaudt followed her around like a big puppy, and at one point, she caught the way he was looking at her.
With utter amazement.
"You – you can read all of this?" he asked, almost reverently and with great appreciation. "You know how to use them to help him?"
Emmy nodded grimly. "I can, and I am. I will not let him die."
But his reverence for her didn't stop her from adding copious amounts of something she'd found in the stockpiles that they obviously had no use for.
But then, neither did the man who was lying on the operating table, being ravaged by an infection.
No, what she'd taken was for her and her alone.
She could hardly believe her luck when she saw the small wheels of different colored pills, all piled together in an overflowing box, and, since they were generic, even if he could read the chemical names of them, he wouldn't have known what they were.
She'd worry later about how to get them back with her. If she had to, she'd shove a handful of them up inside her. Having found her saviors, she wasn't about to leave this place without plenty of the protection she so desperately needed.
They got nearly everything else, too, that he was likely to need – in the immediate future, anyway – and began to head back to her patient when they were confronted by a man brandishing a knife and sniffing the air like a dog.
His eyes were wild, and he looked totally out of control.
"I knew I smelled you! I knew you were here somewhere!" he screamed, lunging for her with one hand and holding that wicked looking blade threateningly in the other.
Seconds later, he lay on the floor, bleeding out, killed by his own weapon, and Vaudt was the proud owner of a magnificent new knife.
As he hustled her back to the room, she didn't think she'd ever get used to what life was going to be like for her now. When she first woke up, she thought rather fancifully that she might have to worry about zombies or some such other fictitious villains.
But it turned out that it was the same old villain as it had been since time began – men who couldn't control their sexual appetites or their lust for money and didn't even bother to try.
Moments later, with all of the men looking on in utter amazement, she had him on a drip – a not as well controlled one as she would have preferred – but a drip that was going to both hydrate him, address his fever, and fight the infection.
When she was finished, she stepped back to admire her handiwork, and Vaudt grabbed her wrist. "We need to get you out of here. It's not safe."
She pulled back against his hold. "I can't leave here. I have to stay with my patient."
"You cannot stay here. You saw what just happened. He was one of my best guards. I don't want to have to kill everyone else in this building just so you can play doctor."
He had never seen that particular look on her face, but he had an idea that it wasn't good. "We have to go," he reiterated.
But this time, when she jerked her arm, he let her go. She stood in front of the other men, giving them a list of instructions. "Send me word about how he's doing and any change for the worse in his condition."
She didn't care if that wasn't supposed to be done – she needed to keep an eye on him, even if she wasn't being given a choice but to do so from a distance.
Mid-word, he covered her again and began dragging her away. She continued to yell orders back at them for as long as she could, until his hand descended on her mouth and her bottom at the same time. "Quiet! I'd rather not have to kill anyone else for you while we're out here."
The ride back was conducted in the kind of silence no man – even such a hardened Alpha as himself – wanted to experience from his woman.
But she wasn't cold to him because he'd dragged her away from her patient – although she would definitely have preferred to stay with him. No, she was pissed because he'd dragged her away before she'd been able to palm any of those birth control pills.
Chapter 7
"You have to let me go see him. I need to see his condition and assess it for myself," she pleaded, a few days later.
He was in his chair – which she'd begun to think of in her mind as his throne – brooding, fingers templed together as she paced around him. "They said he's doing better."
"They're saying it to save their own asses – none of them wants to be the one to tell you he's dead! I don't trust them as far as I could throw you!"
"I thought this man was important to you – you were the one who threatened their lives if he died. Don't you want to see for yourself whether or not he's recovering?"
No response. Nothing.
Never in her life, had she been this close to punching someone. She wasn't a physically violent type of person – that was more his territory. She used her words. But in his case, she was willing to learn to be!
So instead, to get out her frustrations, she began to kick out at things – the door, the table – the leg of his chair.
Only she did it one too many times and actually hit him instead, although distinguishing between the two wasn't that easy.
That put the fear of God into her – at least until she realized that he wasn't going to react to that, either.
And, being the idiot that she was, she drew her leg back to do it again, aiming more deliberately this time.
But before she could get any further, he grabbed her wrist, giving one short, sharp yank.
