My Cyborg Savior (Crimson Romance) (7 page)

They lay in silence for a second while he listened for movement. He sat up and checked on Jamila. Her lips were moving but he couldn’t hear a word she said. A loud ringing filled his ears. He wouldn’t be able to hear any threat coming at them. Fuck.

He pulled her to her feet and she screamed. Even through the damage to his ears he heard it faintly. She gestured to her leg. There was a piece of metal in her thigh. Dammit. What now? He couldn’t pull it out here. Even if it hadn’t hit an artery, it would bleed a hell of a lot. He didn’t know where her ship was, so he couldn’t take her to it.

They had to leave here. If he went the wrong way they could double back later, but they needed to move before the explosion attracted officers. Or the people who’d tried to kill her came after them again. He scanned the area but there was no sign of them. But that didn’t mean they weren’t there, or that they didn’t have another trap set. He ducked, grabbed her around the knees, and tossed her over his shoulder, doing his best to ignore the blinding pain the movement caused. He stumbled and went down to his knees. He took a deep breath and tried to shut down the pain receptors in his brain, but things were too scrambled at the moment. The grenade must have stunned some of his systems.

He shoved himself to his feet and ran. Jamila’s hands dug into his hips with such ferocity it was almost painful. He needed to get her some place where he could see to her wound. She wasn’t bleeding much yet, but when he removed the spike, they’d see exactly what kind of problem they had.

He hesitated at the mouth of the alley. If they were spotted by patrollers they’d likely be arrested. Jamila hit his back repeatedly and he stopped. She was trying to tell him something. She tapped his left side, and he went that way. Hopefully that was what she meant. He stuck close to the buildings. Thankfully they were heading away from the crowds of downtown. She thumped his back again and he stopped.

When she tapped the right side of his body, he rushed across the street to the alley he spotted. He saw her ship at the end of it. He hacked the system as he jogged toward it. The doors opened slowly, the plank lowering to the ground so he could walk in.

“Tell the ship to start and get us the hell out of here.” He sighed in relief. His hearing was coming back. He’d been worried for a second that it wouldn’t. The sound of her telling the ship to take off reached his ears. Barely.

He crouched and set her feet on the ground. She stumbled a little and he grabbed her hips to steady her as he stood. Her tan complexion had become frighteningly pale.

Grasping her elbow, he guided her to the padded bench in the back of the shuttle. “Lie down. Is there a med kit in here?”

Her eyes narrowed, proof that she couldn’t hear well either at the moment. He repeated his question and she nodded, pointing to the small cargo space on the opposite side of the shuttle. When he located the tiny kit he groaned. Nothing this small was going to be a lot of help.

He popped it open. The cell regenerator in here was probably only big enough to partially heal her wound. The pain injector was the big surprise. Apparently this med kit had been altered. They usually came with a standard painkiller. This had one that would make a person loopy as hell. Which was actually nice for his purposes. From the short view he’d gotten of her injury in the alley, it was pretty bad. He removed the mini doper machine from its sterile package and loaded it with the painkiller. He turned and pressed it to her arm. It automatically went off. Almost immediately she let her head rest on the bench.

“Wow, what was that? Usually the drugs in those kits are nothing. Whatever you gave me wasn’t nothing.”

“It was Vicaquian. One of the strongest painkillers you can get these days. Heavily abused though. I was shocked that it was in this med kit too. It’s illegal to have such a powerful drug in them. Guess your daddy doesn’t care much for legality.”

“He’s not a drug user if that’s what you’re implying.”

“I’d never dream of saying that.” Oh, yes he would. He suspected her father had many faults. Habitual drug use wouldn’t surprise him. It was something almost every nobleman did. And in the government you had easy access.

“Yes, you would. You have no problem accusing anyone of horrible things. Even if you don’t accuse, you definitely think it.”

He moved to examine her leg, pulling a knife from his boot. He cut away her blood soaked pant leg around the injury, jostling the sliver of metal. “Does that hurt?”

“Are you kidding? I can’t feel anything, anywhere. Disconcerting feeling.”

“Oh, come now. I know you’re a drug user, even if dear daddy isn’t.”

