“She’s got a bite on her neck.”
I glanced back at Galen. “He’s about to fall over.”
Galen grimaced against the pain. “I took a few hits. It wouldn’t have been anything if I were still immortal.”
I examined the gash on his arm. “Yes, well, it could kill you now.”
His eyes blazed at me, bloodshot and hard. “Save her, Petra.”
“We need to give you a shot,” I said, tamping down my emotions, finding the syringe in my cart.
Galen gripped my shoulders as he struggled to stay upright. I staggered sideways under his weight. “Let him do it. You said you’d save her!”
“Fine,” I ground out, as Marc took hold of Galen, steadying him.
“Punctured carotid,” Marc said, as if he couldn’t quite believe we were switching places. Me either.
Since when did patients dictate treatment? They hadn’t, until Galen of Delphi came along. His years in special ops had made him way too used to giving orders.
And my weak heart made me listen.
Marc half lifted, half shoved Galen as he collapsed onto the table.
Hades. We’d gotten here just in time.
The poison was tearing through his system, eating away at his vital organs. And he was right—this time, he wasn’t immortal.
Marc worked with quiet efficiency.
It drove me crazy that I couldn’t control this, that I couldn’t help him.
I took stock of the woman on my table.
“My name is Dr. Robichaud. You’re safe with me.” I didn’t even know if she’d heard me. Her almond eyes were wide, her olive skin pale.
Her neck showed round, biting scars along with fresh puncture wounds. She’d been shackled with some sort of collar that drove spikes into her flesh. She had to be a shifter. Kept against her will.
Holy hell. “Are you from the old army?”
Galen had brought a hostile into camp. Sure, we sometimes treated the enemy—before putting them under guard. But I doubted that’s what Galen had in mind.
Shit.
We were harboring the enemy.
We could be executed for this.
She stared at me, glassy-eyed. I needed a chart, damn it. I needed to know what I was dealing with, and what I could give her.
“Are you a werewolf?” I asked, frustration rising as I inspected the tears in her larynx. If she were human, she’d be dead.
I glanced to the table next to me. Galen convulsed as Marc gave him 20 cc’s of toxopren. The shot was as big as a horse tranquilizer and neutralized poisons. It also burned with a fire that made grown men scream.
If it had been anyone else on the table next to mine, I would have called for backup, screw the consequences. Galen had no right to bring me into this. I didn’t know what he was thinking—secretly harboring a soldier from the old army.
It was his sheer dumb luck that I trusted him implicitly.
I was such a fool.
Shaking my head, I covered her lower body with a blanket and reached for a clamp of sterile gauze. “Suction,” I said, out of habit. I didn’t have a nurse.
The blood seeped out as fast as I could wipe it away. Whatever had tried to take a bite out of her neck had nicked her carotid artery. I stitched up one hole. Two. There had to be at least one more. I couldn’t see with all the blood. My own pulse hammered in my ears. I needed to stanch the flow. I needed to stitch. I couldn’t do both at the same time.
This secrecy might just kill her.
But if I called in help, chances were I’d be signing her death warrant.
Sweat and steam gathered under my surgical cap. “Marc?” I called, unable to keep the worry from my voice.
“He’s not responding,” he said, his voice sharp. I knew that tone. Death usually followed.
Heat tore through me and it took every fiber of my being to stay with my own patient. I promised him I’d save her.
Her heart rate monitor let out a pulsing, high-pitched warning. One hundred eighty beats a minute. She was losing too much blood.
I stanched the bleeding. Found another hole. Stanched the blood. Lost the hole. Her very life seeped through my