Page 23 of Stars in Aura

‘Close enough.’

His rasp was flat, his focus all on the Allorian woman lying unconscious before them.

Issa gritted her teeth.

Prick.

‘Scalpel,’ he rumbled, extending his hand towards her.

She jolted and glared at him. ‘The autobot -.’

‘Scalpel,’ he restated, his palm extended.

His sleeve slipped, and she glimpsed his skin in the gap.

Those mesmerizing, shifting inked tatts shifted over his honey-gold skin, emphasizing his impossibly muscled and rippling forearms.

‘Scalpel,’ he murmured, and she jerked her eyes up from his hand to his silver aureate eyes.

His timbre now held a touch of amusement and tolerance, calm and controlled like he’d give her until the end of time to react.

While enjoying the flush that she sensed blooming over her cheeks.

His eyes flicked over her, and his brow arched, waiting for her to get with the program.

‘Fokk,’ she whispered under her breath.

‘Language, Elaris, we’re beaming across Pegasi.’

She sucked her teeth and turned to hand him the implement from the waiting trolley.

She mused that if she had the choice, she would not be trapped with an arrogant bastard of an Edenite who taunted her in limited, growled, token phrases.

While the man was fine as they got, his freakin’ disposition required an upgrade.

They worked in tense silence, interrupted only by the rhythmic pinging of the monitors and the murmur of the surgical drones standing by.

The procedure was straightforward until it wasn’t.

Halfway through the reconstruction, the patient’s vitals plummeted.

The beeping turned frantic.

Ki’Remi barked out orders. ‘She’s in ventricular arrest. Adrenal shot, now.’

The autobot responded.

Stillnada.

‘Auto defibrillation,’ the Sableman growled.

The med bot went to work, unleashing a pair of sterilized paddles that glided around the heart to deliver an electrical shock to the dying muscle.

Once twice, still nothing.

‘Let me,’ Issa called out.

Before Ki’Remi had the chance to object, she inserted her hands into the chest wall. She went for old-fashioned resuscitation, palming and massaging the pulmonary tissue inside the patient’s chest.

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