by Ava Benton
I slide into my cargo shorts, removing my belt as a second thought. “Does she need a tourniquet?”
“How the hell would we know?” Dallas snapped.
I thought it couldn’t hurt, so I looped the belt around her upper thigh, above the wound. When I pulled tight, the flow of blood appeared to lessen.
The dragon was pleased. As was I.
“Somebody could’ve seen you here on the beach, when you landed,” Alan insisted.
“Good thing no one did, then.” I looked around, trying to put a plan in place. “Do either of you know of a hospital nearby?”
“We’ve been here as long as you have,” Dallas pointed out, standing, hands on his hips, looking roughly as hopeless as I felt.
He was right, naturally. This was Mary’s resort. Not an area I was familiar with. Certainly not one Dallas and Alan would be familiar with. They’d been captives until we’d rescued them.
We were each as lost as the other.
There was no time to waste in attempting to locate a hospital.
“If we lift her in the towel and lower her into the bed of the truck, she might be able to make it through a ride back to the resort. Mightn’t she? We have to try.” It was the best I could come up with.
She had lost so much blood, and her entire right side was a wreck. Her arm was clearly broken in several places and beginning to swell, dark purple bruises standing out against her tawny skin. I didn’t dare touch her abdomen or ribs for fear of what I’d find there.
“What could they do for her?” Alan asked.
“There’s bound to be medical equipment there. They treated Klaus for his concussion, didn’t they? And any of you who required treatment, too. Phillip was a surgeon in the Army,” I added, flailing around for a plan. “We have to. We can’t leave her here to die.”
“She wanted to die,” Alan replied, his voice quiet.
“You don’t know that. I’ll take her on my own, if the two of you won’t.”
“Of course, we will.” Dallas gathered the towel by her feet, while I gathered it around her head and the two of us carried her up the beach to the truck.
I winced when we lowered her in the bed, sure she would wake up screaming, but she was unaware. I touched bloodstained fingers to the side of the neck to feel for a pulse. It was there, but it was weak.
“Hurry!” I barked as Dallas slid behind the wheel, with Alan throwing himself into the passenger seat before we peeled out.
I wanted to stabilize her, hold her close, spare her every last bit of pain I could as we jostled over the unpaved roads. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. We’ll get you there soon,” I murmured, peeling dark, blood-soaked hair back from her forehead.
She was a beauty.
She was dying.
The brakes squealed once we pulled through the large, circular drive and came to a stop in front of the entrance.
I leaped over the side of the truck and opened the gate, using the towel to pull the girl to me while Alan ran inside for help.
They brought out a gurney, and two of Mary’s guys lifted the body from the truck while I explained to Phillip what had happened.
“I think she hit something on the way down,” I barked. “I don’t think hitting me would’ve caused that much damage. And she was already unconscious prior to that—she never cried out when she made contact.”
“This is all important to know.”
We burst through the double doors leading into what I could only describe as a makeshift hospital room, complete with overhead lights which the weathered, brusque Army surgeon lowered and flipped on before examining her.
In such harsh light, she looked worse than ever. Her skin was so fine and delicate, every bruise showed up like an ugly, garish stain.
“She’s bleeding inside. Heavily.” Phillip’s craggy brow creased even further. “It would’ve been better to get her to a hospital, but there probably isn’t enough time.”
“Can you help her, though? Does she need more than what you can provide?”
He shook his head. “I’ll do the best I can. We have to open her up.”
“Can you use our blood? There was plenty taken from the lab,” I pointed out.
“Yes, yes, but I have to find the source of the bleeding, first,” he said, pushing me out of his operating theater. “Get out of here, so I can do my work. She’s in good hands.”
In good hands. He’d just said she should’ve gone to a hospital, but wanted me to believe she’d be all right with him.
I sank into a chair in the hall and held my head in my hands, elbows on my knees.
In good hands. That had to be enough.
The dragon wasn’t so easily put-off, of course, and he raged inside me. His rage was born of frustration and a feeling of uselessness. We had done everything we could for her, but it didn’t feel like nearly enough.
After all the energy and excitement of the last half-hour, I felt strangely hollow inside once there was nothing left to do. Her blood was all over my clothing, driving her essence into my subconscious.
The dragon breathed her in, let her sink into him. Into both of us. I worried that I’d never be able to let her go after such an intimate connection forged itself between us. I had no more control over it than I did over the tides, unfortunately. Such things weren’t within my power.
Feet shuffled around me, though it was a long time before I raised my head to see who’d gathered.
Leslie and Ainsley stood against the wall, heads inclined toward each other as their breathless murmurs poured forth.
Dallas and Alan.
They seemed more concerned about me than they were the girl. I wanted to tell them to stop looking at me as they were, that I wasn’t the one to worry about. I’d be just fine. It was her, bleeding inside. She was the one in true danger.
Martina and Gate walked down the hall, hand-in-hand as always.
“Any word?” she asked, looking at me with something dangerously akin to pity in her eyes.
