Page 8 of Warmongers and Wands
“Okay. Sorry. Go ahead.”
I grimaced as he continued to slice with the knife, but I didn’t protest further. I tended to be more modest than most of my sisters, but it wasn’t like anyone had ever cared about seeing my naked body before, so I wasn’t particularly shy about this guy hacking the tank top from my body. He eased the scraps from under me and tossed them to the floor, his gaze roaming across my skin.
It sent goosebumps in a wave over my flesh. Plenty of doctors and nurses had given my body a clinical once-over in my life, but there was something about the way this man looked at me. It was as if what he saw stirred him in some emotional way.
It was as if he wanted to do more than just look.
Before I realized what was happening, he moved to cut my bra off.
“Oh, no. Not that.” I wrapped my hands across my boobs, not wanting to go that far.
“You’re hurt.” He traced the bruise and rash from the seatbelt with the hand not holding the knife.
“The ta-tas are fine. You can clean around the bra. Or put salve around the bra.”
“Let me check.”
I considered the request and thought about what was left of my pride, then removed my hands from my breasts. “Okay. Just leave the bra on.”
He rolled his eyes, then gently eased the front of my bra down just enough to see the mark from the seatbelt. Gentle fingers traced the mark, then caressed the curve of my breasts before moving to cup them, brushing a thumb across my nipple. I sucked in a breath, immediately thinking of what those fingers could be doing elsewhere.
With a lingering glance, his hands left my breasts and he got to work on removing my jeans, which quickly wiped out any sexy-time thoughts from my mind. Oh. My. God. Every slice of fabric, every slight move of my leg sent a fresh wave of agony through me.
“It’s broken.”
“Yeah. No, shit,” I panted. “Both? Or just the left one?”
“Left. Your knee is swollen on the right, and there’s a deep bruise on your thigh where you were pinned by that metal. Left leg has the break. Luckily, it’s incomplete.”
Incomplete. My sister Ophelia was a paramedic and I knew enough to realize that meant that the bone hadn’t completely severed in two. It wasn’t sticking through my leg. It was still broken, but not two dangling pieces under my skin. It meant I didn’t need surgery, that all I needed was a cast for it to heal.
I should have been relieved, but I wasn’t.
Damn it. Tears burned my eyes at the thought that I’d be immobilized probably for months. How bad was my knee on the right leg? And that bruise…was that the sort of thing that would cause blood clots? All those late-night WebMD searches flooded my brain and I began to panic.
“No, my witch.” He smoothed my hair, his voice like hot chocolate on a winter day. “Don’t cry. I will take care of you. I will help you and care for you now and always. You’ve returned and I am yours. I yield to you. I will obey any request you make of me. And I won’t let you lie in pain. I can’t heal, but together we can work great magic.”
Huh? Was this some sort of auditory hallucination? The painwaslessening in both my leg and my chest, but was that the effect of severed nerves? Me going into shock? Or was it that a totally hot guy had just announced he was mine and was yielding to me, and broken bones suddenly weren’t all that important by comparison?
The man covered me with a fleecy blanket that had a scene from The Lion King on it and some of the furs, then stepped away for a few minutes, returning with two pieces of wood and a few rags. He set them down, then gently ran his fingers over the skin of my left leg, pausing where I assumed the break was. I didn’t know if it was something magical he was doing, or if it was the incredible sensation of his touch, but the pain subsided, a strange numbness taking its place.
“I will put a splint on your leg to help immobilize it and help with healing and the pain,” he informed me. “But first, let’s put some ice packs on your knee and that bruise.”
“Are my ribs broken?” I asked as he picked up one of two plastic gel packs, breaking and kneading it to activate the chemicals.
“No, I think the muscles are bruised from whatever was across your chest.” He placed one ice pack on my right knee, then started activating the other one. “I believe I have some antibiotic salve that might help with the scrapes, though.”
The man was like a regular pharmacy. I guess if I lived on the side of a mountain, I’d want to have all the bases covered as well as have a solid supply of first-aid products. It’s not like he could quickly pop into town and grab some aspirin and cough medicine.
Which reminded me.
“You wouldn’t have any Tylenol or anything, would you?”
He nodded, putting the second ice pack on my bruise, then heading over toward the book shelves. When he returned, he had two pills and a cup of water. I took them gratefully, then closed my eyes as he began to splint my leg.
It hurt. No amount of hot-guy-feeling-up-my-leg vibes could disguise the fact that every gentle movement sent a stab of pain through me.
“There. All done.”
