by Angie Fox
The polish bottles clattered with Rodger’s stomping.
I grabbed a fresh set of scrubs from my footlocker. “You two can tear the tent down, only stay away from my bookshelf.”
“What?” Rodger clomped up.
For the love of Pete. I reached to steady the colorful mosaic picture frame on top of a stack of Southern Ghost Hunter books. As if Verity Long had problems. “What did I just say?”
“Sorry,” he muttered, in what I could only assume was a supreme act of sacrifice.
“Yeah, well, keep the pity party over there.” Hand on his back, I steered him over onto his side. The army had allowed one bag from home. I’d taken some clothes, my “keeper” books, and the only picture I had of my parents together. I wasn’t about to let an undersexed werewolf grind it into the red dirt floor.
“You’re not with me on this, Petra?” Rodger pleaded. “The only thing I have from home is in this bottle.”
“Oh, I’m with you,” I said. Marius was as arrogant as they came, with his talk of mirrored love nests and mortal women. “I’d like to send him back to his loft with a bottle of Windex and a twelve-pack of Viagra.”
“Rude and crude as usual.” Marius sniffed.
“But I don’t think he’s going,” I added.
And really, Marius had it worse than anybody. Werewolves only lived to about one hundred. Being half fae, I’d make it maybe fifty years longer than that. But our vampire buddy was here for eternity.
Long after lights-out, I lay staring at the shadows on the ceiling of our tent. Liquid tar gurgled in the pit out back. The acrid smell didn’t bother me much anymore. Most nights the purr of the bubbles put me to sleep. I rolled over and wadded my pillow under my cheek. I should be bone-tired from the OR. And I was. Still, I didn’t think I’d be able to relax until Commander Galen shipped out.
Not to mention I probably shouldn’t have walked out of surgery. I was forty-two, not six.
I didn’t ask for the power to speak to the dead. It was one of those things that had always been there. Dr. Levi believed it was a rare recessive trait that had originated in Faery.
My mom had been fae, but I didn’t know much else about her. Well, except that I had her rich black hair and high cheekbones. I also had her height. I was as tall as my dad.
My mom skipped out on Dad as soon as she had me. He was proud of her for staying that long. I thought she was a jerk.
It didn’t get me out of going to Supernatural After School until I was fourteen. I was the only kid in my class who knew Marie Laveau personally. You don’t know how hard it was as a teenager to have a famous friend and not be able to talk about it.
A small fist rapped at the door. “Petra!” Horace whispered.
“That’s Dr. Robichaud to you,” I grumbled.
“He’s awake.”
I squeezed my eyes closed with dread. Still I asked, “Who?”
“You know very well who. The immortal you saved. He wants to talk to you.”
Naturally. I hoped it wasn’t about what I thought it was about.
Groaning, I dug my feet into my sneakers.
This was my secret—my butt on the line.
Horace zipped backward as I banged out of the hut, wearing surgical pants and a tank top with no bra. No sense worrying about it. It wasn’t like I had much to cover.
“Where are my pennies?” he demanded.
“I’ll do it first thing tomorrow,” I said, scraping my hair back into a ponytail, wondering what I was going to say to Commander Galen.
Deny it all.
“This isn’t worship,” Horace growled. “This is charity. I need to bust out of this camp and find some real followers.”
I eyed the pint-sized thundercloud, from his starched red uniform cap to his sparkly military boots with wings poking out the back. “You really think that’s the problem?”
“Of course it is. I’m cooped up here. If I could get out in the world, I could get my entire three-wheeled chariot cult going again.”
It would be a solution to the energy crisis.
Horace brainstormed modern worship solutions the entire way to the recovery tent. “I just can’t figure out how to reach people, you understand? I need to break through the clutter. Everyone is so busy these days.”
He held open the door for me, and I walked into the tent with my head held high and my fingers trembling only slightly.
