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She wasn’t going to sit down! She was getting her hands on those supplies. He could do what he liked.
And what he liked, and so much, was to show her who was boss. He rammed the butt of his semi-automatic rifle into her shoulder, hard. Too hard. She heard a sickening crack. In the flash before pain exploded from her shoulder to flood her body she wondered—had he dislocated it? Broken it? Could she manage with one arm?
Then the impact was transmitted to the rest of her. Just before she launched backwards in the air, feeling weightless, powerless, the man with the emergency bag turned around and his gaze lodged on her across the distance and everything stopped. For a second. An hour. Then she slammed to the ground. Head first. Her body followed, the impact driving her bones into her flesh. All air left her lungs and blackness swelled, overflowed from all sides.
Great, just great. The bitter thought burst on and off in her flickering mind. She’d pass out, leaving that man to muck about playing doctor, probably finishing Mikhael off!
So it was simple. She wouldn’t pass out. It didn’t matter that she was starving and dying of thirst, that
she’d banged her head on the marble floor. Passing out wasn’t an option.
She growled at the pain and resignation telling her to let go. For an eternity, the harder she struggled the faster she sank. Then a sound permeated the inky molasses filling her head. A comforting sound. “Shh, shh.”
Her mind finally registered what her eyes were staring at. The man. It was him who was soothing her.
She jackknifed to a sitting position and his hands, firm but gentle on her arms, slackened. She gaped at him.
Close up, he really was flawless. And those eyes slammed into her with more force for being so near. Beautiful. Hypnotic. Intense white on endless black. Cool with secret power, remote as if he existed in this plane only in image. Yet intense with—what? Anger? Annoyance? No—it felt like worry. Mercy…
She must have had a concussion if she was picking up such potent, pure signals where they didn’t exist.
But, no. Concussion or not, she read people. Fathomed them. Had yet to be wrong. These eyes, this face, this aura—these were the products of a lifetime well spent, the reflection of an untarnished soul. This was no extremist who fought his fanatic battles by murdering innocent civilians.
Or she could be letting his staggering looks or her own blinding pain get to her. Whatever the truth was, she had to obtain a promise of his mercy. For her casualties. For Mikhael.
She struggled to her knees, knocking his hands away, her own clawing at his arms. These tensed to cabled steel beneath her grip. “Sir, please! You have to let me use the medical supplies! I am a nurse and I could save those people.”
A frown answered her outburst then his lips clamped on an exasperated sigh. He shook his head and reached for hers.
It took all her will not to shout what the hell he thought he was doing. Don’t antagonize him. She stifled her objections, sat motionless as long, careful fingers probed her skull, sculptor-like. Palpating for bumps? It seemed he’d found them for his frown grew even blacker.
He rose, his hands on her shoulder keeping her firmly down. He silently pointed his forefinger at her, shook it once, his message clear. Stay there.
“I can’t stay here! I have to help. Please!”
His headshake was accompanied by eye-rolling this time. He rubbed his eyes, leveled them on her, his expression tinged with…bewilderment? He couldn’t believe one of his victims wasn’t afraid of him. And to think she’d felt compassion coming off him in waves!
He dismissed her again and turned to open the bag. She lunged for a saline bag, but he snatched it away and held it out of her reach. In the next second he dropped it in utmost surprise when she struck his hand with all her strength. His men advanced but he waved them away. He shook his head, looked her square in the eyes, his expression unmistakable this time. Total disgusted resignation.
He sighed. “I get your rage lady, just not why you’re aiming it at me. You’re making those guys so twitchy they may open fire just to shut you up. How can I explain that to you, and that this saline bag isn’t drinking water, when you don’t speak a word of English and I don’t speak your language?
Dante couldn’t believe the woman had finally stopped fighting him. Her mouth had dropped open and remained that way. Score one for the magical powers of his soothing tones.
Nah. She’d probably just depleted herself. Or maybe concussion was setting in. Maybe it had all been the concussion talking.
A shudder spiraled through him again. That bang her head had made on the floor still pounded in his ears, still vibrated up his bones. It was a miracle she hadn’t passed out. Her head must be tougher that it looked.
And it looked good. Too good. Even smothered in that garish headscarf. His own scarf looked worse, dirty and tattered, but he’d made do with anything he’d found when he’d lost his own.
It was amazing. Not that she still looked stunning after days of terror and starvation and abuse, but that he’d noticed it now. That it affected him this way.
Oh, all right. He’d be dead if he didn’t. If it didn’t. And against common belief, including his own, it seemed he wasn’t after all. What a time to discover he was still alive.
It was probably just an illusion. And, anyway, staying alive wasn’t high on his priority list. That had brought him to these parts of the world, had gotten him past those madmen. His one and only priority now was keeping that man alive.
He turned to his emergency bag, extracted what he’d need for first-line measures of resuscitation. Ringer’s lactate bags, IV lines, cannulae, syringes, plastic bags for blood collection…
“What did you say?”
