Page 62 of Hunters and Prey

Chapter 4

It turned out human soldiers weren’t too different from Myrmidons when it came to accepting medical care. They all claimed to be fine, more concerned with each other than their own injuries, but Colonel Rossi ordered the whole squad of men to accept her treatment in the sick bay.

Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t waste a drop of magic healing superficial wounds, but their kind didn’t have the luxury of time, lacking an Atlantian’s regenerative abilities. Humans developed lethal infections, and blood loss weakened them. And with hours left in their journey before they reached the safe waters of the nearest Atlantian port, Elpis didn’t want to leave anything to chance. One by one, she tended to the injured and confirmed none of them had been nicked by the Scylla’s infectious barb. Only direct strokes to the heart guaranteed unavoidable death and transformation, but a single scrape would have any of them writhing and begging for death by the middle of the night.

“Now,” she said, twisting to look at the grim-faced officer once the other five were gone. Like the rest of his squad, his hair had been clipped short to fulfill what she assumed were human military regulations—but not so short it eliminated the glossy curls. He was dark-skinned and swarthy, tanned a rich golden brown despite the time of year, and he had the greenest, clearest eyes she’d ever seen in a human face. His high cheek bones and strong, masculine jaw could have been molded by Pygmalion. It wasn’t fair for one human to be so heartbreakingly beautiful.

“Now?” he prompted when she stalled out.

“It is your turn.”

He grunted and averted his gaze, body going stiff.“I’m fine.”

“Far from it.” She perked both brows at him. “I can smell your blood.”

His startled look told her exactly how little he knew about her kind, and she wondered if it was failure to do his homework, or a lack of available information. “You can what?”

“I can smell your injury from here. It needs treatment, and it’ll worsen by morning if it goes ignored.”

He rolled his uninjured shoulder. Acid had blistered the other and liquified a few components of his protective gear. Atlantis’s best armorers designed Myrmidon armor to withstand the dangers of the Gloom. His human protection didn’t. “I’ll be fine after a shower and a couple bandages.”

“I disagree. Sit your tail on that table and strip to the waist. Now.”

Irritation narrowed his eyes. “I appreciate what you did for us, but you don’t outrank me.”

“Actually, I do.”

“Wait a goddamned—”

Elpis raised her chin. “I currently outrank you, Colonel. I may not be part of your military, and I may be a guest aboard your vessel, but you’re currently under my command. Now remove your armor, or I’ll do it for you.”

As he set his jaw and tension filled those broad shoulders, a muscle jumped in his cheek. Grimacing the whole while, he unfastened the black tactical armor and removed the ruined pieces, setting each one aside.

He would have been wiser to let her do it.

Men. El imagined if the Gloom couldn’t kill him, his own stubbornness would do the trick.Scylla bile continued to burn long after inflicting its initial damage, working through the tissues and rotting the flesh from within. His uniform shirt came off next, and just as he pulled the ruined T-shirt up beneath it up and over his head, a sharp breath hissed between his teeth that told El he needed her help.

Because it was relevant to her actual assignment and not at all something her lady parts were telling her to do—though her vagina was incredibly unhappy with her for suppressing those urges—she performed the first examination with her eyes alone, searching for wounds and cuts, puckers or punctures, and anything else out of place. Her gaze skimmed past flawless abs, scanned his thighs, then rose to his torso again. The shoulder was the worst of it, the only thing requiring her immediate attention.

So, that meant it was okay to touch him for fun, right? It wasn’t as if the bile would burn through and into the rest of his body right that very moment, right?

After hushing the selfish inner voice urging her to mount Captain Rossi like a newly saddled shark, Elpis gloved up and fetched a jar of salve. Even Atlantian doctors followed sterile procedures if they could keep the magical use to a minimum, especially necessary when dealing with humans. “This is going to feel unusual. It might bubble on contact, but it shouldn’t sting. Ready?”

Colonel Rossinodded, never losing his stoic expression.While he stared at the wall and clenched his teeth, she bathed each burn in neutralizing salve. The chemical reaction was instant, andtension melted from his broad shoulders on the second pass.

Good. He might have been a stern fellow, but she loathed seeing anyone in pain. When the wound didn’t react to a third cleansing, she fetched a vial from her kit.“Drink this,” she ordered, pushing it into his hand.

“What is it?”

“What attacked you is called a scylla. This is a curative for thenecrotizing toxin in her bile. It’s in your bloodstream now, where it will be carried throughout your body to start a slow, insidious decay of your internal organs.” He looked green. “This will cleanse it away.”

The man didn’t argue again after that. He flicked the stopper off the vial and downed it in a gulp while she resumed working on him, smearing a thin paste over the open wounds left behind.By the time El finished applying the algae-based burn ointment, there wasn’t a harsh line on the man’s face.

It must have felt divine. She’d never suffered scylla burns before, but she’d treated enough to empathize. And in the water, the toxin could be deadly to any mer caught within the cloud and unable to escape in time.

This guy had taken an undiluted splash and come out of it alive. That told her he was tough for a human. Or just damned lucky.

“See? Was that so bad?” she asked, voice gentle.

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