by Angie Fox
Our base commander, Colonel Kosta, barreled past me, sterile hands up. “If you’re done with him, we’ve got about five dozen of his friends out front.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” I scrubbed up for surgery and made it out onto the floor in time to help with a mass influx of close-combat injuries—artillery shot, metal-weapons wounds.
From what I could see, it had been a massacre.
The operating tent was packed. I had a table by the front, near one of the big fans. You’d think that would be good, but all it seemed to do was blow hot air around.
By my third patient, I was getting a massive headache and an intense urge to run away and jump in the nearest tar pit.
Marc had the table in front of me. He stepped away as an orderly took his patient to recovery. “How are you doing?”
“Good.” Which was a ridiculous thing to say in the middle of the latest bloodbath.
Still, I didn’t need to worry about Marc understanding, at least when it came to this.
My goggles fogged at the edges as I worked on a particularly dicey shard of glass that had severed a lung in three places. At least that was how many I’d found so far.
Nurse Hume stood to my right, assisting.
Marc made his way to my free side. “Hey,” he said, under the clattering chaos. “You need a break?”
“I’m okay.”
He didn’t budge. “I’m not giving up on you.”
I glanced up, locked eyes with him. “Don’t do this. Not now.” I wasn’t about to give him false hope.
Hume suctioned. “There.”
I looked to where he was pointing and saw another shard of glass. I extracted it, holding it up for Hume and Marc to see. “Do you realize how close to the abyss he had to be to get this kind of a wound?”
Marc shook his head. “What are you talking about?”
That’s right. He hadn’t seen PNN. “Let’s just say the old army has invented a whole new brand of horror.”
Complete with dragon suicide bombers.
“Christ,” he said, keeping an eye on his table. It wouldn’t stay empty for long.
“Over here,” Hume murmured, suctioning near another shard.
Damn.
It was like they were multiplying. I was thankful again for the anesthetic we’d developed for immortals. It was impossible to imagine doing this surgery while the poor kid on my table was conscious.
Nurse Hume handed me a retractor.
I tried it, realized I needed something smaller. “Get me a McAndrews clamp,” I said to Hume.
While he went off to look, I took over siphoning the wound. “We have a new prophecy,” I said, voice low, eyes on my patient. “The surgeon who sees the dead gets her fricking bronze dagger back. Again.”
I glanced up at Marc, expecting shock, coming up way short. Hell, maybe he was surprised. It was hard to tell with the surgical mask covering his face. Still, he looked way too calm. “Did you hear me?” He especially should recognize my own particular brand of hell.
No one knew about me and my ability except for Marc, and Galen. And now Leta. Shit. This was getting better and better.
He exhaled hard, the breath tenting his surgical mask. “Don’t borrow trouble.”
Oh, that was rich. “Because the oracles have been wrong before.” I located another sliver of glass and tossed it onto the tray.
“You’re looking for problems,” he ground out.
I didn’t have to. They found me all on their own.
Marc leaned close. “If you want to stew about something, start thinking about how we’re going to keep our special guests a secret now that recovery is flooded.”
“Thanks for that.” I couldn’t wait to get them out of here. “Why the hell did he ever come back here with her?”
Marc’s eyes were guarded. “She’s a fugitive,” he said, heading back to his table. At my surprised look, he added, “Leta explained everything.”
“Nice,” I muttered as he went to inspect the X-rays they were posting for him.
Galen wouldn’t tell me squat. Meanwhile Marc got explanations from the dragon who’d died on my table.
I focused on stitching together torn muscle. Classified, my ass. At least one of them had had the decency to fill us in after we’d risked our necks.
We finished surgery in just under eighteen hours, which in truth was quicker than I’d expected. Dawn was beginning to edge through the high windows of the surgeons’ locker room as I peeled off my cap and tossed it into the bio waste bin.
My ponytail was half falling out and my eyes felt like sandpaper. I didn’t care.
I plunked down on the bench between the rows of lockers and just sat.
There was a time I thought I could beat this war—that the things I did to make the prophecies come true would make a difference. Now, I didn’t know.
I’d worked so hard, bled soul-deep to help bring about that cease-fire. And for what? It was hard to see if it had been a true time of peace or simply a delay of the inevitable. War, suffering, death. I didn’t know how to escape it. Or if we even could.
I shoved to my feet.
Marc hadn’t even wanted to hear about the bronze dagger, as if that would make it go away.
It galled me, the way he refused to acknowledge what we were dealing with.
He was too cynical. This war had hardened him as well.
I shucked off my surgical gown. Oh, who was I kidding? There was a time when I’d felt the same way. Like I could be logical, practical, and all of this would go away.
Ha. I wadded the gown and tossed it into the biohazard bin.
Now I felt too deeply, for people and things I shouldn’t feel for at all. I didn’t want to dive back into that mess, but trying to handle everything on my own sucked.
No matter how hard I tried not to admit it to myself, I knew Galen would understand about the dagger.
I yanked open my locker and pulled out a PowerBar and a half-full bottle of water.