“Was a drug user. And I didn’t do anything quite like this.”

“What’s so different about it?” He needed to keep her talking. He’d let her talk about anything.

“Most of the drugs me and my friends used created a euphoric feeling, not a numb body feeling.”

“Not an orgasm feeling?”

She laughed. “Okay, so you caught me. I was a big user of that particular drug.”

“Couldn’t find anyone to get you off the good old fashioned way?”

She snickered. “Sometimes. I’ve met a lot of skeevy men and most of the time you don’t want to sleep with any of them. Much better to take a drug that gets you off, and avoid the assholes that are out there.”

“Or you could marry.”

She snorted and shook her head. “Not you too? If my father brings in one more dickwad of a suitor, you’ll have quite the murder-suicide on your hands. Those are the biggest assholes of them all. They’re all rich, and political up and comers. Condescending, like I don’t have a brain when, if I’d finished my schooling, I probably would have beaten them out of whatever position they hold.”

“I have no doubt. Okay, I’m going to pull this out now.” He didn’t think the shard had hit an artery. She probably would have died already if it had, but it still was going to bleed a lot, and she’d already lost enough blood. The regenerator would probably only stop the blood loss.

He freed the shrapnel and blood immediately welled and started streaming down the sides of her leg onto the bench. He grabbed the regenerator and held it over her wound. The blood loss slowed and then stopped, but the batteries died before he was finished. He wiped away the blood, and was satisfied that the injury was no longer life threatening. He reloaded the doper with an antibiotic and injected it near the wound.

“There we go. That should do until we get you home and I can take you to medical.”

“No! My father can’t know about this outing, for your sake and mine. If he knows I was injured, he’ll see it as your failure, and have you killed.” She slowly sat up. She blinked hard and swayed.

“Maybe you should lie back down.”

“I’m fine.” She grabbed his arm. “You can’t tell my father what happened, or anyone in the infirmary. Go get more medical supplies and fix the rest of my wound, but you can’t take me to sick bay.”

She eyed him but her gaze was unfocused. “I know you were hit. You should have used some of that on you.”

He glanced at his shoulder. Blood had spread down his torso and was soaking into his pants. “It’s nothing. I’m already healing. I do need to pull the cloth away from it though.” He plucked it away from the wound and flinched.

“It’s the gift of being what I am. You heal pretty damned fast.” He whipped his shirt over his head and used it to wipe off the majority of blood that had spilled.

“We still need to give you a dose of antibiotics and see if we can’t bandage it at least.”

He showed her his palm, with the rapidly healing tiny puncture wounds. “Don’t worry about me. See how these are healing? I’ll be fine. I’m worried about you. It’s very hard for me to catch an infection, but you’d be easily killed by one. My superior genetics can fight most things off.”

“My God. Those look like they’re days old.”

He nodded. “Exactly.”

“Launch imminent,” the computer said. “Strap in.”

Jamila pushed herself to sitting. “We need to move.”

“No, stay here and brace yourself. We’ll be okay.”

He put his arm around her from his kneeling position on the floor and waited for liftoff. It wouldn’t catch him off guard this time. The ship launched and he barely moved a muscle. Jamila shifted slightly, but kept her seat.

“Wow, you’re so strong.”

He grinned. “Yes, I am. How are you doing?”

“I’m okay. I think the bad parts of the painkiller are starting to wear off. I feel more focused than I was a second ago.”

“Good. I need you to tell me what I should say to your father when you don’t come to dinner.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost nine.”

“Crap, we’re already late for dinner. We should make it back before he’s done. We have to think of a lie about where we’ve been. How about shopping?”

“We don’t have anything new.”

She rolled her eyes. “Pfft, as long as he doesn’t see us sneaking in, he’ll never even ask what I bought. He doesn’t care, as long as I’m not out creating a new scandal.”

“Okay then. We were shopping and ate out.”

She was still too pale for his liking. He got the feeling that if she sat up, she’d fall right back over. Would she need a transfusion? He glanced at the blood on her clothes and beneath her on the bench and made an estimate of what she’d lost. No, she would be fine without a transfusion. Weak, but she’d live. She wasn’t cold to the touch, or shivering, and since he’d stopped the blood loss she would be fine. He tried to keep himself from worrying. Why the fuck was he concerned? She was a means to an end. Nothing more. But she was also beautiful, compassionate, and brave. She wouldn’t be risking herself if she weren’t.

