by Marie Dry
“I am a warrior, I will not be insulted like this.” He jumped up and she watched with her mouth open when he grabbed his clothes.
She jumped up as well and put a placating hand on his chest. “It was a compliment, when a human woman says that to a man she means he is everything she could want.”
“You will never call me beautiful again.”
“Promise, cross my heart,” she said solemnly.
“You will respect your warrior.”
“Absolutely.”
One moment they stood next to the bed and the next they were on it with him looming over her.
He lifted her hair, glided it through his fingers. For a guy who didn’t like her hair he sure touched it a lot.
“I want to know your whole body.” He glided his rough palm from her neck to her toes. “I want to know what pleases you.” He lifted her knee and stroked a finger over and around to the back of her thigh. Wherever he touched her, her skin came alive. “I want to know where you like to be touched, where I should go softly, and where I should bite.” He caressed her thighs and then leaned down and bit down very carefully on the inside of the thigh he’d raised for his touch. She shuddered, but not with fear like the day she thought he wanted to eat her. She caressed the ridge bisecting his head. “Remember the day you pretended you were going to eat me. You scared the stuffing out of me.”
He moved higher, closer to the juncture of her thighs, closer to where she desperately needed him to touch her. “You are my breeder, we will do much teasing.” He parted the crips hairs and flicked a finger over the sensitive flesh he exposed. She nearly came off the bed and she screamed, a soft sound of desperate pleasure, her body so sensitised she almost climaxed. If he’d continued that gentle bite, those wicked caresses all over her body, she could’ve come from only that stimulation.
She clutched his upper arms. “Please, you didn’t do it wrong. You’re doing it better than any Zyrgin warrior has ever done it.” She lifted her hips in a yearning movement, unable to stop herself. A horrible thought occurred to her, what if he started that knowing business again. “Please don’t start over. Please, please finish it.”
He pressed her down, waited until she lay still, only miniscule involuntary trembles shaking her. “I will pleasure you many times during this night.”
He kept his word. She never thought it was possible to fear being pleasured to death but he gave it a good try She matched him with kisses, caresses and bites, determined that he would feel the same pleasure, experience the same desperate need for release. Here in bed, they would be equals. Except she misjudged her aliens stamina.
Madison came back to consciousness to find him leaning over her, studying her.
“You will move into my quarters. The unpleasant soft bed I obtained for you can take a warrior’s weight.”
For the first time she noticed the bed tilting at an odd angle. “You broke my bed.”
He was systematically destroying her furniture with his heavy body.
“Human equipment are inferior,” he said with his typical disdain. Then he pushed aside the blankets and his eyes flared blood red.
Later, she woke alone, tired, and sore, her female parts chafed raw. He’d told her he needed to go on duty and she’d nearly cried in relief when he left. She couldn’t take another round of searing pleasure. But she didn’t dare be late in case someone made a comment about it, and Viglar killed him.
Shuddering at the thought, she quickly got ready and walked to the hospital.
She went to his office and, as usual, he waited for her. Of course, the dratted man didn’t look tired at all. “Good morning, my breeder.”
Before she could protest being called that so early in the morning, he kissed her.
He held out a small pot. “You will take this and put it in your vagina,” he said, as if they discussed the weather.
Madison did a physical double take, would’ve fallen over her own feet if he didn’t have a hold on her. “Say what?”
“It is to ease you so we can fuck again tonight.”
“No way, tonight I’m resting.”
He ignored what he didn’t want to hear. “Do you require help applying it?”
“Uh no.” She wasn’t about to refuse it. Madison went to his bathroom and, by the time she emerged, she felt much better already. The day started well with her and Viglar having breakfast in his office, courtesy of his synthesizer. She was glad for the privacy, convinced everyone would know what they did the previous evening after one look at her face. Besides, Rachel deserved to worry after deserting her.
Afterward, Madison stood at reception, frowned down at the roster on her TC, vaguely aware of the intercom calling one of the other doctors to the emergency room. Someone had assigned less working hours to her. She waited for the nurse on duty to finish on the TC so she could ask her what was going on.
The nurse looked up and screamed. Madison whirled toward the entrance where she was looking.
“Help me, please, he’s bleeding, he’s going to die,” a young girl screamed.
A tall man with shabby dark hair leaned heavily on her, blood bubbling from his mouth. Madison took one look at the blood coming out of his mouth and staining his pants and ran for them.
Ruptured esophageal varices, she diagnosed. He’s going to die, she thought as she reached his side. No one was going to die on her watch. Never again. She was a doctor now. She knew what to do. “Get me a gurney, we have to get him into theater, or we’ll lose him. Seconds count.”
Two nurses ran forward and helped them to get him onto the gurney. Madison turned to the hysterical young woman. “Does he drink, does he have a history of alcoholism, or liver disease?”
The woman wailed, and Madison motioned to another nurse, ignoring the screaming people around them. More blood was pouring out of the patient’s mouth. Madison ran to keep up with the gurney.
“Find out from her if he was tested for hepatitis, any kind of liver disease, and if he has a history with alcohol.”
