No one could; it was not in her records. She’d never admitted to her highly attuned senses around anyone. Not her parents. Not her crew. Instead, she called her insights, hunches, gut reactions that Nowicki and others believed in one hundred percent.
Searing hot anger cut through her mind like a sharp battle blade, tearing her away from her thoughts. The person, or maybe more than one since the energy was so malevolent, was in a rage.
Mel tore her gaze away from Wulf’s blazing one and scanned the room slowly from side to side. Separating the mixture of emotions in the room, she found curiosity about her, exhaustion from the siege, anticipation for the final battle—and finally the hatred.
Ugly, dark, and red hot. Stinking so strongly that it turned her stomach.
She must have made a noise because Wulf stopped walking. “What is it, Melina?”
“Hate,” she whispered back. “I can’t explain how I know this, but there is strong hatred in this room. For us—you, me, Maren, your brothers.”
“Maren. Huw. Iolyn. Move in closer. Be ready,” growled Wulf. His wrath now swamped her senses, overriding all other emotion in the room.
Funny, the smell of his wrath calmed her. A part of him that should scare her but didn’t.
It was righteous. Strong. Honorable.
“You believe me? You sensed it too, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Yes.” His abrupt answer, his faith in her, for some reason, further soothed her excoriated senses. “Where is it coming from, little one?” His arms tightened about her as if he could absorb her into his body to protect her.
She flinched and he gentled his grip.
“I can’t tell. You have to control your anger, it’s overlaying the other’s emotion.” Wulf grunted, then took several deep breaths. With each breath, his anger lessened until he was in control of it, ready to use it to fight and protect.
“I haven’t seen this in many, many years,” Maren whispered, awe-struck.
“What, Maren?” Mel asked as she swept the room with her senses even wider open.
“Battle symbiosis.” The elderly diplomat whispered so that it carried no farther then the five of them. “You will not have heard of it, my dear. It has been lost to the Prime culture for many, many years.”
She couldn’t be bothered to figure out what Maren meant. Nor why Wulf and his brothers gasped at the older man’s words. She’d just found the source of the enmity—and he was ready to explode into action.
“He’s over by the computer array, next to the main entrance to the engine room.” Wulf turned. “Huw—”
Before he could finish his sentence, the man Mel had located moved forward, a laser pistol in his hand. Without thinking, Mel pulled her laser from the holster between her and Wulf’s body, brought it up in one smooth movement, and shot the man, a full-powered blast into his weapon arm. The would-be assassin fell to the floor, screaming in pain, cursing her ancestors and her in gutter Prime.
The engine room was silent—the air so still it was as if the room held its breath, waiting to see what would happen next. All eyes of the crew were on her and the man holding her.
“Huw, secure the traitor,” Wulf shouted so his men would realize Mel had saved their Captain and wasn’t a threat to him. “We’ll question him later.” Looking down at her, Wulf’s lips thinned with some strong emotion.
Well, damn, the man was angry at her! Again! He was upset that she’d defended them!
Stupid male pride.
She sniffed, raised a brow, and dared him to say the words she knew he wanted to utter.
Growling under his breath, Wulf shook his head. “First, I’ll see to Melina’s wounds.” He strode once more toward the makeshift infirmary.
“My injuries are slight,” she said as she wiggled to be let down. He tightened his arms and squeezed her to stop her movement. “Really, I’m fine, Captain. ”
“Wulf.” Shaking her, he whispered, anger making his voice harsh. “Say my name.” His words spit out like bullets from an ancient Terran gun.
She decided to humor the beast. After all, he was only a man.
“Wulf.” She smiled at him, fluttering her lashes as she’d seen other women do when they wanted to enthrall a man.
He grunted.
“I’m fine. You can put me down.” His look of incredulity cut off her next request for him to leave her alone. She tried a change in topic. “Always keep a man guessing,” one of her few females friends had told her. “I need to contact the Alliance squadrons awaiting the all clear.”
She peered at him, testing his reaction. Not much change.
