Taken by Midnight (Midnight Breed 8)

He stood there, stock-still, as Tess scrubbed her hands, removed the makeshift tourniquet, then did a cursory visual examination of the wound.

She asked Renata to stay nearby and assist her, then spoke reassuringly to Jenna, explaining what she had to do to extract the bullet and tend the wound.

"The good news is, there's no bone damage and, from what I can tell, it will be a fairly simple procedure to remove the bullet and repair the artery it nicked." She paused. "The bad news is, we're not really equipped down here for this type of injury--meaning a human injury. In fact, you're the first non-Breed patient that's ever been in the compound's infirmary."

Jenna's gaze slid to Brock as if to confirm what she was hearing.

"Lucky me, stuck in a vampire hospital."

Tess smiled sympathetically. "We'll take care of you, I promise.

Unfortunately, we don't have a need for things like anesthesia. The warriors don't require it when they come in with injuries, and those of us who are mated have the blood bond to aid with healing. But I can give you a local--"

"Let me help," Brock interrupted, already moving around the table to stand at Jenna's side. He held Tess's questioning look. "I don't care about the blood. I'll deal. Let me help her."

"All right," Tess replied softly. "Let's get started."

Brock stared unblinking as Tess picked up a pair of scissors from the instrument tray and proceeded to cut away Jenna's ruined clothing. Inch by inch, from the ankle of her right leg to her hip, the blood-soaked denim fell aside. In scant minutes, all that covered Jenna's lower body was a skimpy pair of white cotton bikini panties.

Brock swallowed, his throat working audibly at the combined one-two punch of seeing so much soft feminine skin while his senses were drenched with the coppery siren's call of Jenna's blood.

He must have growled his hunger out loud, because in that same instant, Jenna's eyelids lifted, startled. No doubt he was a scary sight, looming over the operating table, his gaze rooted on her, every muscle and tendon in his body strung as tight as piano wire. But fearful or not, Jenna didn't look away. She stared him down, unblinking, and he saw in her courageous hazel eyes a bit of the frontier cop he'd heard she used to be.

"Renata," Tess said. "Will you help me move Jenna just a bit so we can get rid of these clothes?"

The two Breedmates worked in tandem, removing the bloodied jeans and his ruined duster while Brock could only stand there, immobilized by thirst and something else that ran even deeper.

"Okay," Tess prompted, catching his heated gaze with a knowing look. She had scrubbed and dried her hands and was pulling on a pair of surgical gloves from a box on the rollaway tray. "I'll begin whenever you're ready, Brock."

He reached out to Jenna and laid the palm of his hand against the side of her neck. She flinched at first, that uncertain gaze flicking up to meet his as if she might jerk away from his touch.

"Close your eyes," he told her, an effort just to keep the hungered rasp from his voice. "It will be over in just a few minutes."

Her chest rose and fell in rapid movement, her eyes locked on his, not quite trusting.

And why should she? He was born of the same stock as the creature that had terrorized her in Alaska. The way he looked right now, Brock figured it was a small wonder she didn't leap up from the table and try to fend him off with one of Tess's neatly arranged scalpels.

But as he gazed down at her, Jenna blew out a soft breath. Her eyes drifted closed. He felt the strong pound of her pulse beneath his thumb ...

then the first piercing jolt of pain as Tess began cleaning and tending Jenna's wound.

Brock concentrated all his focus on keeping her comfortable, wrapping his talent around the acid burn of antiseptics and sharp, probing surgical instruments. He swallowed Jenna's pain, idly aware of Tess's efficient work as she retrieved the bullet from deep within the muscle of Jenna's thigh.

"Got it," Tess murmured. The chunk of lead clattered into the basin of a stainless steel bowl. "That was the worst part. The rest of the procedure will be a piece of cake."

Brock grunted. He could bear the pain easily enough. Hell, a gunshot wound and patch-up was standard issue just about every night for one or more of the warriors coming off patrol. But Jenna hadn't signed on for this shit, ex-cop or not. She hadn't asked to be part of the Order's battles, though why that should matter to him, he didn't know.

He was feeling a lot of things he had no goddamned right to feel.

Hunger still stirred in him like a tempest, rising up from two powerful, equally demanding sources. Giving in to either one would be a mistake, especially now. Especially because the object of his twin desires was a woman the Order needed to keep safe. To keep on their side, at least until they could determine what she might mean to their war with Dragos.

And yet he wanted her.

He felt protective of her, even though he knew he was unsuitable for the job, and even though she seemed to balk at the idea of needing help from anyone. Lucan had made her his responsibility, but Brock could hardly deny that she'd become his personal mission even earlier than that. From the moment he first laid eyes on her in Alaska, after the Ancient had tormented her for days in her own home, he'd been emotionally invested in keeping her safe.>"Yeah," Brock replied, glancing down to where Jenna lay, resting quietly across his lap in the backseat. He had sliced off one of the seatbelts and tied it around her thigh as a tourniquet, hoping it would help stanch the blood loss. "She's hanging in."

Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted and tinged with blue from the cold she'd been subjected to inside the meat chiller. Her body still trembled under the cover of his leather duster, though he guessed her shuddering was more in reaction to shock than any amount of discomfort.

His Breed talent was making sure of that. With one palm cupped around her nape, the other stroking her temple, he drew Jenna's pain into himself.