“He’s tough, Malichai. I honestly don’t know if I could kill him. I think Whitney did something to make it impossible for me to use all my weapons against him. I’ve tried before and failed, but I’d do my best. One of us would die.” She stated the truth.
Malichai put his foot on the floor and shifted his weight onto it. His entire body shuddered with pain. He didn’t make a sound but took his weight off it immediately.
“Shit, baby, I’m sorry, that’s not going to work.”
“It’s all right. I’m strong. We can get to the bed. Seriously, honey. I was worried something was wrong this morning when I examined you. I wish I knew more about healing,” she admitted to him. She wanted him to know she wasn’t qualified to help him. “I’ve never been trained as a psychic healer, but I do know GhostWalkers heal so much faster than anyone else and your leg should have been so much better than it was.”
With her support, Malichai managed to hop across the room to the bed and nearly fell onto the mattress. She could see it was a relief for him to lie down. She wondered if all the pacing he’d done was because he’d been in such pain. She hurried to get a cool cloth for his face.
“Here, honey, let me cool you down with this. Drink some water, you don’t want to get dehydrated on top of everything else.” He was burning up. When had the fever started? Why hadn’t she noticed?
“I’m trying to impress you, Amaryllis, convince you I can be this badass husband that can keep you safe, and I’m literally falling down on the job.”
She forced herself to smile at his attempt at humor in a situation that had her heart pounding in terror. She would have rather faced Whitney’s supersoldiers trying to recapture her than this situation. If she called the regular doctors, they wouldn’t be able to do anything. She wasn’t certain what to do.
She sent him a brief, tight smile. “Where’s your phone?”
“Why? You’re not calling my brother.”
Amaryllis looked down at his face. He looked petulant, an expression she never thought she’d see on his face. He wasn’t making any sense. He was going to lose his leg from an infection and wasn’t going to call his brother and a team with some of the best doctors in the world to come and save his leg as well as life? That defied all sanity. They had a psychic healer as well.
She brushed back his damp hair gently and looked at his eyes again. They were glazed with fever. He wasn’t making any sense because he wasn’t really aware of what he was saying or doing. She had to take control of the situation.
“I want to talk to him, honey. Just let me have your phone. I want his advice.”
Malichai crossed his arms and shook his head. “I don’t. You call him, Amaryllis, and he’ll have a platoon here along with every GhostWalker unit we have. He’s a master of overkill when it comes to his brothers and their safety. I’m trying to get you to stay with me. He’ll ask you questions and then he’ll scare you off.”
“I don’t scare so easily.”
“You were going to leave me.”
Her hands dropped to his belt buckle and his hands immediately covered hers.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Not what you’re hoping for, but we need these off. Where is your phone, Malichai, and quit stalling.” She poured firmness into her voice, using the tone Marie used on Jacy when she meant business.
Malichai hesitated only for a moment but then complied. “My phone’s in the back pocket of my jeans.”
He was lying on the thing and didn’t want to move. Amaryllis felt bad moving him, but it didn’t matter, she had no choice, she shifted his body, pulling his jeans from him and sliding them over his hips and down his leg. She settled him carefully back onto the mattress and just pulled up the sheet as he was still so hot. He lay back against the pillows and closed his eyes.
She retrieved the phone and looked at him with one eyebrow raised. “Honey, I need your passcode. I know this is hard for you, but you need to concentrate for me.”
He opened his eyes briefly and looked at her and then at his phone. He gave her the code and then closed his eyes again, frowning, clearly not fully comprehending what was going on around him.
Amaryllis immediately punched in the code, and then found his brother’s number and hit that as well. She knew it was late, but he had to answer, and he did, very abruptly.
“It’s late. What’s wrong?”
She put her hand on Malichai’s chest, more for her own reassurance than for Malichai’s. He seemed to be drifting in and out.