Tested

by Stalder, Janelle

  A low growl vibrated from Tyler as he slightly curled back his upper lip, his sights still locked on her. Missy instinctively took a step back. When he spoke, it was only one word, said so darkly and huskily she almost missed what it was.

  “Mine.”

  The declaration washed over her body, the tiny hairs on the nape of her neck rising in awareness. Goose bumps rose along her arms when he said nothing more.

  “Stop trying to scare the new nurse,” one of the men said.

  “Let’s hurry up and get him finished,” Geoff was saying, “so we can put him back in his cell. Obviously his mood is regressing further.”

  Missy couldn’t seem to look away from him as they continued to stare into each other’s eyes. Why did his seem even colder than they normally did? Tyler always held himself slightly aloof, but she would notice that whenever he looked at her, his eyes would soften. It was part of the reason why she didn’t find him as frightening as she had when he’d first arrived. There was also something about him that gave her the impression that he would never hurt her, no matter what.

  She couldn’t really say what it was, or why she felt that way, but she just knew that Tyler was safe. Not that he still didn’t make her nervous, because he did, but not because she felt he was a threat. It was just his presence, his sheer size that muddled her thoughts and made her feel like a nervous little girl whenever he was around.

  That feeling of safety was completely gone as she looked into his feral gaze. Missy guessed he was putting it on for the other men, but surely he knew how much this would scare her. She knew Phoenix had explained to him how men affected Missy, so why couldn’t he at least send some sort of vibe out that would reassure he meant no harm? Instead, all she saw was open, naked lust and desire, and something else she couldn’t quite understand. Possessiveness? She wasn’t sure, but it was making her want to run out of there so fast, feeling like her legs had turned to jelly was the only thing stopping her. She’d likely take one step and fall into a heap on the floor.

  “You okay?” Geoff asked, coming over to her, his hand gripping her elbow. His touch snapped her out of whatever trance she’d been in, and she turned to the confused look on Geoff’s face. Another loud growl filled the room just as she opened her mouth to reply.

  Both of them looked back over to Tyler, whose eyes were trained on where Geoff held her. Anger radiated from him, his lip curling further up.

  “Mine,” he said again, his voice rough with rage. Geoff instantly dropped his hand away from her, taking a step back. Tyler’s gaze slowly move backed to hers. Some of the tension in his shoulders seemed to ease, but it could have been her imagination. She was starting to feel like the man before her was a complete stranger.

  He’s just pretending, her inner voice reasoned. Taking a deep, calming breath that did absolutely nothing to ease her nerves, Missy stepped forward, placing the tray on the small table set up beside Tyler’s chair. She could feel his eyes on her as she readied the needle. Every nerve, every cell, every pore in her body seemed to be aware of him and how close they were now. If she didn’t know any better, she would have sworn she could feel the heat coming off his large body.

  “I’ve never seen him this calm,” one of the men said.

  Missy looked up, both eyebrows raised in disbelief.

  “Trust me,” he said with a weary grin, “this is him at his best. We haven’t had any patients as violent as this one.”

  Missy glanced back down to meet Tyler’s gaze that hadn’t strayed from her yet. Her cheeks burned as she looked away again to refocus on her task. Using needles was something she’d had to learn over the years, since doctors were scarce, and the Archers were constantly getting hurt. She’d mostly use them just to administer freezing when she was stitching one of them up. Only once had she taken blood to send to the doctor. That was when Sam had grown extremely ill, and they were all worried she had contracted the bird flu.

  It hadn’t been that difficult. Of course, her hands hadn’t been shaking then nearly as much as they were now. Grabbing the elastic band they’d provided, Missy took a step closer to Tyler, her hands reaching out hesitantly to wrap the rubber around his large arm. She could hear him breathing in her ear, sense him watching her face instead of her hands. She refused to look up at him, too afraid of what she might see there.

  Missy had no idea what he was doing, but making her extremely nervous in front of people she was supposed to be deceiving was not the smartest thing. She’d have to ream him out about it later, when they got out of here.

  Band in place, Missy reached for the needle, feeling around for a vein. His skin was hot beneath her fingertips. She could sense his energy and body straining toward her against the shackles that bound him to the chair. Finally she looked up into clear green. Her eyes instantly dropped on their own accord to the plush, pink lips she could see amongst the facial hair that covered half his face, giving him an even more dangerous, mysterious look. What would it be like…

  Missy gave herself a quick mental shake. Where her thoughts going? It unnerved her to have sexual thoughts about any man, especially this one. Men were off limits for her. Intimacy was something she doubted she’d ever enjoy again. And yet she had those kinds of thoughts about Tyler frequently. She didn’t understand why, but now was not the time to indulge in them.

  Raising her eyes back up, she swallowed at the look in his before turning back to what she’d been doing. “Sorry,” she whispered quietly, right before sticking him with the needle. He didn’t make a sound, or even flinch. He just continued to watch her with extreme interest.

  Missy filled both vials that were left for her, then quickly withdrew the point, putting pressure on the small wound. Guilt ate at her, but she tried her best not to show it.

  “There’s no bandage,” Missy said, looking up at the men.

