Page 54 of Captive Prize

I hadn’t even realized he was here.

Or maybe he had driven the doctor from the compound?

I had no idea. It didn’t matter.

The bleeding hadn’t stopped or slowed.

The white towel I was holding to her head was soaked through with it.

It wasn’t the first time I had ruined towels this way, but it was the first time I cared more about the injury than the mess.

The old man was red in the face, panting as he slammed his black leather bag onto the small wooden table next to the bed and shoved me out of the way.

If any other man shoved me like that, I’d have cut his throat before his hand left my chest.

I tried to push back at him, not wanting to let go of her hand.

She was in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by men she didn’t know.

It wasn’t rational, but I didn’t want her to think she was alone.

Kostya stopped me, putting a hand on my shoulder as he held me back. “Let him work, cousin.”

I had never wanted to strike a member of my own family more in my life. But he was right.

At that moment, Zoya’s life was more important than my pride. So I let her hand go. Her fingers slipped from mine, limp and cold like a doll’s, and something cracked open in my chest.

“How long has she been like this?” the doctor asked.

“It started less than a minute before you were called. She hit her head, not even very hard but?—”

He shot me a skeptical look but nodded and started reaching for things in his bag.

Kostya kept his hand on my shoulder. I had no idea if he meant it to ground me or not, but that was what it did. And I was grateful.

The doctor worked quickly—a shot of glue to close the wound and then hurried but practiced movements to clean it and stitch her up.

“Do you know her medical history?” he asked.

I shook my head until I realized that his back was to me so he couldn’t see my response.

“No,” I answered, my voice rougher than it should have been.

The doctor said nothing as he continued to work.

He pulled out several smaller versions of the machines I had seen Alina hooked up to in the medical suite.

A heart rate monitor, little nodes that went on her head, avoiding the gash, and an IV. For a doctor that did house calls, the man was well prepared.

Though if he worked for my family, he would have to be prepared for almost anything.

I recognized the bag of liquid that he hung, and I understood why it was saline.

She’d lost a lot of blood. She needed to be rehydrated to keep her blood pressure up. But then he attached another bag, one I didn’t recognize.

“I don’t think she will need a transfusion, but I am giving her an IV with TXA.”

“What is that?”

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