The other doctor, Manuel, came flying in from next door. "Who we got now?"
There was a lot more conversation at that point, deep voices mixing with the female's higher tone. Ehlena, the nurse, arrived. Two more Brothers.
No'One sank farther back into the corner by the supply cabinet, staying out of the way as she stared at the floor and prayed. When a pair of huge black boots intruded upon her line of vision, she just shook her head, knowing what would be said to her.
"You need to go. "
Vishous's voice was steady and sure. Almost kind, which was a new one.
Lifting her chin, she met icy, diamond eyes. "Verily, you will have to kill me and drag my body out of here if you wish me to leave. "
The Brother frowned. "Look, we're bringing in a dangerous - "
A sudden, subtle growling appeared to surprise the male. Silly, she thought, considering he was making the -
No. He was not.
She was. That warning was rising up out of her own chest, breaching her own lips.
Cutting the sound off, she pronounced, "I shall stay. Which room are you treating him in?"
V blinked, as if he were dumbfounded and unfamiliar with the sensation. After a moment, he looked over his shoulder at his mate. "Ah, Jane - where are you working on Tohr?"
"Right here. Throe's going into our second OR - fewer doors, so there's less of an escape risk. "
The Brother turned away and walked off, but it was just to get a stool and bring it over to her. "This is in case you get tired of standing. "
Then he left her be.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, who walked into enemy fire unprotected? she wondered.
The answer, when it came to her, made her gut seize up: someone who wanted to be killed in the line of duty. That was who.
Mayhap it would be better if Layla fed him. Less complicated - no. Not less so. The Chosen was incredibly beautiful, without a deformity of any sort. Yes, he had stated that he wanted no one in a sexual manner, but a male's resolve could be sorely tested by a female who looked like that. And any such response would kill him.
No'One was better for him.
Yes, that was right. She would handle his needs.
As she continued to justify things to herself, the fact that the idea of him at the fair Chosen's throat made her curiously violent was nothing she wanted to examine too closely.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Throe came awake in a void. He had no sight, no hearing, and no feeling in his body, as if the surrounding darkness had claimed him in his entirety.
Ah, so this was Dhund, he thought. The opposite of the illuminated Fade. The shadowy place where those who had sinned upon the earth were locked for eternity.
This was the Omega's hell, and indeed, it was hot.
His belly was on fire -
"No, you're wrong. That lesser was shot from above, too. Someone else was at the scene. "
Throe's senses came quickly upon him, ushering away the void sure as sunrise over the landscape - but he was careful not to change his breathing or move: That male was not one of his fellow soldiers.
And neither was the second who spoke: "What are you talking about?"
"When I went over to stab him back to the Omega, he was riddled with bullets, some of which could only have been discharged from a vantage point above him. I'm telling you, the top of his skull, his shoulders, that shit was a mess. "