The fae stood well back, his hands lifted in a non-threatening posture. “I’m on your side.”
Gage glanced behind him. The vampire was finishing off the last soldier. Around the corner, out of visual range, he could still hear fighting. But there were no immediate threats. He dropped his fists, crouched back down to put pressure on Embry’s wounds.
The fae took a few steps closer. “I think I can help,” he said.
“How?” demanded Gage. “Last time I checked, electrocution wasn’t on the list of approved medical treatments for gunshot wounds.”
A crackle of energy jumped across four of the fae’s fingers as his lips curved in a grim smile. “I’ve got better control than that. A low level electrical charge can be used, under the right conditions, to stimulate tissue regeneration. In essence, I can try to make her body heal itself.”
The right conditions probably didn’t include the filthy concrete floor of a burned out generator room, surrounded by shrapnel, thought Gage. But, desperate times…
He looked down at Embry. Her dimming gaze was focused on the fae. “Well come on, Sparky,” she said. “We’re running out of options here.”
* * *
The fae’s lips twitched as he knelt beside her. “It’s Orrin.” At his signal, Gage eased back, taking his hands and the pressure off the wound in her side.
Embry saw rather than felt when Orrin carefully felt around the injury.
Not good. Not good at all, she thought.
Gage’s face was caught somewhere between fury and shock. He was unraveling. It was in the set of his shoulders, in the shaking of his hands. She tried to reach for him but didn’t get any further than turning over her hand. Shit. She wiggled her fingers. “Gage.”
He started to take her hand, then stopped to wipe the blood—her blood—on his pants before curling strong fingers around hers.
“We have some planning to do,” she told him.
“I know. We have to figure out what our assets are and how we’re going to get to the surface—”
“No, no,” she said. “We’ll figure that out. We have some vacation planning to do.”
He blinked at her, icy blue eyes clearly trying to ascertain when she’d taken that sharp left turn away from reality. “Vacation planning?”
“Yeah.”
Orrin probed within the wound, and a bolt of pain seared through the numbness that had taken over.
Embry hissed, her hand clamping down on Gage’s as she breathed through it. “Yeah, vacation. I’m thinking something not beachy because I have a feeling that this is gonna leave a wicked scar and that’s just not going to rock the sexy bikini look.”
“Baby, I will take you anywhere you want to go when we get out of here.” He placed the slightest emphasis on the “when,” and Embry knew that he knew she was trying to distract him.
“You ready?” asked Orrin.
Embry took a tighter grip on Gage’s hand and nodded.
At first she felt nothing. The web of energy that crackled between Orrin’s hand and her abdomen looked more like the harmless light show of one of those electrostatic globe things that made your hair stand up when you touched and it. Then came the prickle. Needle-sharp and faint, as if her body had gone to sleep and was only now waking up. It felt strange and uncomfortable. She resisted the urge to stretch or flex to try to restore circulation lest she do more damage.
Sweat ran in fine streams down Orrin’s temple, but he was rock steady as he worked. As damaged nerves came back to life, so came the pain, a red hot poker scrambling her guts. Her body arched, trying to curl up and protect her belly.
“Hold her down!” ordered Orrin.
Gage pushed her back, and on the other side came her father, soundless, wordless as he took her free hand. The pair of them held her down by the shoulders as Orrin continued.
This was worse, much worse than getting shot. It was worse than the torture training she’d endured when she joined the IED. Her body screamed and fought the hands that pressed her into the ground. Biting back a cry, Embry bore down on Gage’s and her father’s hands and prayed for it to be over.
Dimly, Embry was aware of the earth trembling. Or maybe that was her. That was definitely her screaming. Some part of her was detached, observing the procedure. Gage was praying, his words a tumbled mix of half-remembered litanies from his Catholic youth. Her father muttered curses in the language of the elementals. Their voices blurred, blended, losing all sense
or meaning.