The last cuff fell away, and she threw down the bolt cutter. “Your teeth seem more developed than mine.” She ran her tongue along her teeth, assuring herself she wasn’t really like him as she began to rip away the rotting sides of the wooden coffin. “Since you can’t understand a word I say, I’ll admit I’m glad about that. I can’t imagine biting into someone. Yuck. It’s bad enough that I need extra blood to survive. There, I’ll cut your clothes away and get that thing out of you.”
His clothes had all but rotted off anyway. She had never seen a body so battered before. “Damn them for this.” Shea swallowed hard at the extent of the damage. “How could they do this to you? And how could you have survived?” She brushed perspiration from her brow with her forearm before bending over him once more. “I need to move you onto this table. I know I’m jarring you, but it’s the only way.”
He did the impossible. As Shea took the weight of his broad shoulders, attempting to slide him over, in a burst of courage and strength he shifted himself onto the table. Blood beaded on his forehead, trickled down the side of his face.
For a moment Shea couldn’t go on. Her body was seized with tremors, and she lowered her head to hide her tears. She could hardly bear to see his suffering. “Is this ever going to end or you?” It took a few minutes of fighting for control before he raised her head to meet the impact of his black gaze. “I’m going to knock you out. It’s the only way I can do this. If anesthesia doesn’t work, I’ll hit you over the head or something.” She meant it, too. She was not going to torture him as the others had.
He touched her cheek with a gentle fingertip, removing a car. He stared at it for a long moment before he carried it to his mouth. She watched the curiously intimate act, wondering why her heart was melting in a way she had never experienced before.
Shea washed thoroughly, pulled on sterile gloves and a surgical mask. When she would have put a mask over his face, too, he warned her off with a silent show of fangs and a wrist lock he couldn’t budge. It was the same when she tried a needle. Hack eyes blazed at her. She shook her head at him. “Please don’t make me do this, not like this. I’m not a butcher. I won’t do it this way.” She tried to sound tough and not tearful. “I won’t do it.” They stared at one another, locked in a strange mental combat. His black eyes burned into her, demanded obedience; his rage, always seething, was beginning to surface. Shea’s tongue touched her lower lip; her teeth followed, scraping nervously. Satisfaction crept into the black ice of his eyes, and he lay back, certain he had won.
“Damn you for being so stubborn.” She cleansed the area round the stake, set up her clamps, all the time wishing for a good surgical nurse and a large mallet. “Damn them for doing this to you.” She gritted her teeth and pulled with all her strength. He moved, just a ripple through his muscles, contracting, flexing, but she knew he was in agony. The stake did not budge. “Damn it! I told you I couldn’t do this with you awake, I’m not strong enough.”
He seized the stake himself and jerked it free. Blood gushed, prayed her, and she fell silent, working desperately to clamp off every source of bleeding she could. She didn’t look at him, every ounce of concentration focused on her work. Shea was a meticulous surgeon. She worked methodically, repairing damage, at a fast, steady pace, blocking out everything around her. Her entire being was centered on the surgery, her mind locking him to her so he would not die.
Jacques knew she was unaware of her fierce hold on him. She was so involved in what she was doing, she seemed not to notice how she merged with him mentally to keep him safe. Could he have been so wrong about her? The pain was excruciating, but with her mind merged so strongly with his, it kept the shattered remains of his sanity together.