Chapter Three
I pulled my white physician’s coat off a wooden peg by the door and slipped it on. I needed to take it easy.
Yes, he was striking, and yes, I’d saved him. But that didn’t mean I should get carried away. “He’s just a patient,” I murmured to myself. I’d done this hundreds of times.
Yeah, right.
At least the place smelled familiar—a mix of antiseptic and desert dust. I nodded to the night nurse, who acknowledged my presence from behind a brick-red metal desk lit by a simple one-bulb lamp.
The door banged behind me, and I glanced back to see Horace bugging out. How bad was it that I wanted him to stick around? Talk about desperation.
I walked down the long, narrow tent like a convict facing the firing squad. Military beds lined either side. The blue lights came on at night and cast more shadows than they illuminated.
It was important for patients to rest in order to gather their strength. I was glad to see most of them asleep. At least some people would have a relaxing night.
Commander Galen had been assigned to bed 22A, almost at the end.
Would he know?
Would he remember what I’d done?
Sharp anger speared through me. I didn’t ask for this.
I could feel his eyes on me as I stopped to check my one-horned patient, who was snoring like a banshee. His chart indicated they’d found his missing appendage. I reached in my pocket and clicked open a pen, noting I’d do the reattachment in the morning.
Things had to look better once the suns came up.
Jeffe, the security sphinx, padded toward me. He was as large and muscular as a full-grown lion. His thick, tawny hair cascaded into a long, straight mane that framed his sharp, humanlike facial features. Well, what I could see of his face. Jeffe was in the process of growing a goatee and had hair sprouting everywhere from the nose down.
Sphinxes weren’t allowed in the OR. They’d been bred as soul eaters for thousands of years, and, well, why risk it? But they made great night guards for our noncritical cases.
Jeffe snarled, shaking his abundant mane over his shoulders. “The one at the end is awake.” He spoke like every sphinx I’d ever known, deep and guttural with a hint of Egyptian. “I’m going to go ask him a riddle.”
“No. I’ve got it.” There was a reason we employed the sphinxes after the patients went to bed.
Besides, I didn’t want Jeffe around to hear what kind of questions the good commander might have for me.
I caught sight of my patient through the scattered pools of light. He was even more chiseled, more raw, more breathtakingly powerful than I’d remembered.
I felt it the way a deer scents a wolf.
Jeffe growled low in his throat as he retreated. “You will call to me if you need me.”
No, I wouldn’t. I had to do this alone.
Commander Galen sat propped up in his bed, studying me with naked interest.
My stomach tightened.
He was seductive in a way that was almost a physical caress. I refused to react, even as warmth shot down my spine. It was as if he’d already touched me in the most intimate way possible and had memorized every inch of me.
Damn, it was no wonder there wasn’t another one like him. The females of the species wouldn’t stand a chance. Even with my years of training, I was going to be a puddle on the floor if I didn’t watch it.
Focus.
I had to think of him as a patient, and not the man whose soul I’d touched.
A small shiver ran through me.
Get it together, Robichaud.
This was no time to get personal. I needed to keep my distance and my wits.
Steeling myself, I gave him a tight-lipped smile and drew my clinical persona around me like armor. “I’m glad to see you awake,” I said, taking his chart.
According to the blue ink scrawls, the nurse had changed his dressings an hour ago. Both wounds were healing well. I’d saved his life. Now we’d just have to deal with the consequences.
“What happened?” he asked, with the tone of one used to commanding attention.
My chest tightened as I flipped to the second page in his chart. “I’m not going to lie to you. It got ugly.” Blood pressure normal. “But no worries. We patched you up.” The rest of his stats looked good.
“I remember dying.” His gaze traveled over me as if he was waiting for me to give something away.
I kept my face blank and my mouth shut. I could feel the weight of his inspection.
“You touched me.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, my expression carefully neutral.
It had been one of the most incredible things I’d ever done, a pure, raw moment of clarity.