  “He doesn’t need it,” Geoff answered. “He heals quickly.”

  Her heart stopped. Did that mean? Missy studied him, questioning him with her eyes, but either he didn’t understand, or didn’t want to respond with the other men watching them. Had they already given him the Generals ‘treatments’? Is that why he was acting so strangely? She wished she could just come out and ask him.

  “You’re done now,” one of the other men said, taking a step toward her.

  Missy flinched before she could stop herself. It was an instinctual reaction whenever a man got close to her. She’d been getting better with Tyler and his friends around all the time lately, but she wasn’t completely cured.

  Tyler started the loud growling thing again, his murderous gaze fixated on the man. “Back,” he snarled. The male took a tentative step back, his face pale. Missy unconsciously put her hand back on Tyler’s arm to silently let him know she was okay. Her touch seemed to calm him as the muscles in his arms relaxed beneath her palm.

  “That’ll be all, Missy,” Geoff said, keeping his distance.

  “What are you doing with him now?” she asked before she could stop herself.

  “He needs to go back to his room,” he answered.

  “How – ” Her question cut off as the man who hadn’t spoken stepped forward and slammed a needle into the side of Tyler’s neck. Missy stood, mouth agape, as she watched his eyes roll into the back of his head before slumping forward. He was out.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked, her words rushing out of her on a horrified gasp.

  “Do you not see him? There’s no way we could transport him from one room to another awake,” Geoff said. “This guy is strong as hell. The three of us would stand no chance.”

  “Maybe he would have cooperated if we had her do it,” the guy with needle said, eyeing her thoughtfully.

  Missy took a step away. “I’m not going to be used,” she said, her voice shaking. Never again would she have men use her for their own purposes. Never. Again.

  “If you don’t want to help then don’t complain about how we do things. Now go take those samples to room three-ten,”
the same guy said, effectively dismissing her.

  Missy turned and scurried out of there, not looking back. She raced through the halls looking for the right room. Inside three-ten was an older, grey-haired lady with glasses perched precariously on the tip of her nose. Instead of the plain, white scrubs the rest of them wore, hers were bright pink with hearts all over them. She smiled when Missy entered, her fingers busily sorting through paper even though she wasn’t looking at them.

  “Hello, dear,” she greeted. “How can I help you?”

  “I have two blood samples for you,” Missy said, her racing pulse finally settling down in the calming presence of this woman.

  “Is that from the patient in four-twenty?”

  “Uh…I’m not sure.”

  “Shrek?”

  “Who?” Missy asked, confused.

  The old woman chuckled. “That’s what I call him, Shrek. You know, after the big, green ogre?”

  Was this woman nuts? Missy shook her head to say she had no idea what she was talking about. The woman simply waved her off.

  “Oh, you’re probably too young to remember. He was this big, mean ogre with a Scottish accent.”

  Now Missy got it, and she was definitely referring to Tyler.

  “Yes,” Missy said, dropping the samples into the red basket the woman held out. “This is for…Shrek.”

  She chuckled again. “Sure is easy on the eyes, but that boy sure has a temper, don’t he?”

  “I’d say,” Missy murmured.

  “Threw one of the male technicians right across the room the other day. I’ve never seen someone as strong as he.”

  Missy didn’t know how to respond to that. Tyler was strong, but she doubted he could have thrown someone before, like this lady was implying. Her story seemed to prove that he’d already been given something to enhance him.

  “You make sure you stay far away from that one, girl,” she called out as Missy made her way toward the door. “He’s trouble.”

  Didn’t Missy know it? As far as she was concerned, they all were.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Heather was back when Missy had returned to the front desk, so the rest of that evening was spent following the other woman around again. Tonight she planned on sneaking up to Tyler’s room, and seeing if they could figure out a way to escape together. She was sure he’d thought up something by now. She highly doubted he’d been sitting in his room this entire time, simply waiting for someone to save him.

  They were short-staffed tonight, which was an added bonus in her opinion. When it came time to deliver the dinners, Missy immediately offered to do the fourth floor. Heather had given her a weird look before agreeing. When the elevator doors opened, Geoff and another man, a different one than the two she’d seen the night before, stepped out.

  “Hey, Missy,” he greeted.

  She smiled, keeping the cart she was pushing full of the food trays between them. Geoff seemed nice enough, but she could tell from the way his eyes lit up when he looked at her that he found her attractive. She didn’t want any part of it.

  He glanced down at the chart hanging off the side where it listed the floor the meals belonged to, before looking back at her. “You headed up for the fourth floor?” he asked, his eyebrows lowering over his eyes.

  “Yup,” she answered, pushing the cart into the tiny space of the elevator. There was just enough room for her squeeze in too.

  “You sure you want to do that?” he said, holding open the doors with his hand. “All the more extreme patients are up there. It can be pretty disturbing.”

  Well that explained Heather’s look, she thought. Missy gave him a reassuring smile, eyeing his hand so he’d move it. “I’ll be fine,” she replied. At least, she hoped she would be. In all honesty, there was a high chance she might freak out when she got up there, but she was trying not to think about it too much. If she just kept focused on what she needed to do, maybe she could block out everything else.

