Page 44 of Warrior's Captive
“Vivian?” one of the black clad warriors said. “May I approach?”
Her fingers clutched Banujani’s weapon reflexively, but she recognized the voice and nodded, releasing the weapon. He was there in a moment, snatching it out of the air before it crashed on the ground and the others approached.
In a whirl of time she and Banujani were hustled off. Banujani roused, pain in the brackets of her mouth.
“What’s wrong with her?” Vivian asked, then grimaced. Besides a blast from a weapon? Stupid.
“The blast is designed to be disorienting,” the guard said. “Remaining still and slowing one’s heart rate is the fastest way to recover. The more you move, the worse the effects.”
Good to know, in case she was ever blasted.
* * *
They approached the house and Vivian blinked as black clad figures swarmed up the side and then winked out of sight, clinging to white walls. She shook her head.
“Amazing.”
“The house is secure,” her guard said.
They entered and the next several minutes were spent triaging their wounds. Vivian discovered there was a small medical facility in the basement she hadn’t known existed.
“We can treat most medical emergencies here,” she was told. “Even childbirth.”
Another guard walked in, without the head covering and introduced herself. “I’m medically trained. May I assess you?”
Vivian nodded. “How is Banujani?”
“She’ll live,” was the cheerful response.
Vivian answered questions, suffered the handheld scanner to assess her for internal injuries, listened to the baby’s heart rate and answered questions about pain, fetal kicks, and a host of other standard inquiries.
“Tai’ri should be home soon,” the medic said kindly.
“Where is he?”
“You can ask him about that when he’s home, but he wasn’t reachable for some time. As soon as he learned about what happened, he signaled he was en route.”
Tension inside her eased. She knew Tai’ri still had duties, and the strong desire to curl up into his side shocked her.
“Whoops,” the medic said. “If you speak it, it shall be so.”
The door flung open, the threshold filled with six feet of broad shoulders, vibrating with anger male.
“Viv!”
“The baby is fine,” she said.
He was at her side in a moment, and it took her a second to realize he was covered in . . . “What are you wearing?”
He blushed. Vivian eyed his face in fascination. It was becoming easier to spot blue skinned blushes. He was dressed in silk and leather, skin tight on bottom, draping and gaping on top. Completely undignified and designed to titillate the senses. Erotic senses.
“You look like you belong in a harem,” she said.
“Uh . . .” he stuttered. “What? No, no, it isn’t what you think, I was working.”
She felt her eyebrows slowly rise. “In a harem?”
Tai’ri glared, his hands brisk as he swept them up her body, assessing her injuries for himself as the medic stood by with a small grin.