He trailed blunt fingers across a battle-hardened arm.
“I saw you,” he said, almost to himself. Confusion flickered across his features. “I could have sworn it.”
I’d been as close as one human being could be to another. I’d never touched anyone that deeply, or let him touch me back.
It was both illuminating and frightening. I’d held his life in my hands and felt his strength, his dedication. His isolation.
That last one had really gotten to me. This was a soldier who put his life on the line every day. Commander Galen endured death and blood and pain. He was willing to go through hell so that people like me didn’t have to.
It saddened me to think he was alone in the world. He at least deserved to have someone care.
I took a deep breath. “You were very heavily poisoned.”
He stared at me, into me, calculating every breath, every stuttering blink. I felt exposed, laid bare as if he could see and comprehend even the smallest emotion that flickered across my features.
“Tell me what happened,” he said as if he already knew.
I found myself wanting to open up, craving the connection. “You didn’t die,” I said quickly. “Or you wouldn’t be here.”
Galen drew himself up on his elbows. “I remember standing outside my body. Watching you.”
Part of me wondered what he’d seen in that moment.
“You need to lie down,” I said. He was going to pull his stitches open. I forced myself to once again touch his smooth, tanned skin as I eased him back onto the bed. His heat soaked into my hands as I checked his vitals.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
I felt myself flush. One slipup and he’d have me. So I did what I’d always done to keep my emotions in check. I focused on my job.
“Doctor,” he began.
“You got lucky,” I said. It was the truth and then some.
“You had a serious knife wound, a poisoned bloodstream, and an acute reaction to the one hundred twenty cc’s of toxopren we pumped into your system.” I hooked my stethoscope around my neck. “You’re going to be fine. But it’s normal to feel out of sorts after what you’ve been through.” Normal for him and for me. We both needed to relax, let it go.
His eyes narrowed, trying to remember.
I glanced back at the shadow-drenched unit and fought the urge to pull a repeat of my dash from yesterday. This entire conversation was making me feel claustrophobic.
“Why don’t I have Father McArio stop by to see you?” I asked, standing. “He’s a good guy.” The kind without deadly secrets.
A muscle in Galen’s jaw twitched. “Dr. Robichaud.”
He would have to pronounce it like a true Cajun.
Still, I’d stood my ground. I’d secured my distance, and it would take a lot more than that for me to give it up. I replaced his chart at the foot of the bed. “Get some sleep.” I buried my hands in my pockets and walked away.
“Tell me you didn’t see it.”
And in that instant, he tore it all down.
I turned. Sure enough, the clean-cut, square-jawed commander was trying to get out of bed, naked.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” He couldn’t follow me. If he tried to stand, he’d end up on the floor.
Jeffe rushed to my side. “Patient out of order!” He thrust his chin at Galen. “What’s the capital of Saskatchewan?”
“Pipe down, Jeffe.”
The rest of the patients needed their sleep.
“Commander Galen,” I protested, ready to catch him as he stood. He couldn’t have been steady on his feet. It was too soon. It was also impressive as heck to see at least six and a half feet of pure muscle and man unfold right in front of me.
Galen held his sheet around his waist, not tight enough in my opinion. It slung low over his narrow hips. I felt my throat go dry before I caught myself staring.
“You want me to eat him, Petra?” Jeffe snarled.
If he didn’t, I would. I gave myself a mental shake. I was not going there.
Jeffe danced at the foot of the bed on massive paws. “Or I can suck out his liver, maybe boil his ears in oil. You know, give him the full Egyptian treatment.”
I cleared my throat. “Thanks, Jeffe. I’m fine.”
If only that were true.
Galen loomed over me. I could tell he was having a devil of a time standing, but it didn’t stop him. He squared his shoulders, and I felt it down to my core. He was too solid, too wide, his jaw too set to be considered classically handsome. No, he was something more. He was unapologetically male. It was as if he commanded the recovery tent and everyone in it. Never back down. Never surrender. If he was this impressive injured, what would he be like when he was healthy enough to fight?