  Geoff stepped back, letting the steel doors close slowly between them, his face a mask of concern. Missy breathed in slowly as she rose two floors, her heart rate slowly increasing in speed as she drew closer. With an ominous ding, the doors opened and Missy only hesitated for a split second before pushing the cart out into the empty hallway.

  It was worse than she imagined. The groans and obscenities being yelled out from behind the doors sent chills down her spine. She could hear one man throwing himself against the door repeatedly. Her hands shook as she pushed the cart from room to room, sliding the trays through the slots as quickly as possible.

  Her heart would skip; the irrational fear that they would reach through the slot and grab hold of her invading her thoughts each time. When she finally stood in front of room four-twenty, a new sort of nerves assaulted her. She looked up and down the halls even though she knew she was alone. Opening the slot slowly, Missy crouched down in front of it to peer inside.

  “Tyler?” she whispered. Her eyes scanned the room, but she couldn’t see anything. “Tyler?” she said a bit louder. Someone from down the hall moaned loudly, making her jump and turn to look. Pressing a hand to her chest in some feeble hope of calming her heart, she knelt down again, looking into the colourless room.

  She placed her other hand on the lip of the slot to help steady herself as she leaned in further, trying to see if she could see any more of the room.

  “Tyler, are you in there?”

  The rustling of fabric was the only warning she got before a large, tattooed hand appeared a second before it latched on to hers. Missy yelped and tried to pull her hand back, but it was now firmly stuck inside his. No matter how hard she tried to rip it away, his hold didn’t falter. He wasn’t hurting her, she realized, as she ceased her struggles. His grip on her was firm, but she noticed that he had instantly gentled it.

  “Tyler?” she called out again, tears formed unbidden as she fought to calm herself.

  Her breath caught in her throat as she saw just his mouth appear. He glided his lips across her knuckles slowly while inhaling deeply like he was scenting her. A growl sounded from his chest, but not aggressive like she’d heard him do before. This one sounded more tortured. She crouched there, frozen, as she watched him run his lips back and forth across her skin.

  The hairs on her arms stood on end, every cell in her body suddenly focused on the man locked behind the door between them. Suddenly he pulled her hand in further, running his nose along her wrist. His tongue flicked out over the spot where her pulse raced.

  Missy was equal parts mesmerized and horrified by what he was doing. She had no idea what had gotten into him, but knew she really should put a stop to it. However, she simply watched as he seemed to worship every inch of skin available to him. It had been so long since she’d been touched by the opposite sex, and never so reverently, part of her never wanted it to stop. They had more important things to do, though, and this was not something she could encourage when she knew full well that nothing was ever going to happen between them.

  Not only was she too damaged to ever have a real relationship with a man, but Tyler was way out of her league. A man like him would never go for a scared little mouse like Missy. Taking a deep breath, she slowly pulled her hand back and he let her this time.

  “Come,” he said, disappearing from the small opening. She could hear him taking a step back so she could open the door. She knew the code to the lock, having looked before she came here, but now that she was standing in front of the door she started to get a panic attack.

  What if someone caught them? What if they killed her, or turned her into one of their patients as some sort of punishment? There were so many things that could go wrong. She warred with herself, unmoving in front of his door. She was no hero. What had she been thinking even signing up for this? Sure, she’d found him and had a way to release him, but that only got them out of his room. How would they get out of the building?

  What if they ran into someone on the way down? Would they have to k
ill that person? Missy wasn’t capable of murder. She fought with herself in a tense silence before it was shattered by Tyler’s fist on the door.

  “Come!” he repeated.

  Taking a deep breath, Missy stepped up to the lock and keyed in the code. “Okay,” she said, loudly enough for him to hear. “But you’d better have a plan, because this was as far as I’d gotten.”

  She opened the door. Her head looked to the right as she walked in, seeking him, before she was abruptly thrown back against the wall. She gasped, or tried to. Air was suddenly difficult to come by with the large, hot chest crushing against her front, and an unforgiving wall behind.

  Her eyes slowly rose to stare into Tyler’s. Her hands gingerly gripped his arms that were now caging her in. “Tyler? What are you doing?” she said, hating that her voice shook when she spoke.

  “Mine,” he growled.

  “Cut it out now, Tyler. No one else is here with me. We need to get you out of here, so let me go.” Even as she spoke she had the sinking suspicion that her words were useless. His eyes were cold, bottomless pools of green. “Tyler?” she said again, her voice dropping to a whisper. “It’s me, Missy.” Why she felt the need to say that was beyond her, until his response.

  “Mine,” he repeated in that deep, gravelly brogue.

  Then it hit her. Part of her had already suspected, but looking at him now confirmed her worst fears. Tyler had no idea who she was. She wondered if he even knew who he was. Whatever they had done to him, this was no longer the quiet, gentle giant she had known before.

  She was in so much trouble.

  She smelled like heaven. Her tiny body shook against his, small tremors of fear coursing through the soft flesh plastered against his. He had no idea who this angel was, but the one word that ran through his mind whenever she was near confirmed it – she was his. No one and nothing would take her from him now that he had her in his room.