“Does anyone know you meet this man?”

“Only Alice and Darion. They would never tell.”

“Has anyone seen you meeting with him?”

She glared at him as best she could while lying on a bench. “No, why do you think we meet there?”

He rolled his eyes. “Well, either someone saw you or he betrayed you. Which do you think it is?”

She sighed. “Someone probably spotted us. He was doing something illegal too, so I doubt he ratted me out. Who do you think the assassins were?”

He snorted. “I don’t know. I assume they’re trying to kill you to strike at your father. I think if it were the government, they would have come out and arrested you. You’re an important person. If they wanted to out you, they’d want to do it publically to make a point that even the upper classes won’t get away with what you’re doing.”

“You know your life is great when you’re happy it was a normal assassin and not the government.”

“Yep.”

“Approaching destination,” the computer’s robotic voice crackled. “Fasten your safety harness.”

He placed his arm over Jamila again and braced for the landing. They hit the floor of a hanger with a jolt that made his teeth rattle, but he didn’t move.

He stood and pulled Jamila to her feet. He leaned down to pick her up and she put her hand on his shoulder.

“I’m all right. I don’t feel any pain. I can walk. We need to go back through the window so we don’t run into anyone. Luckily, at this time of night, no one is working on the grounds.”

He nodded. “Okay, but if you feel faint or your leg hurts tell me and I’ll pick you up.”

“No problem.”

He took her arm anyway and she rolled her eyes. He didn’t want her to fall before he could catch her. It was better to lead her by the arm. They made their way slowly around the house as Jamila glanced around like she’d never seen the place before. In spite of her proclamation of feeling more focused, her gaze wandered in odd directions, her eyes vacant.

They reached her window, and he climbed through first and lifted her over before walking her to bed. “Lie right here. Don’t move. I need to tell your father that we’ve arrived so he doesn’t come looking for us. If he hasn’t already. And I need to get medical supplies.”

“Okay, I’m kind of tired and dizzy, so staying here is not a problem.”

Of that, he had no doubt.

He’d saved her life. If he hadn’t been there, she would have been killed. She hadn’t even realized a grenade had hit the ground until the blast shook the earth. He was right, she didn’t know how much danger she was in. She and her father always had threats against their lives. But no one had ever tried that hard to kill her. He’d saved her and been injured in the process. How bad was it? When she’d looked, she couldn’t really tell where he’d been hit. Her eyesight was too blurred for that. She thought she’d seen a lot of blood. Would he be okay?

The door hissed faintly as it slid open and the large, slightly blurred figure of Galen came to stand over her bed.

“How you doing?” His deep voice sent shivers up her spine.

“I’m alright. The pain in my leg is starting to come back.”

“Right, well, I’ve brought the regenerator, so I should be able to fix that. Turn over.”

She flipped over onto her stomach and he went to work. The faint hum of the medical instrument was the only sound that filled the room.

“You were right to demand I stay home. I should have listened to you. I almost got you killed.”

He rubbed his hand over her back. “No, you were doing a good thing. But I wish I’d known what you were doing — we could have come up with a plan that was a little less dangerous. Like, I retrieve the food, and you hover over the city in the shuttle. That sounds much better to me.”

“I couldn’t tell you what I was doing. I didn’t know if you would turn me in.”

He clucked his tongue at her. “Come now, Jamila. You know what I am.”

“A slave.”

He snorted. “Yes, as well as other things. I would never turn someone over who was helping people.”

“Yes, but they say most cyborgs have been brainwashed. How would I know you weren’t loyal to the government?”

He sighed. “You’re right. Definitely don’t trust every cyborg you meet. Plenty are loyal to the government. If I had been, you would have known as soon as I found out what you were doing. I would have killed you immediately. We aren’t really the ‘capture and interrogate’ types, unless those are our orders.”

She shivered. That was an unpleasant thought. She pushed up so she was leaning on her elbows and glanced at him. “You’ve known cyborgs loyal to the government?”