A muscle clenched and unclenched in his jaw. His carotid pulsed so rapidly she was afraid his skin wouldn’t hold it in. She had the strange urge to lick, then bite him right where the pulse called to her. Probably not a wise thing to do considering that his anger simmered at just below a boil, scalding her senses. Outwardly, he controlled it, well except for the tell-tale pulse. It was a cold rage. He’d look like that in battle.
She sensed that it wouldn’t take much for him to unleash his fury.
Yet, she persisted, secure in the knowledge he’d never loose his wrath at her. How she knew that she couldn’t explain, she just did. “You do want to rid your ship of the pirates, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he spat out the word, “but your wounds are more severe than you realize. You are still bleeding. There is a blood trail from the tunnels. It is getting worse. I’m not even sure why you’re still conscious to argue with me.”
Maren, who’d followed them, interjected, “Wulf. It’s the battle symbiosis. Please, be patient with Melina.”
“I understand, Maren, but she’s bleeding! Diew!” Wulf stroked her cheek gently as the muscle in his jaw fought the battle to keep his rage bottled up.
Contradictory man.
Wulf was a man of extreme emotions. A minefield Mel would have to negotiate carefully until she understood what this battle symbiosis was. She’d never heard or read of it. But whatever it was, Wulf both wanted and feared it.
Maren smiled at her. “We are concerned, my dear. Please let Wulf care for you.” Stretching to look around Wulf’s broad shoulder to smile at the older man, she bit back a hiss of pain as her wound pulled from the motion.
“Wulf can tend to my injuries while I contact my ship. Deal?” She shot first Maren, then Wulf, a look that dared them to disagree.
“If you must,” Wulf said through clenched teeth.
He laid her on a bed in the sectioned-off area, then pulled a cart containing antiseptic wipes and surgical lasers to the gurney.
“What is the plan?” he asked.
Distracted by his shaky movements in pulling out what he would need to treat her wound, she warily eyed the medical array. “Do you have a medical degree—or something?”
“All Prime soldiers are trained in battlefield medical techniques. My triage treatment will hold until we can get you to a regen bed in our medical unit.”
“A regen bed on the Leonidas,” she automatically corrected. “Are you sure you’re calm enough to wield a medi-laser?”
He shot her a narrow-eyed look. His anger level increased once more, to the point where she felt it bounce off her like sparks from a laser drill going through metal.
“Yes. And it will be a bed on my ship,” he said, his tone sharp and so dismissive she wanted to slap him.
“I don’t think so, big boy.” She was glad to see his hands had stopped shaking.
Nothing worse than ham-handed medical care.
Wulf removed the utility pack from her waist and threw it aside. His large hands ripped her uniform top off in one strong movement. Before she could protest that his whole damn crew could see into the cubicle, he reached for her tank-top undergarment.
She shrieked as she grabbed his hands and tried to pry them off her. “Wulf, stop it!”
“I can’t clean the wound with the shredded cloth in the way,” he explained, his words spoken slowly and with a patience she knew he didn’t feel. His extreme anger had begun to fatigue her. “Do you want an infection?”
“No,” she whispered, touching his tense arm with tentative fingers. She wasn’t sure why she needed to assuage his anger. His smell, all hot, testy male, reached inside her and dragged an all-too-female placative reaction from her. “I’m fine. I’ve had worse.
Please—don’t be so angry.”
“You shouldn’t have any injuries.” He gently removed her hands from his arm, then ripped the tank top away from her body as if it were a thin sheet of paper. “Now, be still, gemate lubha, so I can tend the wounds.”
His thorough visual examination took in her full breasts and leanly muscled abs, then focused on her lower right side, several centimeters below the rib wound.
Wulf’s nostrils flared with his sharp intake of breath. His golden eyes burned her like the Terran sun. Long, strong fingers reached for, and then traced the tattoo on her right hip. He uttered in a low, hungry tone that tightened her womb. “Diew.” She shuddered in reaction—an atavistic reaction ten times stronger than the one she’d felt when she first took in his scent in the tunnels. Warning buzzers and bells went off in her head. There was extreme peril here—one she’d never confronted before.