“He’s not drunk,” the woman screamed hysterically.
Madison ignored her and made a quick visual exam of the patient while they ran to the theater. If her suspicions were correct, and the man did have a ruptured esophageal varices, every second counted now. She shouted over her shoulder while she ran, “Find Viglar, tell him he has to get here stat. And get Dr. Paulson as well.” She nearly cried in relief when the theater doors loomed. She didn’t have enough experience to do this, but she might be able to keep him alive until Viglar can cure him with his gadgets.
She rushed ahead, scrubbed, and then raced to the theater. Her legs nearly collapsed under her. The smell of blood hit her, the amount of blood coming out of the patient’s mouth and rectum had increased. The blood stained the operating table and pooled on the floor. She took a breath and stepped forward. Blood must’ve backed up into his veins toward the lower part of his esophagus. Madison was sure his liver wasn’t functioning, meaning his veins got congested and dilated and ruptured.
“I have to go down there with an EGD scope and band the varices or use sclerotherapy.” Sweat ran down her back, she’d be working blind, and she’d be his only hope. She ignored the way her shaking legs wanted to collapse underneath her. She had to save him. “Any word on Viglar? Dr. Paulson?” He was the only experienced doctor in the hospital.
“Viglar’s not in the hospital, but he’s on his way. Dr. Paulson has an emergency as well. You’re it, Doctor.”
“Shit, fuck.” Madison grimly set to work. She’d do this, save this man, she was his only hope.
The blood kept spurting. No matter what she did, nothing helped. “Where’s Viglar. I need him here,” she screamed.
The nurses pulled her away. “Stop, come away from here, Madison. He’s dead, there’s nothing you can do for him.”
“No, I can save him, I know I can save him,” Madison screamed and shrugged off the nurse. “I just have to hold on until Viglar can come.” She turned back to
her patient, vaguely aware of the loaded silence around her. Grimly, she kept working. She couldn’t lose him, she couldn’t be responsible for someone’s death.
Someone lifted her away from her patient, and she kicked and screamed. she had to get back to him, had to save him.
“Human, Madison, he’s dead.” Strong arms closed around her and pulled her away from her patient.
“No, he’s not, Viglar will come and make him alive again, I have to keep working until he comes.”
“Madison, it’s Viglar, I cannot make him alive again.”
Madison stilled and looked up at him. “Viglar?”
“It is me.”
She held out her bloodied hands to him. “There’s so much blood. It won’t stop and I don’t know what to do for her. I’m the reason she died.” Because of her Ana would never laugh again, play again.
He went to pick her up, but she kicked and screamed. “No, you have to look at him, maybe you can still help him.” He stared at her for a long moment and then walked to the blood stained bed.
“I cannot help him.”
“Please, make him alive again, Viglar, please.”
“I cannot.”
Madison looked at all the blood--her patient, the man’s soul had clearly left his body--and ran. In the hall, she looked around and then opened the supply closet and, slamming the door closed, sank down on the floor. Biting down on her hand to stifle her sobs, she tasted blood.
The accusing eyes of the man’s wife haunted her. That man dying and leaving her alone was her fault. If Madison had worked harder, known more, she could’ve saved him.
Rotting vegetation, the smell of mud entered her nose and moved down her throat until she choked on it.
Please, Maddie, help me, it hurts.
“Human, come out of there.”
“Go away.” His voice made the smell of the swamp, Ana’s pleas recede.
The door opened. Viglar appeared shimmery through her tears. She hid her face again, held out her hands for him to see. “I’ve got blood on my hands.”
He stood in the door, probably trying to figure out a logical course of action, she thought viciously.
“I will wash your hands.” He picked her up and she didn’t try to resist, simply held on tight, breathing in his scent. She would’ve crawled under his skin if she could’ve. She didn’t care if anyone saw them, what they thought of her tears. She’d failed. She’d failed Ana, and it was as if she’d killed her all over again.
He walked to his apartment and sat down with her on his lap. “Why are you like this? You are a doctor. You know we cannot save everyone.”
“I can. My record of people saved is the highest in this hospital.”
“It is still impossible to save everyone.”
“At first I thought it would be okay, but then everything fell apart, and I couldn’t help him. No matter what I tried, it just got worse. The blood, there was so much blood I couldn’t see what I was doing. I’m useless, a killer not a doctor.” She sobbed harder.
“You will be better when I teach you and will know what to do.”
Madison laughed through her tears and hit him and then shook her hand, regretting trying that. “You’re supposed to say everything will be all right, and it will never happen again.”
“That would not be logical.” He massaged her hand. “Madison, look at me.”
She focused on his shirt so close to her eyes, trying to see how it was made. It still looked like solid metal to her, even though it was soft under her skin.
“Breeder, look at me,” he said in the voice she was sure he used on new recruits in his alien army.
She sat up and glared at him.
“You cannot save everyone. I have lost patients and I am the best doctor you will ever know.”
She still had that awful metallic smell of blood in her nose, heard Ana plead with her, and saw the life drain out of her patient. But his arrogance made her want to laugh. Somehow, without even trying, he made it better.