She was already so off balance that she couldn't keep herself from toppling right over his lap, to be trapped there within seconds of landing. His hand made quick work of scourging her backside, leaving livid imprints of his hand everywhere he could reach until he released her just as suddenly, lifting her off him and back onto her feet, then withdrawing into himself again.
Emmy huffed angrily through the tears he had wrought and began pacing again while her bo
ttom stung horribly with every step. She didn't want to lie on the bed – besides the fact that it would hurt like the dickens, he'd take that as an invitation – not that he'd ever felt he needed one, but she knew that as soon as she lay down, he would be on her.
She was still pacing when the sun went down, if a bit less energetically, when suddenly, he grabbed her wrist again, and she was sure she was going to find herself beneath him in seconds.
But she was wrong.
Instead, she found herself bundled up again, and she knew she was on her way to see her patient.
And, to her surprise, the doctors hadn't been lying to him – he was well on the road to recovery. Far from at full strength, but he was doing much better than he had been.
He was even awake, growing more so as she entered the room.
"I had heard rumors to the effect that you had found one for yourself, but now I see they're true." Emmy smiled at him in a friendly manner as she checked his wounds, the IV site and drip rate and gave him a general going over while Vaudt surprised her by maintaining a growling low in his throat, although she supposed that a healthy dose of jealousy was a part of every Alpha.
And it worked to her advantage, because all he was doing was staring at her patient – he wasn't paying attention to her, and she was able to slip several packets of pills into the pocket of her scrubs.
"Are you not going to introduce me to your mate?" the man asked.
"This is Racide," Vaudt informed her flatly.
For the first time in a very long time, someone extended a hand to her, and she shook it, only to have the seething mountain behind her forcibly remove her hand from his. "And your name is, pretty lady?"
The angry rumbling grew much louder, much more threatening.
"Emily. Most people call me – well, used to call me – Emmy."
"Emmy it is then. Besides being an elusive Omega, I understand I have you – a woman – to thank for saving my life. Thank you." He tried to bow a bit, but winced at the effort.
Obviously, he was not an Alpha.
Emily blushed. "You're welcome. I was glad to be of help." She asked him some routine questions about how he was feeling and pronounced him on the mend.
This, of course, prompted Vaudt to announce autocratically, as his long fingers wrapped around her upper arm, "You've seen him. He's no longer dying or in need of your care. It's time to go home."
Racide chuckled. "My brother has always been the jealous type. Thank you again for your efforts on my behalf, Emmy. I owe you one. If there's ever anything I can do to help you in any way, you have but to call."
She found herself violently swung away from him while Vaudt seemed to increase in size by about three fold as he bore down on the smaller man. "She needs nothing from you, brother." He growled the words from a spot that was so deep in his throat, they were barely intelligible, and he fairly spat the last word before literally dragging her out of the room, even forgetting to put the cloak over her until they were in the hall.
He hadn't been like this, perhaps ever, in her memory – aggressive, domineering, yes, but a full-blown jealous rage? No.
As she did her best to make sure that she secured the pills and they wouldn't easily fall out of their hiding place, Emmy wondered baldly if he'd wait until they got back to his room before he took her once again, staking his claim, making sure she knew exactly to whom she belonged.
He made it, but barely.
There was no comfortable mattress beneath her back as he labored over her until very late that night, or, more accurately, early the next morning, and she had the bruises on her back from the floor to prove it, despite how much pleasure he'd subjected her to, as always.
Which, she was surprised to find him absolutely horrified about, which worked in her favor.
They were showering late that next morning, and she turned and held her hair up so that he could do her back as he always did, and yet he just stood there, staring at her, to the point where she began to feel both uncomfortable and cold.
Finally, he handed her the bar of soap and said, "Do your own back."
When she stepped out of the shower, he was gone, and she didn't see him again for almost two and a half days, which was the longest they had been apart.
At times, she wondered if he was ever coming back, trying to stop herself – with only moderate success – from wondering what it was that she had done to drive him away.
He arrived back early the next evening, and she found herself bundled up again for another trip, which she naturally assumed was going to be to see his brother again. She hoped he hadn't taken a turn for the worse.
But instead, when she looked around as little as she was able, she realized that this was a different place entirely, and, as soon as she stepped into it, an achingly familiar scent filled her nostrils.
He maneuvered her in front of him, facing away from him, and brought the garment over her head in one sweeping motion to reveal a huge room full of books.
