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No, that wasn’t it. I smelled the blood strong and coppery now. I was probably just so overwhelmed and running on adrenaline that my brain dismissed the smell as a non-priority.
Well, it was a priority now.
“I’m good, baby,” Rix said after I had lifted his shirt and pant legs.
“Me, too,” Jorik replied.
Our eyes fell to Zane.
Before I could stop myself, I was lifting his black T-shirt. A bullet wound on the left side of his abdomen leaked a lot of blood.
The first thing I did was haul off and punch Zane square across the jaw.
“Wildcat!” Rix said, shock in his voice. But there was a stifled laugh at the end of his exclamation, so he wasn’t entirely unamused, just trying to be.
“What the hell, Zane?” I screamed, grabbing a towel from the stack that we’d brought in with us and pressing it to his abdomen. “When were you going to tell us about this?” His pants and shirt were black, so no wonder we hadn’t seen the blood.
He speared me with his glare. “Never?”
“God, you’re such an … an asshole!”
His lip twitched. “Did the fluffy kitten just swear?”
I pressed the towel harder against his wound and sneered.
“Ow, Jesus fuck, woman.”
“Serves you right. Now lie down on the floor over there. Rix, bring the candles. Jorik, go get me the first aid kit.” I made Zane turn around so I could check his back. “This isn’t a through and through.”
“No?” He grimaced, but he let me lead him over to the floor in front of the fireplace, but only after I peeled back the disgusting bearskin rug.
After I disinfected my hands with the sanitizer from the first aid kit, I pushed my pinky finger into the bullet hole.
“FUCKING HELL!” Zane screamed, jerking away from me.
I rolled my eyes. “Two things. One: I have the smallest hands here, therefore the smallest fingers.” I waggled my blood-covered pinky in front of him. “Two: It doesn’t appear to have hit anything major, but it needs to come out. Now, either you suck it up and let me get it outORI punch you hard enough in the face that you black out andthenI take it out.” I sat back on my heels. “Your choice, Captain Grumpy Penis.” My smile was smug and tight as Zane’s ire built like a wildfire that had just been hit with a rush of fresh oxygen.
“Here,” Rix said, handing Zane a thin piece of wood roughly six inches long. He must have found it in the half-full box of firewood next to the hearth. “You can bite down on this for the pain.”
I nodded and thanked Rix as Zane put the wood into his mouth. “Jorik, can you get in here with the candles, please?”
Jorik grabbed the three candles we’d been using and positioned two beside me and then held one over Zane’s abdomen. I grabbed the forceps—the only ones in the kit, and this was a very well-stocked kit—and slathered more of the sterilizer on them. The towel I’d been using was now soaked in blood, but Rix was ready for me with more.
I sopped up the area, but it just pooled with more blood.
“I’m going to have to go in blind,” I murmured, more to myself than any of them. I looked up at Zane, who was watching me intently. “This is going to hurt. I’m sorry.”
His nostrils flared, and he exhaled out of them like a raging bull, but after a moment, he nodded once. So I slid the forceps in, ignoring the harsh suck of his breath and the way the cords in his neck bulged out as he bit down on the wood between his teeth.
I felt the bullet against the end of the forceps, but it slipped. “Crap,” I whispered, closing my eyes and just feeling since I couldn’t see anything anyway. I felt it again, but I couldn’t open the forceps wide enough to lock them around the bullet. The hole was so small, I didn’t have enough clearance.
I pulled the forceps out of the hole and placed them on the towel. “I can’t get it,” I said. “I’m going to have to use my finger.”
Blood was now gushing down Zane’s side, pooling beneath him on the floor and soaking my knees and his back.
What was with this guy and losing buckets of blood? He was beginning to make a habit of it.
I had to use my right index finger this time, as it was the most dextrous. I located the bullet no problem but couldn’t curl the tip of my finger beneath it to drag it up. With a glance of apology toward Zane, I slid my middle finger in as well, stretching the wound and making him groan out in agony.