He’d wanted to protect me when the knife had first started showing up in places it shouldn’t. Galen had insight, answers—even if they were based on an insane faith in me and my abilities.
Maybe I didn’t miss him so much after all.
I tore through my PowerBar without tasting it. It was fuel, nothing more. And if I slowed down, I might fall over. That was the problem with marathon surgery—my body wanted to crash, but my brain was still going a hundred and eighty miles an hour.
There was no way I was going to sleep. And anyway, I needed to check on Galen. No telling who had walked in on him during the chaos of the last eighteen hours.
Grabbing a clean mask, I took the shortcut through surgery, half expecting to be called over to assist. But there were no more patients waiting and the only surgeons left out on the floor—Kosta and Rodger—had eyes only for their patients.
When I pushed through the double doors to the ICU, a new nurse sat at the desk.
“I’m here to see Jane and John Doe.”
She finished making a notation in a chart and slid her pen behind her ear. “They’re in quarantine.”
Nice touch.
She checked her list. “Beds 2Q and 3Q.”
Quarantine. So they’d been separated then. “Thanks.” My heart pounded and my palms began to sweat.
Don’t think of the dream.
Or sex.
Or the way our bodies slid together so perfectly.
It hadn’t been so long ago that I’d lived that dream. I’d had Galen in my bed every night. I remembered every kiss, every touch. Vividly.
Lord have mercy.
I took the back exit out of recovery, to the flat strip of land before the rise of the hill where we landed our evac helicopters. Six small red tents stretched out in a row, with the requisite ten feet between them.
Each was big enough for one patient, and me when I crouched over.
This was so dumb, but I did it anyway. “Knock, knock,” I said, easing inside
3Q before I lost my nerve.
Galen’s eyes flew open and he was up in an instant, sword in hand.
“Whoa, hey!” He was keeping a short sword under his pillow? That blade was at least two feet long. I held up my hands. “It’s me.”
At least he was wearing boxers. That and nothing else. The walls of the tiny tent closed in around us.
He’d been lying on his side, curled slightly. I used to snuggle back into him when he did that.
“Just the woman I wanted to see,” he said, his voice thick with sleep … or perhaps something else. That’s when I noticed he had two swords pointed at me … in a manner of speaking, at least.
“Are you going to put that thing away?”
He quirked a brow. “Which one?”
The man had absolutely no shame. “Both.”
Merde. I’d tried to tell myself that I was checking on him, making sure he was safe and well hidden.
But the truth was, I’d wanted to see him. I was starting to need him. And if I wasn’t careful, that desire would flay me alive.
The muscles in his shoulders bunched as he eased the steel blade back into its hiding spot.
This was such a bad idea. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was strung out and tired and I needed … “Sorry,” I said, scrubbing my hand over my face. “I shouldn’t have come. It’s been a rough twenty-four hours.”
“Sit,” he said, gesturing to his rumpled bed. When I hesitated, he gave me a resigned look. “I’m not going to try anything. I know you’re with—” He gestured, unable to even say the name.
“Marc,” I said quickly, feeling my ears redden at the tips. God, I was such an idiot. “I think I just needed to know you were here.”
Which was crazy because he wouldn’t always be there. He couldn’t.
A pained expression crossed his face. “I missed you too.”
“Galen—” I stood there, unsure what to say next.
“Don’t worry. I’ll back off.” He shook his head, saying almost to himself, “Every time I see a damned carton of blueberries, I think of you.”
I hadn’t eaten one since. And they were my favorite.
But I didn’t dare tell him that.
He sighed, running his hands through his short, clipped hair. “I didn’t set out to barge into your life and cause problems. I thought I could fly under the radar on this one.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I was wrong.”
“No.” I planted my back against the tent pole, trying to find the words. This was a man who did what was right. He followed his conscience, even if it got us into trouble. He could regret the situation, but as far as who he was…? “I’m glad you could come to me.”
He wasn’t my lover anymore. I’d never hold him again at night or tease him in the morning. But I could be with him in this. For whatever time we had left.
He watched me, his face carefully set. Hard.
“How will you get back?” I asked, more than ready to turn my mind to something else.
“I’m special ops,” he said. “I’m good at sneaking around.”
Yes, well, I hoped he wasn’t planning any heroics, not when he couldn’t shrug a shoulder without pain. Like it or not, he was human now.
“We’ll be out of your hair once Leta is stable enough to travel,” he said, as if he hadn’t nearly died on my table. “Until then, we need to lie low.”
Maybe I wasn’t so good at all of this black ops thinking, but, “Why can’t our side know anything? Are you hiding from them too?”
“For the time being, yes,” he said matter-of-factly.
Holy smokes. It wasn’t as if I were overly loyal to the new army, but still, the man had no fear.
I didn’t know whether to throttle him or give him a high five. “What are you, the Lone Ranger?”
He shook his head slowly. “I’m just trying to make a difference,” he said, as if that were it.
“What happened?” I asked, not expecting an answer.
