Kellan’s skin went tight, fangs filling his mouth. His vision had gone instantly red—not only in physical reaction to the presence of so much fresh-flowing blood but in deadly rage for the betrayal by one of his own. A betrayal that had resulted in the slaying of one friend and the grave injury of another.
All of this havoc and loss wreaked while Kellan had been distracted by the pleasure of having Mira in his bed.
He’d failed his crew in the worst possible way. Failed Jeremy Ackmeyer too, whom Kellan should have freed immediately upon learning of his innocence several hours ago. None of this would have happened if Kellan had kept his head on straight as the leader these people expected him to. They had entrusted their lives to him, trusted him to protect them.
Instead, he’d allowed himself to get caught up in a romantic entanglement with Mira that could only end in disaster. So, yeah, he’d failed her today as well, and it was too late to call back any of his mistakes.
“Goddamn it,” he snarled, self-directed anger making his voice sound raw and violent, even to his own ears.
More than anything, he wanted to tear out of the bunker and hunt Vince down—daylight or not. He wanted the bastard to suffer for this, wanted to make him bleed. But it was Kellan’s crew that was bleeding and suffering now—one of them bled out on the floor in front of him, another possibly heading that way too.
The sight of Candice injured so severely jolted Kellan back to his duty as the commander of this base and its people. He ignored the coppery gut-punch of Candice’s bleeding wound as he walked to her side and went down on his haunches next to her.
Her breath raced between slack, pale lips. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, fixed on the ceiling as Doc bent her leg at the knee, elevating the wound, before fastening his belt around her thigh as a tourniquet.
Kellan grabbed her discarded jeans and rolled them into a makeshift pillow. As he lifted her head off the floor and rested it back onto the softer fabric, her glassy gaze slid to him. “Vince . . . I tried to stop him, but he—”
“I know. Don’t worry about him. You just hang in there, you got it?” Her eyelids drooped with her weak nod. Kellan clamped his teeth and fangs together as he smoothed his fingers over her clammy brow. “How we doing, Doc?”
“Be a helluva lot better once I get the blood flow stanched,” Doc replied, hands slick with red, face grim as he tightened the belt on Candice’s thigh.
Kellan shot a glance over his shoulder to Nina, who hovered nervously in the doorway. “Clean towels, lots of them. Cloths too. Bring whatever you can find.”
“On it.” She took off at once.
Candice’s teeth started to chatter. Her eyes were glazed, alternating between rolling back in her head and sliding over to focus on him. “I’m s-scared, Bowman. Don’t want to die.”
“You’re going to be all right,” he assured her. “Doc’s treated worse. You remember the shit condition I was in when you dragged me in to meet him that first time?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was thready, small. “I remember.”
Kellan nodded, swept a lock of damp black hair from where it was plastered to her cheek. Her skin was cold, alarmingly so. “Doc didn’t let me die that night; neither did you. He and I aren’t about to let you die now either. So, you hang in, Brady, that’s a fucking order.”
“Okay,” she said, giving him a faint smile as her eyes drifted closed. A shudder went through her whole body, prolonged, bone-deep. She trembled, blue-lipped and shivering, despite the summertime humidity of the bunker. “Freezing in here,” she murmured. “I’m so cold.”
Before Kellan could respond or turn to find something to provide her some warmth, a blanket appeared from somewhere behind him.
Mira.
He looked up to find her standing at his back, holding a blanket she’d brought from his bed. She moved around him to cover Candice’s torso, gently tucking it under her chin and shoulders to keep in as much heat as possible.
When she was done, she stepped back, her hand coming to rest tenderly on Kellan’s shoulder. He reached up to meet her touch, clasping her fingers in a grateful squeeze. His guilt and self-recrimination was still acid in his gut, but the sight of Mira standing near him, the feel of her touch on him in silent support and understanding, was a balm he couldn’t deny. He saw Doc’s gaze flick to the unspoken exchange, saw the question in the rebel’s eyes as Kellan’s hand lingered on Mira’s, possessive and intimate.
“Tell us what you need us to do, Doc.”
“Keep her awake,” the medic said, going back to work on the wound. “Shock will make her want to sleep, but we can’t let her do that. She needs to stay conscious right now.”