I was the first to admit how much my cousin and I and the rest of the clan owed her, but that didn’t give her permission to pity me.
Resentment bubbled dangerously close to the surface.
Alan spoke for me, shaking his head before replying. “It didn’t look good, however.”
“Why don’t you wait a minute before declaring the girl’s life over?” I snapped.
His eyes flew open. “Ach, I meant no disrespect. I’m only commenting on the good doctor’s assessment.”
“We don’t want to see anything happen to the poor lass,” Dallas added in an attempt to smooth things over.
“And she jumped? This was purposeful?” Gate looked around, waiting for an answer.
Dallas glanced my way before answering. “Aye. It looked purposeful.”
“We don’t know that.” Why was I jumping to her defense? And why did it seem as though they all expected me to?
“Lad, none of us are trying to sully the girl’s character,” Alan argued. “It’s none of our business why she acted as she did. But let’s face facts, just the same. She didn’t slip and fall. She didn’t even scream, as one would if they were caught unawares. She stood there long enough for us to notice her.”
“As though she were weighing her options,” Dallas added.
A sick certainty revealed itself. Yes, she’d done it on purpose. She had tried to kill herself. There had to be a reason why she would go to such extreme measures. What if she were gravely ill and wanted to avoid the pain and indignity that would soon become her life? What had I done by prolonging things? Was our blood strong enough to heal her, if that were the case?
It was an excruciatingly long wait.
Mary passed through, as did Bonnie.
I barely registered their presence, even when Bonnie tried to insist I go and bathe myself instead of sitting vigil outside the operating room.
I didn’t reply, and Gate led her away.
When the door opened, I was on my feet in a flash and
had to stop myself from taking Phillip by the shoulders and demanding what had taken so long.
There were dark circles around his eyes, and his color was considerably more gray than it had been prior to starting in on her.
“It will take a little time,” he announced. “I believe the emergency has passed. The bleeding has stopped.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, as did those around me.
“However,” he continued, “there was a great deal of damage done to her right side. Crushed ribs, punctured lung, and the arm and leg both broken in several places. I’ll not be able to set the limbs until the damage to her side heals, as she needs to breathe without drowning in blood. It could take a day, maybe two. Until then, she’ll need constant attention—should she start to aspirate blood, I’ll need to know immediately.”
He looked at me, his eyes sharp and knowing. “I would feel much better about this if she were in a hospital.”
“What happens if you take her to one, and they wonder how her internal injuries are healing so quickly?” I asked, thinking fast. “Wouldn’t that raise a red flag?”
“Yes,” he admitted with a frown. “It would. Once I used dragon’s blood, there was little hope of her being treated by outsiders.”
I could nearly taste the relief on my tongue, as though it were a real thing. There was no explaining my need to keep her near. I only knew I had to. She couldn’t be left to the rest of the world, where anything might happen to her. She was too fragile, delicate, in need of protection.
“I can set up a schedule for anyone who’d like to volunteer their services,” Martina offered.
Phillip nodded. “Good. Once the lung has healed, I’ll be able to set the limbs. She’ll need to be unconscious throughout all of this—the pain would be too much for her to stand, otherwise.”
Mary approached. “We have the drugs for that, don’t we?”
“We do. It’s a good thing you insist on being so well prepared,” he replied with a tight, tired smile. “I’ll transport her to the nearest available room, and we’ll set her up there.”
He disappeared again, this time with Mary at his heels.
I was back to feeling helpless, with nothing to do but wait for things to unfold as they would.
Not a position I enjoyed being in.
Ainsley was frowning when she turned to voice the question which had been bouncing around my brain for hours. “What would make a beautiful girl like that think suicide was the only answer?”
Martina shook her head, as troubled as the rest of us. “I don’t know—but whatever it was, it must have been pretty bad.”
We stepped back when both doors opened, and Phillip wheeled a gurney through the doorway and down the hall.
The girl was under a sheet, her eyes closed, looking for all the world as though she were already dead. Only the sight of a pulse beating under the fine, soft skin of her throat assured me that she was only asleep, which was the best condition for her to be under at that time.
“I’ll take the first shift,” I offered, watching as they moved down the hall.
“I don’t think so,” Gate muttered, standing by my side. “You’re a mess. Bloody, dirty. Why not wash up and get a little rest? They’ll only be settling her in for the time being.”
I glared at him, but not for long. I wasn’t angry. I was helpless.
And he understood that as I searched silently for answers and he squeezed my shoulder in response. “I know. But you’re no good to her half-dead. Take care of yourself. You can always have the next shift.”
I had no option but to agree.
4
Savannah
The pain. The pain. Nothing in the world existed but the pain.
I couldn’t be dead. Dead people didn’t feel pain. But I wasn’t floating in the water or curled up on the rocks at the base of the cliff, either.
If there hadn’t been fiery, hot pain originating from my right side, I might have been comfortable. My head rested on a soft, thick pillow. There was a mattress beneath me. I was inside—a fan whirred above me, stirring the otherwise still air. How in the world did I survive the fall?
