Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood 5)

Looking around the room, she saw glass-fronted cabinets full of supplies and hoped like hell she could put together a surgical kit from what was around. "I don't suppose any of you have medical experience?"

V spoke up, right at her ear, almost as close as her clothes. "Yeah, I can assist. I'm trained as a paramedic."

She eyed him over her shoulder, a lick of heat going through her.

Get back in the game, Whitcomb. "Good. You got any kind of local anesthesia?"

"Lidocaine."

"How about some sedatives? And maybe a little morphine. If he flinches at the wrong time, I could blind him."

"Yeah." As V started for the rows of stainless-steel cabinets, she noticed he was wobbly. That walk down the tunnel had been a long one, and even though he seemed healed on the surface, he was still just days out of open-heart surgery.

She grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "You're going to sit down." She glanced over at Red Sox. "Get him a chair. Now." When the patient cracked his mouth to argue, she blew him off by heading across the room. "Not interested in it. I need you on the ball while I operate, and this could take a while. You're better, but you're not as strong as you think you are, so sit your ass down and tell me where to get what I need."

There was a heartbeat of silence, then someone barked a laugh while her patient cursed in the background. The kinglike one started to grin at her.

Red Sox rolled a chair over from the whirlpool bath and shoved it right into the backs of V's legs. "Park it, big guy. On your doctor's orders."

When the patient sat down, she said, "Now, here's what I'm going to want."

She listed the standard scalpel, forceps, and suction supplies, then asked for surgical wire and thread, Betadine, saline solution to rinse, gauze padding, latex gloves...

She was amazed at how quickly it came together, but then, she and her patient were on the same wavelength. He directed her around the room succinctly, anticipated what she might want, and didn't waste words. The perfect nurse, as it were.

She let out a huge sigh of relief that they had a surgical drill. "And I don't suppose you have a magnifying headset?"

"Cabinet by the crash cart," V said. "Lower drawer. Left side. You want me to scrub in?"

"Yup." She went over and found the set. "We have X-ray capability?"

"No."

"Shit." She put her hands on her hips. "Whatever. I'll go in blind."

As she put the headset on, V. got up and went to work on his hands and forearms over the sink in the far corner. When he was done she took his place, then they gloved up.

She came back to Phury, meeting him in his good eye. "This is probably going to hurt even with the local and some morphine. You'll probably pass out, and I hope it happens sooner rather than later."

She went for a syringe and felt the familiar sense of power come to her as she set about fixing what needed to be repaired -

"Wait," he said. "No drugs."

"What?"

"Just do it." There was a gruesome anticipation in his eye, one that was not right on so many levels. He wanted to be hurt.

She narrowed her stare. And wondered if he had let this happen to himself.

"Sorry." Jane pierced the rubber seal of the lidocaine vial with the needle. As she drew out what she needed she said, "There is no way in hell I'm going in without you numbed up. You feel strongly to the contrary, find yourself another surgeon."

She put the little glass bottle down on a steel rolling tray and leaned over his face, syringe up in the air. "So what's it going to be? Me and this knockout sauce or... gee, no one?"

That yellow stare flared with anger, like she'd cheated him out of something.

But then the kinglike guy spoke up. "Phury, don't be an ass. This is your vision we're talking about. Shut up and let her do her job."

The yellow eye closed. "Fine," the guy muttered.

It was about two hours later that Vishous decided he was in trouble. Big trouble. As he stared at the rows of neat little black stitches in Phury's face, he was overwhelmed to the point of silence.

Yeah. He was in mega trouble.

Jane Whitcomb, M.D., was a master surgeon. An absolute artist. Her hands were elegant instruments, her eyes sharp as the scalpel she used, her focus as fierce and all-consuming as that of a warrior in battle. At times she'd worked with a blurring speed, and at others she'd slowed down until it seemed like she wasn't moving at all: Phury's orbital bone had been broken in a number of places, and Jane had put him back together step by step, removing chips that were white as oyster shells, drilling into the cranium and running wire between fragments, putting a small screw in his cheek.

V could tell she wasn't completely happy with the end result by the hard look on her face as she'd closed. And when he'd asked her what the problem was, she'd told him that she would have preferred to put a plate in Phury's cheek, but as they didn't have that kind of kit handy, she was just going to hope the bone knit fast.

From start to finish she'd been totally in control. To the point where it had turned him on, which was both absurd and shameful. It was just that he'd never met a female - a woman - like her before. She'd just cared for his brother superbly, with skill V himself couldn't hope to match.

Oh, God... He was in such f**king trouble here.

"How's his blood pressure?" she asked.

"Steady," he replied. Phury had passed out about ten minutes in, though his breathing had remained strong and so had his BP.

As Jane wiped off the area around the eye and cheekbone and started to pack it with gauze, Wrath cleared his throat at the doorway. "What about his vision?"

"We won't know until he tells us," Jane said. "I have no way of ascertaining whether his optic nerve has been damaged or whether there was any retinal or cornea damage. If any of that has happened, he's going to have to go to another facility to get it repaired, and not just because of the limited resources here. I'm not an eye surgeon, and I wouldn't even attempt that kind of operation."

The king pushed his sunglasses up a little higher on his straight nose. Like he was thinking of his weak eyes and hoping Phury didn't have to deal with that kind of problem.

After Jane covered the side of Phury's face with gauze, she ran a length of bandage around his head like a turban, then put the instruments she'd used in the autoclave. To keep from watching her obsessively, V got busy throwing out the used syringes, pads, and needles along with the disposable tube from the suction draw.

Jane snapped off her surgical gloves. "Let's talk infection. How susceptible is your kind?"

"Not very." V lowered himself back into his chair. He hated to admit it, but he was tired. If she hadn't made him take a load off, he'd be totally dead on his feet by now. "Our immune systems are very strong."

"Would your doctor have him on antibiotics as a prophylactic?"

"No."

She went over to Phury and stared at him like she was reading his vital signs without the benefit of a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. Then she reached out and smoothed his extravagant hair back. The ownership in her eyes and the gesture bugged V even though it shouldn't have. Of course she'd take a special interest in his brother. She'd just put the side of his face back together.

But still.

Shit, bonded males were a pain in the ass, weren't they?

Jane leaned down to Phury's ear. "You did well. It's going to be all right. You just rest and let that fancy healing of yours go to work, okay?" After patting his shoulder, she turned off the high-powered chandelier over the gurney. "God, I'd love to study your kind."

A blast of cold came from the corner, as Wrath said, "Not a chance, Doc. We aren't playing guinea pig for the Ekes of the human race."

"I wasn't getting my hopes up." She glanced around at all of them. "I don't want him unattended, so either I'm staying with him here or someone else is. And if I leave, I'm going to want to check on him in about two hours to see how he's coming along."

"We'll stay here," V said.

"You look like you're about to fall over."

"Not a chance of that."

"Only because you're sitting down."

The idea that he was weak in front of her sharpened his voice. "You don't worry about me, female."

She frowned. "Okay, that was a statement of fact, not concern. Do what you want with it."