”Aye,” Kynan breathed, allowing his eyes to close again. “My life is … yours… .”
Kit had said just the right thing. Maybe-just maybe the man’s superstitious faith that his liege lord could work magic would keep him alive. Long enough for station medical to arrive, anyway… The Meet of the medi-van’s siren was the most welcome sound Malcolm had heard since the buzz of the gate in the African twilight. Rachel Eisenstein and another duty doctor raced into the office.
”Cross-bow bolt,” Kit said tersely.
Rachel took over, rigging pressure bandages, stabilizing Kynan’s vitals with IVs, treating for shock. “Prepare for thoracic surgery” Rachel said into her radio link with the station’s hospital. -Stat! We’re bringing in a bad one.”
”Roger.”
They lifted Kynan carefully onto a gurney and ran for the medi-van. Silence, sudden and brutal, descended on the smoky office. Kit scrubbed his brow with the heel of a bloody hand. Malcolm leaned against Phil’s desk and rubbed aching ribs where Kit’s lunge for safety had caught him. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Kit glanced his way. Malcolm …”
He looked up. A rarely seen look which everyone dreaded having pointed at them was levelled straight at him. Malcolm winced. Well, you’ve been waiting for this.
”All right,” Kit said quietly. “Let’s hear it.”
”What do you want me to say, Kit? I’m sorrier than you’ll ever know. Breaking a friend’s trust … Well, I am British. For whatever that’s worth. I’ve no excuses, Kit. So I won’t even try to make any. But lame as it sounds, I thought she’d just turned nineteen, Kit, not seventeen, and … and dammit, that headstrong little idiot does something to me … .”