Footsteps.
I stiffened when their sound met my ears. A hard floor. Heavy feet.
Oh, God, what if Papa somehow found me? Or, worse, Antonio?
What if I went through all that soul-searching and the pain of having hit whatever it was I hit for nothing?
I gritted my teeth against the fresh wave of agony which slammed into me when I remembered hitting the rock or branch.
I couldn’t move my arm or my leg, not that I wanted to try very hard. Wherever I was, I was trapped here. What if I had leaped into an even worse fate than the one I had imagined for myself?
“Are you awake?” A male voice. Deep, but soothing. “You don’t have to be afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of. We just want to help you.”
We? Who was we?
I didn’t open my eyes and struggled to stay as still as possible. My writer’s imagination whirled out of control, coming up with one terrible scenario after another. It would be like that movie about the writer who gets taken hostage by the woman who’d saved him from freezing to death. Only I was nowhere near famous, and whoever had gone to the trouble of rescuing me deserved more than my automatic distrust.
So, I allowed my eyes to flutter open.
The walls were white, the curtains at the French doors a thin, gauzy material which stirred prettily as the afternoon breeze wafted in. It was a beautiful room. Serene.
I took a chance and turned my head from one side to the other, to get a look at the person belonging to that deep voice.
He sat beside the bed, leaning over with his elbows on his knees. An absolutely massive man. Broad-shouldered, impossibly thick with muscle. A bodybuilder or professional athlete.
This was probably his vacation home or private retreat. There were plenty of people like that on the islands. Hair that reminded me of cherry wood—dark, with a few deep red highlights that showed when the light caught him just right. Set deep in his rugged, handsome face were eyes the color of black coffee. But they were kind eyes. Understanding. Full of apprehension. Over me? I was merely a stranger.
“You gave us a scare,” he murmured, smiling. When was the last time I saw a smile without any hint of an ulterior motive behind it? “It’s been a long few days.”
A few days? I had been unconscious for that long?
My forehead furrowed as I frowned, struggling to find the words to express my confusion.
“You don’t have to speak right away,” he offered, raising a glass with a straw sticking up over the rim. “You must be thirsty.”
He was correct on that count. My mouth felt like somebody had replaced the interior with sandpaper. It was an awkward affair, trying to sip the water he so clumsily-yet-ardently offered.
I tried to express my thanks with my eyes, and the look of relief I saw in response told me the message was received.
My eyes darted back and forth, as if to ask where I was.
He understood that, too. I wondered if we would ever have to exchange a single word.
“You’re on St. Lucia, at a resort run by a good friend of mine.”
A resort? I needed to be in a hospital, if anything. But…
No. This was just fine. A hospital would want to know who I was. They would contact Papa.
He continued. “Don’t worry about your care, either. There are medics here.” He indicated the IV port in my left arm. “Fluids to keep you hydrated, pain meds. They’re probably what kept you out for so long, but you did a lot of damage to yourself. It was better for you to sleep while your broken bones were set. It shouldn’t take long for you to heal now.”
Shouldn’t take long? I’d broken bones, according to him. Did he know something I didn’t?
“I’ll let you rest now,” he said, unfolding his body as he stood.
The man was a giant—at least, he looked that way from where I looked u
p at him. I should’ve been afraid of him. A hulking beast. But there was nothing beastly about him. Strength? Power? Yes, both, in spades.
An energy I had never felt before circled around him, radiated from his pores, but it didn’t intimidate me. If anything, it left me feeling warm and secure. I was safe, at least for the time being.
It was what would happen once my savior found out who I was that kept me from falling asleep when I was alone again.
5
Miles
“She’s awake,” I announced when I strode into the sitting room on the first floor, which had become a gathering spot since the clan took over.
At any time of the day or night, there was bound to be a handful of us passing the time here.
In a tall cupboard lived a collection of games which had all been played at least once by each of us.
Ainsley and Isla looked up from their checkers, smiling radiantly. “She is? How is she?”
I shrugged before sinking into a leather chair, affecting a carelessness I didn’t feel. “I don’t know. She didn’t say a word.”
“Is she mute?” Isla wondered, eyes wide.
“How would I know? She didn’t speak,” I reminded her, and I had to chuckle.
She had always been slightly scatterbrained, somewhat gullible, but with a good heart.
Ainsley’s auburn curls bounced as she shook her head. “It’s probably the shock. She doesn’t know where she is or who we are. Poor thing. Imagine, expecting to wake up dead, then waking up here, instead.”
“If she’d expected to die, I don’t guess she would’ve considered waking up at all,” I grumbled.
Was this what they did? Sitting around, guessing about the mystery girl? It had been days, but we’d found nothing to help us.
A Jeep was left on the cliff, close to the spot where she’d jumped, but Tamhas had found nothing inside to identify her. No purse, no wallet. As though she’d intended to stump anyone who came across the vehicle.
“She didn’t want anybody to know who she is,” Isla whispered with a sigh. “How terrible it must have been for her, then. The poor dear.”