A library. It even looked as if it had actually been a library at one point, and she could barely contain her elation, taking a few steps away from him, then looking back at him tentatively.
"Go – explore. I wanted to do something for you for saving my brother – as much as I hate the little bastard." He carefully didn't add that she was here, too, because he had been so angry at the sight of the bruises his lust had caused to mar the flesh on her back. "I'll find you in a while."
She completely lost track of time, practically skipping down the tall aisles, running her hands over the bindings and occasionally selecting something to skim through, only to put it back and head in an entirely different direction. It was pretty much a full-blown library, complete with a reference section, although she could tell that it wasn't well used – most of the volumes were old and dusty and looked like they hadn't been cracked open in centuries – literally.
When he found her, she was in the back corner of the building, with piles of books surrounding her, having formed her own little cave, already halfway through one of her most favorite books from her childhood, Black Beauty, which her mother used to read to her, until she could read it back to her mother herself.
He crouched in front of her, and she gifted him with a shining, sparkling smile such as he had never seen on her face before. "Come with me," he invited, unable to stop himself from wearing a small smile in response to hers, his hand out to her, palm up to help her from the floor.
She looked so crestfallen that his chest began to hurt. "Do we h-have to?" she asked plaintively. "Could we – might we – may I take some of the books with me?"
"Let's think about that later," he answered, being deliberately vague. "Right now, I have someone I want you to meet." He produced a set of scrubs and helped her in them.
Emmy was surprised – she had assumed they were alone here.
And she was surprised again when he brought her to the desk, which seemed abandoned, until an older woman came out from behind the stacks, saying warmly, "And you must be Emmy. I am Hinda."
Seconds later, she found herself wrapped in the first genuine, loving hug she'd experienced since she'd arrived, her arms automatically wrapping around the small but sturdy body of the woman who was hugging her.
Eventually, they stepped a bit away from each other, although Emily found her hands still held in hers. "Thank you for saving Racide."
Wondering what her relationship was to the young man, Emily blushed. "You're welcome."
Then the older woman leaned a bit towards her and whispered – not all that softly, "And thank you for saving my other son, too, although that's more from himself than from an enemy." She motioned with her head towards where Vaudt was leaning against the desk, looking more relaxed than Emmy thought she had ever seen him.
"Mother."
"I'm only saying the truth, Vaudt dear."
It was so strange to hear someone call her stalwart, enormous warlord – the stalwart, enormous warlord; she corrected immediately – dear.
So she was his mother. She could see traces of a resemblance, but not much. He must favor his father.
"She has not changed me."
"She has changed you and for the better. Otherwise, why would you be here?"
Emmy had no idea what they were talking about, but she had a feeling she was going to be glad to know his mother, especially if she was the one in charge of all of these luscious books.
"Yes, I am," she admitted, in answer to the unspoken question. "But it's a dying profession, because few people know how to read any more –" She gave the girl a sidelong glance. "But I understand that you can."
"Oh, yes, I can!" Emily admitted gleefully. "And I'm so happy to find that someone has preserved them, even if they're not getting much use at the moment."
"Well, please feel free to borrow any of them you'd like to take with you."
"Mother. There is not a cart big enough for us to do that. We might as well move right into the library with you."
"Yes!" Emmy clapped in excitement.
His buzz killing, no nonsense, "No," which was enunciated from beneath a comically darkly drawn brow, dashed her rising hopes immediately.
She was disappointed, if resigned to her fate, until Hinda suggested, "Why don't you make a pile of books you want to read, and I'll keep them here. You take a few today, then, when you're done, send them back to me through Vaudt, and I'll send you the next few. Would that work?"
Emily's happy shriek echoed in the cavernous room as she headed off towards the stacks of books she'd already compiled.
But she didn't make it very far before she was stopped by a large but relatively gentle hand on her shoulder. "I'll get them. I don't want you lifting anything that heavy."
Embarrassed by what his care for her implied, Emmy hung back with Hinda.
"He thinks you might be with child?" she sensed accurately.
Her response was wry in the extreme, "If I'm not, it won't be for lack of him trying."
Hinda smiled softly. "You are bonded, then?"
Emily tensed, not really knowing what to say. She knew the correct answer was "yes," but that hardly portrayed the situation with any amount of accuracy.
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