“I’ll let you go,” he said, “on one condition.”
“Name it.”
His mouth curled up at the corner. “Give me five minutes.”
Oh my.
“You got it,” I said, ignoring that little voice in my head that told me I was sinking in deep. Too deep.
“That wasn’t so hard,” he said in an all-too-familiar tone as he eased himself back into bed. This man was going to be trouble on wheels.
Get a grip.
Jeffe plopped down at my side. “I think he needs another riddle.”
“No.” Because if Galen got it wrong, Jeffe would be honor bound to eat him, and that had about a zero percent chance of working out.
The sphinx wrinkled his long Egyptian nose. “Puzzle?”
“No.”
“How about a game of Parcheesi?”
“I think I have it handled.”
“Right. Sure. Who cares what I think? I’ve only been doing this since Ramses was in diapers.”
“Give us a break, Jeffe.” I’d promised the commander a conversation. If I kept my wits about me, I might be able to convince him to back off.
The sphinx rolled his eyes and sat down next to me, his lion’s tail swooshing against the leg of my scrubs.
“Away, Jeffe.”
“Fine. I get it. You don’t have to tell me twice,” said the sphinx, lumbering off.
Lovely. I wiped my brow with my sleeve. I’d owe him my last Tootsie Roll for that one. It was amazing how easily the sphinx’s feelings got hurt and how much chocolate seemed to help.
At least my encounter with Jeffe had allowed time for me to gather myself—and for Commander Galen to adjust his sheet over those abs of his. I was a professional, but even I had my limits.
I leaned over him, bracing a hand on the back of his metal hospital bed, the sleeve of my white coat nearly brushing his ear. “You need to relax and take care of yourself.”
Besides the fact that he was naked and injured, I didn’t see what he had to gain by following me out of the tent. I’d already told him as much of the truth as
he was going to get.
He sat up and met me halfway, the sheet pooling at his waist. The air between us thickened.
“It’s the damnedest thing, Doc. I can almost see what happened, only my mind won’t let me. It’s like I have something right here.” He held his wide hands open, palms up, empty. “I have it and it keeps slipping away.”
Hellfire and brimstone. I fought the urge to glance at Jeffe, who would zip to my side the moment I did.
I tucked my hair behind my ears. There had to be an answer that would satisfy him. I tried to look at it intellectually. Forget what had happened and focus on normal, everyday fears. No doubt the concept of death was tough for these so-called immortals. “Look, I’ll go get Father McArio myself.”
Galen sat up straighter. “I don’t want him. I need you.”
Lord help us. I understood what this soldier wanted even if he didn’t. Galen craved that bone-deep connection we’d shared in that operating room. He ached for it like I did.
But it had been a mistake, and we didn’t need to dwell on it.
I gave him a cockeyed look. “Of all the immortals in Limbo, you had to show up on my table.” He grinned at that. “I’ll stay,” I said, ignoring the glint of victory in his eye.
“But lie back down,” I added, mindful of his injury. I pulled up a cramped military chair next to his bedside. Galen leaned in close. The scent of the harsh astringent we’d used on him wasn’t enough to mask the spicy male scent underneath. Perhaps this wasn’t the best idea.
His breath felt warm against my cheek. “I feel strange,” he said. “Like the fates have tied us together somehow.” He shook his head slightly. “I can’t tell you why it’s there, but it is.”
I knew all about it.
I worked with soldiers every day, men in pain, men who needed me. There was no reason why Galen should be different. But he was. Saving him, touching his soul had affected me in ways I wasn’t sure I wanted to understand.
“It’s not fate,” I said. It was an absurd fluke, one we should forget. A short laugh bubbled out of me. It was all too much. “I don’t even read my horoscope.”
There was no point anyway. By the time any magazines or newspapers got down here from Earth, they were a month old.