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Daria tried to relax, but his fingers probed. “I swear, you have x-ray vision. How could you know the direction of the blade?”
“I can feel the disturbance to your muscles that were torn open by it.”
She blew out a breath of air when he began the soothing strokes after the examination. “Glad you’re done poking around.”
“This one is very deep,” he said, concern in his voice. “Much deeper than the upper one.” He saw the pain in her eyes, the memories.
“The PT gal said the wound closest to my knee is the worst one.”
“Well,” he said lightly, “let’s find out.”
Daria was used to his examination routine now and she tried to relax. She saw Nik’s straight eyebrows draw down as he followed the entry of the knife into her leg. His mouth pursed more as he slowly and thoroughly examined the old wound.
“The trajectory of the blade tells me the knife must have sliced near your femoral artery. Did it?”
She managed a grimace, arm resting across her brow. “Pascal, the combat medic who was first on scene, said it had nicked my femoral artery.” She closed her eyes, not wanting to go back there, but knowing she must. “My leg was filling with blood, swollen, distended and he tied a tourniquet above the knife wounds. God, that hurt. I passed out from the pain.” She felt Nik’s hands move protectively across her wounds, as if to try and sooth her experience. It nearly broke Daria because he was excruciatingly nurturing and gentle with her. More than anyone had been since she’d been wounded. Tears jammed up behind her closed eyes and she was surprised by the reaction. Instantly, she fought them away.
“Yes,” Nik said in a low, rasping tone, “the blade tip just barely nicked your femoral artery.” He closed his hands protectively around her lower thigh. “You could have easily bled out, Daria.”
“When I came to in the Black Hawk, Pascal was there, watching over me like a guard dog. He told me much the same. He’d given me enough morphine to stop the worst of the pain, but I could feel that tourniquet biting into my thigh, but good.”
“He had some fine lines to walk with you, medication-wise.” Nik agreed, stroking her leg, beginning to massage it from mid-thigh down to, and just below, her knee. “And he saved your life. Pascal is a good man. I wish I could meet him sometime. He sounds a lot like Alex and I.”
“You three are clearly good at your job,” Daria whispered, feeling the lightness of his fingers moving and coaxing her muscles to acquiesce to the manipulation.
“And your partner? How did she fare?” he asked.
Daria tensed. She didn’t want to look at Nik, so close to tears once again. “S-she didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry, Daria. So very sorry…”
His roughened words started to dissolve the shield she’d put up to stop from remembering, stop seeing the flashes of the attack, hearing Melissa’s scream, hearing her own scream of rage as the assault came. The flashes of the curved blades coming in all directions at them made her wince internally. The first blade struck her level four Kevlar vest, the point breaking and snapping off, flying away somewhere into the black night. She remembered the snarl of the Taliban soldier, saw the hatred gleaming in his eyes as he suddenly realized his knife was broken and his chest blow hadn’t penetrated.
With each sliding movement of Nik’s hands across her flesh, Daria felt her muscles truly beginning to sag with utter relief. His hands were calloused and rough, but that only made her skin prickle with silent enjoyment. She groaned.
“Too deep?”
“No,” she whispered, “just… feels so good…” She heard him make a softened growl of appreciation in his throat.
“I’ll get more circulation into those areas. It will help them heal more quickly. Massage should have been a part of your healing protocol after you arrived home.”
Nik was healingher. Daria almost blurted it out. With each glide of his hands, she felt herself melting a little more beneath his careful, sensitive ministrations. At no time did he cause her pain. He only gave her leg relaxation. And, if but for a moment, the relief from the darkness when the nightmares came, haunting her of the attack, was a blessing to Daria. The sense of safety Nik accorded her was dissolving all her boundaries with him. She had never felt as protected as when she was with him.
Lauren Parker-Kazak had told her how Nik had saved her life, how he’d cared for her when she’d been injured. Well, nowshewas at the receiving end of Nik Morozov’s remarkable healing abilities. And it was dismantling the walls she’d placed around that horrific night. With each stroke of his hand, she felt an upwelling of emotions pushing from deep within her, heading toward the surface. It scared her. Daria didn’t want to deal with all the feelings about the attack that she’d buried. How could Nik massaging her leg do all that? Panic hit her and she lay there, mouth taut, arm tight across her eyes, feeling tears stinging the backs of their lids, fighting to stave off everything.
His questions had sliced through and opened up a dam of terror, trauma and grief. Daria knew he hadn’t meant to do that. It was just him being a caring medic, trying to understand the extent and depth of each of her wounds. Each time his calloused hands moved, coaxed and soothed those battered, bruised muscles that had absorbed such violence, Daria wanted to let a scream tear out of her. Nik was giving her a safe place to let go, and somewhere in her shorting-out mind, she knew that.Oh, God…
“Stop!” she cried out, suddenly sitting up, pushing his hands away. Daria saw the shock in his face, the sudden confusion in his eyes. Her throat tightened. She sat tensely, hunched over, breathing raggedly. Nik wouldn’t understand. She hadn’t meant to yell at him.
“Did I hurt you?”
“N-no… it’s just that…,” and Daria struggled and scooted across the bed to the other side. She slid her legs down, the coolness of the tiles hitting her bare feet. Struggling to stop the fist jamming up through her, she gripped the sides of the bed, her knuckles whitening as she fought to shove all of that horror back down into that dark place deep within herself. She was only minimally aware of the bed shifting as Nik stood, and of sensing him coming around to her side of it. She had her eyes scrunched shut, head bowed, fighting to not cry.
Nik crouched down on her right side, one hand on her arm, the other coming to rest on her right knee. “What is it?” he intoned, digging into her opening eyes with his intense stare. “Speak to me, Daria?”
Her chest heaved sharply and rapidly. She lifted her head, holding his concerned, warm gaze. Daria wanted to burst into tears, throw herself into his arms and be held. She knew Nik would do that for her. Knew that he would take care of her. How long had it been since she’d had that feeling? Nik stroked her arm and held her gaze. His face blurred.
With a muffled sound, Daria tore away from him, hurrying out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the living room. Wrapping her arms around herself, she stood wavering in the middle of the living room, wanting to run. But to where? There was no place to go. She was trapped. She felt, more than heard, Nik approach her from behind. Automatically, she tensed, not wanting him to touch her because, if he did, she was going to break.
