Yellow eyes met hers and suddenly she was a TV unplugged, her cord yanked out of the wall, her screen blank.
Vishous stared at his surgeon as she slumped down once more in the armchair across the bedroom.
"She all right?" he said to Phury. "You haven't fried her, true?"
"No, but she's got a strong mind. We want to get her out of here ASAP."
Wrath's voice cracked through the air. "She should never have been brought here."
Vishous eased gingerly back onto his bed, feeling like he'd been punched in the chest with a cinder block. He wasn't particularly concerned that Wrath had his leathers in a knot. His surgeon had to be here, and that was that. But at least he could tray—up a rationale.
"She can help me recover. Havers is complicated because of the Butch sitch."
Wrath's stare was level behind his shades. "You think she'll want to help you after you had her kidnapped? The Hippocratic oath only goes so far."
"I'm hers." V frowned. "I mean, she'll take care of me because she operated on me."
"You're grasping at straws to justify—"
"Am I? I just had open-heart surgery because I was shot in the chest. Doesn't feel like straws to me. You want to risk complications?"#p#分页标题#e#
Wrath glanced at the surgeon, then rubbed his eyes some more. "Shit. How long?"
"Till I'm better."
The king's sunglasses dropped back onto his nose. "Heal fast, brother. I want her scrubbed and out."
Wrath left the room, shutting the door with a clap.
"That went well," V said to Phury.
Phury, in his peacekeeping kind of way, murmured something about how everyone was under a lot of stress, blah, blah, blah, then went over to the bureau to change the subject. He came back to the bedside with a couple of handrails, one of V's lighters, and an ashtray.
"Know you'll want these. What kind of supplies is she going to need to treat you?"
V whipped a list up off the top of his head. With Marissa's blood in him, he was going to be back on his feet fast, as her lineage was nearly pure: he'd just put high-test gas in his tank.
Thing was, though, he found himself not wanting to heal all that fast.
"She'll also need some clothes," he said. "And food."
"I'll take care of it." Phury headed for the door. "You want something to eat?"
"No." Just as the brother stepped out in the hall, V said, "Will you check on Butch?"
"Of course."
After Phury left, V stared at the human woman. Her looks, he decided, were not so much beautiful as compelling. Her face was square, her features almost masculine: No pouty lips. No thick lashes. No arching, feminine-wile brows. And there were no big breasts pushing against the white physician's coat she had on, no wildly curvy ins and outs as far as he could see.
He wanted her like she was a naked beauty queen begging to be served.
Mine. V's hips rotated, a flush spreading under his skin even though there was no way he should have the energy to get sexed up.
God, the truth was, he had no remorse about kidnapping her. Matter of fact, it was preordained. Just as Butch and Rhage had shown up in that hospital room he'd had his first vision in weeks. He'd seen his surgeon standing in a doorway, framed in glorious white light. She'd been beckoning to him with love on her face, drawing him forward down a hall. The kindness she'd offered had been as warm and soft as skin, as soothing as calm water, as sustaining as the sunlight he no longer knew.
Still, though he might feel no remorse, he did blame himself for the fear and anger in her face when she'd come to. Thanks to his mother, he'd gotten a nasty look at what it was like to be forced into something, and he'd just done the same thing to the one who'd saved his life.
Shit. He wondered what he would have done if he hadn't gotten that vision, if he hadn't had his curse of seeing the future speak up. Would he have left her there? Yeah. Of course he would have. Even with the word mine running through his head, he would have let her stay in her world.
But the fucking vision had sealed her fate.
He thought back to the past. To the first of his visions…
Literacy was not of value in the warrior camp, as you couldn't kill with it.
Vishous learned to read the Old Language only because one of the soldiers had had some education and was in charge of keeping some rudimentary records of the camp. He was sloppy about it and bored by the job, so V had volunteered to do his duties if the male taught him how to read and write. It was the perfect exchange. V had always been entranced by the idea that you could reduce an event to the page and make it not transitory, but fixed. Eternal.
He'd learned fast and then scoured the camp for books, finding a few in obscure, forgotten places like under old, broken weapons or in abandoned tents. He collected the battered, leather-bound treasures and hid them at the far edge of the camp where the animal hides were kept. No soldiers ever went there, as it was female territory, and if the females did, it was just to grab a pelt or two for making clothes or bedding. Further, not only was it safe for the books, it was the perfect spot for reading, as the cave ceiling dropped to a low height and the floor was stone: Anyone's approach was instantly heard, as they'd have to shuffle about to get near him.#p#分页标题#e#