“She was my mission,” he said simply. “I acquired her near one of the old army outposts.”
He sat on the cot, and this time I joined him.
He rested his forearms on his knees. “She’s a special breed that the old army is trying to weaponize.”
“Lovely.”
“Yes. Let’s just say our side is very interested in the program they’re developing. I was sent in to extricate, or exterminate if necessary.”
“Galen—”
“I wasn’t going to do that,” he said quickly. He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Still, getting out of there was rough. Leta was weaker than our reports suggested. And she fought me. They’d clipped the membranes on her wings back to the bone so she couldn’t fly. She couldn’t even shift back into a human. By the time I’d gotten her to the edge of the containment area, we’d been spotted.”
“I’m glad she went with you.” It must have taken a lot of trust. Galen was good at that, at getting people to believe in him.
“She didn’t have much of a choice,” he said tightly. “You saw what the old army does to their dragons.”
I’d witnessed them harnessing the dragons back in one of their camps. And I’d seen them use the dragons as weapons on PNN. I could hardly get that image out of my head.
“They keep them like animals.” I’d seen it. And I’d been horrified at the complete and utter lack of humanity. I just hadn’t realized how widespread it was.
The lantern light played over his sculpted cheekbones, the firm line of his jaw. He was harder than I remembered, more raw. “If a dragon isn’t useful in human form, the old army fits them with a collar that forces a shift. They’re used exclusively as animals—for communications, scouting”—his lip curled—“and weapons.”
My stomach turned at the thought.
Galen traced a hand over his arm, his blunt fingers trailing over deeply tanned skin. “Leta is one of the rare shifters who has the gift of telepathy.”
I sat back, stunned for a second. “I’m surprised they didn’t kill her outright.”
Telepathy would be a priceless commodity around here, where all communications were controlled by the gods.
His eyes caught mine and held. “That’s what I wondered.”
“Telepathic humans are hunted down.” Like me. Not that I’d ever met one, but I heard the stories.
His mouth tightened. “When I informed my commander I was going in to get her, he ordered restraints.”
Okay. “Well, she could have been dangerous.”
“A collar,” he added.
Oh, hell.
Yes, the old army was brutal in general, but I’d seen for myself what our side was capable of—murder, torture, eternal damnation.
I scooted closer. “Well, you can’t just keep her here.”
“I don’t trust our side to do the right thing.”
I didn’t either. I touched his leg. It was stupid on about ten different levels, but I needed that contact, that connection. His muscle tightened under my fingers, but he didn’t move away. “What are you going to do?” I asked.
His expression was steely. “I don’t know.”
Hades, this was such a mess.
He coiled under my touch like a cobra ready to strike. “She’s been hiding her power,” he said, “to the point where she’s not even sure it’s there anymore. But if she can find it again, nurture it, she’ll be able to communicate with any and all dragons, and likely most anyone she wants. She could be a powerful asset to the new army. If we don’t use her for experiments or dissection.”
I didn’t save her life to have somebody cut her apart. “Does she suspect?”
“If she’s smart, she does.”
I slid my fingers up his thigh, held it. “But she could use her power for good.”
This time, he moved away. “With the right people behind her, yes. I’m trying to figure out what we’re facing so we know where to go when we get out of here.
“She doesn’t trust me, not all the way at least. Sh
e seems to have a special bond with Marc.”
It had pained him to say it. He shook it off, refocused. “I think we’re part of a bigger plan.”
“Naturally.” I didn’t like where this was going.
He gazed at me like he could see into my soul. “The new prophecy proves it.”
“Wait.” I broke away from him, at once missing the intimacy we’d always shared. “That’s going a little far.” I mean, really. “You can’t expect me to be turning up a dagger, while hiding a dragon, and you.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “I’m used to lying low.”
“No.” I wasn’t strong enough for this. Yes, I admired Galen’s faith, but I wasn’t sure it meant I had to risk everything for him and his kidnapped asset. And for what? I had no idea how to make this work out right.
Only faith.
He gave me a knowing look. “I can see the wheels turning.”
I snorted. “Don’t tell me you’re enjoying this.”
“I missed you,” he said quietly.
It was too much—his nearness and his touch and, well, him. “I’m not yours.”
Not Marc’s. Not anybody’s.
“I know,” he said simply. But he didn’t let up. “We can brave this, Petra. I’ll still do whatever it takes to help you find peace.”
Jesus Christ on a pogo stick.
“Yes, well, what if we get caught this time? What if they discover you and Leta and they figure me out too? We could wait a hundred years for a prophecy to come true. What if the bronze dagger never shows up? Worse, what if it does? I have no control and no guarantees and I never signed up for this.”
“Anything else?” he asked.
I sighed. “Can you be with me on this? Maybe try and freak out too?”
“No.”
At least he was honest.
I ducked back out of his tent, more frustrated than when I’d gone in. But at least I wasn’t alone anymore.
chapter seven
Marc wasn’t home when I made it back to my tent, which was good. I didn’t want him to have to watch me move out.