She clenched her hands until they were tight fists in his hands. “I will save each and every patient I treat. No one will ever again die on my watch.”
“If you insist on this foolish thinking, I will instruct a human to put a cushion in the supply closet where you can go to cry.”
She jumped off his lap. “You miserable toad, I’m going home.”
She half expected him to stop her, but he let her go. Still, she heard him say when she reached the door, “I do not have frog DNA.”
Madison went to her flat. She knew Viglar would probably come get her, but she needed to be alone. To her surprise Viglar called her on the TC and told her she would be safe at the flat. He left her alone. When she phoned in sick, she all but dared Jacobson to try and give her any grief. His fear of Viglar had to be greater than his dislike for her because he merely told her to give him the necessary forms when she returned.
She sat in front of the TC and obsessed over everything she didn’t know, thinking about the medical text books, printed fifty years apart with each older edition thicker and more comprehensive. How was she supposed to save everyone when the medical school barely equipped her with the knowledge she needed? It galled her that that alien was right after all. She didn’t know what she was doing.
Rachel came by and brought her pizza and coffee, but didn’t try to talk to her. Madison appreciated the support, but was glad when Rachel left her alone. She needed to work through this on her own. Viglar stayed away, and she didn’t know if he was busy, didn’t care, or wanted to give her space.
Of course, the first day back at the hospital, she had to do an appendectomy. She stood shaking and sweating for a long time before she could perform the operation. It was a simple operation, but so much could still go wrong. She was determined to do better, work harder and to learn more. If she did that, she’d never again lose a patient. Some small part of her knew she wasn’t thinking rationally, but she’d made a promise to Ana, and she had to keep it, no matter what.
When she stood with the scalpel in her hand, sheer determination came to her rescue, and she managed to perform the operation without complications.
She staggered to the cafeteria afterward and sat staring down into her cup of coffee.
“I observed the operation,” Viglar said.
Her head jerked up. He’d come to sit opposite her without her noticing.
“So now you’re speaking to me again,” she sniped.
“You did it well,” he told her in his serious manner. “I cannot speak to you if you are not here.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head in her hands. She didn’t have the strength to educate him in boyfriend behavior right now.
“I will show you how to do an appendectomy with our technology,” he said.
She jerked upright. “You will?” She saw visions of walking around with a silver gadget, magically healing everyone.
“Yes, only this one procedure.” He stood. “We have a visit to the shelter. Be ready in fifteen Earth minutes.” He leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers, and she didn’t care that everyone saw him do it. After their night together, it had devastated her that he left her alone and grieving in her apartment when she needed him to be there for her. He should at least have given her the chance to kick him out and tell him she wanted to be alone.
“Why are we going? Today is not the scheduled day for the visit.” She still didn’t feel up to doing much. She just wanted to crawl into bed and hide and never get out again. But she had to. She had to get him to share his knowledge with her so that she wouldn’t ever lose a patient again.
“There is a new arrival that needs medical attention.”
Madison jumped up and took a large swallow of coffee. You’d think she’d learn by now not to stare at her coffee when she could drink it. Something was guaranteed to come up to interrupt her. “I’m ready.”
They walked to the back and, at first, she thought the shuttle was still on its way, but the
n it shimmered into view. She’d seen these things in the movies so the shuttle being cloaked wasn’t that fantastic, but it never ceased to amaze her. That was how Viglar appeared and disappeared, she realized suddenly. She turned to him and, with her hands on her hips, she tapped her toe. “Have you ever spied on us while you were cloaked?”
“I do it all the time,” he said and helped her inside.
Madison was so surprised at his admission, she meekly got in and allowed him to place the safety belt things over her chest. “How can you just admit to doing something like that?”
“Why should I not admit it?”
“Never mind, just fly the shuttle.” She had her work cut out with him. Certain behaviors would have to improve. “And we’ll have a talk about boyfriend protocol,” she mumbled.
“I am more than a boyfriend. I looked it up in the manual and a breeder and her warrior is like a husband and wife.”
“Don’t even think about it. You owe me a courtship.” She wouldn’t make it that easy for him.
He got up and she pressed back against the seat, but he merely pressed something against her neck.
“It won’t help. I feel queasy just at the thought of flying,”
“I will keep trying until I find the cure,” he said.
She threw up again when they landed, but he kept his shoes out of reach this time and afterward offered her some water. She rinsed her mouth and brushed her teeth with the toothbrush and paste he thoughtfully provided. “You might fall down in the sensitivity stakes, but you do know how to be prepared. I have to give you that.”
At the shelter, a beautiful woman with long black hair and glowing copper brown skin waited for them.
“Human, this is Margaret, breeder to citizen Larz. She is crazy and you will not talk to her or be alone with her.”
So, this was Margaret. Madison knew her eyes must be as big as saucers. Never mind the breeder comment, he called the woman crazy to her face.
The other woman merely smiled and held out her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you Madison. Natalie enjoyed your tea together.”
When she tried to shake her hand, Viglar cut her off and drew her away from Margaret. “You do not go within striking distance of her,” he said.