Twice she added light for the close work, suturing for hours. So many stitches inside and out, and when his chest was done she still wasn’t finished. All his other cuts had to be washed and closed. The smallest laceration took a single stitch, the largest forty-two. It went on and on as the night closed them in. Her fingers were nearly numb, and her eyes ached with strain. Stoically she went on cutting away dead flesh, forcing herself to use soil and her saliva, though it went against everything she had ever been taught in medical school.
Exhausted, hardly knowing what she was doing, she pulled off her mask and gloves and surveyed her work. He needed blood. His eyes were nearly mad with pain. “You need a transfusion,” she said tiredly. She indicated the blood transfusion apparatus with her chin. The black eyes stared at her relentlessly. Shea shrugged, too exhausted to fight him. “Fine, no needles. I’ll put it in a glass for you, and you can drink it.”
His gaze never left her face as she wheeled the table to the bed and, with his help, shifted him into the comfort of clean, soft bedding. She stumbled twice, so exhausted that she was half asleep as she went for the blood. “Please cooperate, wild man. You need it, and I’m just too tired to fight with you anymore.” She left the glass on the night table inches from his fingers.
Like an automaton she cleaned up, sterilizing instruments, washing down the gurney and tables, bagging the remains of the coffin, the rotted rags, and the blood-soaked towels for burial at the first opportunity. By the time Shea was finished, dawn was only two hours away.
The shutters were closed tightly to block out the approaching sun. She bolted the door and dragged two guns from the closet. Propping them up near her only comfortable chair, she tossed a blanket and pillow onto the cushion, prepared to defend her patient with her life. She knew she needed sleep, but no one was going to harm this man further.
In the shower she allowed the hot water to pour over her, rinsing blood, sweat, dirt, and grime from her body. Shea fell asleep standing up. Minutes later a strange sensation in her mind, almost like the brush of butterfly wings, jerked her awake. She wrapped her long hair in a towel, pulled on her mint-green robe, and stumbled out to check on her patient. Switching off the generator, she made her way to the bed. The glass was still sitting on the nightstand. Full. Shea sighed. Very gently she touched his hair. “Please do what I ask and drink the blood. I can’t go to sleep until you do, and I’m so tired. Just this once, please listen to me.”
His fingertips traced the delicate bones of her face as if memorizing her shape, the satin softness of her lips. His palm spanned her throat, fingers curling around her neck. He pulled her toward him slowly, relentlessly.
“No.” The single word was more moan than protest. He increased the pressure almost tenderly until he had pulled her small form onto the bed beside him. His thumb found the pulse beating frantically in her neck. Shea knew she should struggle, but she was beyond caring, lying helplessly in his arms. She felt his mouth move over her bare skin, a whisper of movement, an enticement. His tongue stroked gently. She closed her eyes against the waves beating in her head. He was there. In her mind. Feeling her emotions, sharing her thoughts. Heat coiled in her as his mouth moved over her pulse again. His teeth scraped, nipped; his tongue caressed. The sensation was curiously erotic. Searing pain gave way to warmth and drowsiness. Shea relaxed against him, gave herself up to him. He could decide life or death. She was simply too tired to care.
Reluctantly he lifted his head, sweeping his tongue carefully to close the wound. He savored the taste of her—hot, exotic, the promise of passion. There was something terribly wrong with him; he understood that. Part of him was locked away so that he had no past. Fragments of memory seemed like shards of glass piercing his skull, so he tried not to allow them in. She was his world. Somehow he knew she was his only sanity, his only path out of his dark prison of pain and madness.