Discovery (Hybrid Book 1) (10 page)

The man on the ground was dead. She didn’t need to check to know, there was just something ‘missing’ when she looked at the body, even though it was face down.

“Can’t leave you alone for a minute can I? Let’s have a little look at that paper cut,” she said quickly as she reached for his shirt. Tenset growled, grabbed hold of her upper arm, and started to pull her back to the carriage.

At the rate he was bleeding, judging by the spreading stain, he’d suffered a major injury. Time was not something he had to spare. Adrenaline was the only thing that was keeping him going, and when his blood supply ran out, his heart would stop and there wasn’t a damn thing she’d be able to do. She could restart a heart, but if there was nothing to pump it would be pointless. She needed a living body to work with.

Thinking fast, she stuck a foot in front of his. Holding his arm to ensure he landed on his back, he went down like a sack of potatoes. Murmuring an apology, she ripped open his shirt as he groaned. Unfortunately, she was correct. The stab wound in his upper left chest was deep. There wasn’t time to numb his pain, and as he didn’t seem fully conscious anyway, she got to work straight away. She placed her hands over the wound, closed her eyes and sent her thoughts questing into his damaged flesh.

“Bastard thought you were a devil, came out here with a poker. He threw it at the horses, thought he was going to...had to do it.” His explanation changed to a grunt of pain as she worked silently.

Chesara focused down through the wound, searching for the major sources of blood loss, rather than bothering with damage to superficial vessels. She quickly found the cut in his left subclavian artery. Coming directly off the aorta, it supplied all the blood to his left arm. Luckily, it wasn’t severed, so she encouraged the smooth muscle in the vessel on either side of the damage to constrict, lessening the blood loss. Then she made the edges of the cut artery fit together and encouraged the fibres so recently parted to re-join, it was what they wanted to do so it wasn’t too difficult. When she was sure the artery was repaired, she released the constriction and checked for leaks.

Once the main vessel was healed she moved slowly back up the wound, knitting muscles, connective tissue, lymph and blood vessels back into place. His rib had been nicked, and she briefly worked on accelerating bone production in the area until it was as good as new. A brief check of the rest of him showed a hairline fracture in his forearm, and multiple bruises, so she dealt with those as well.

As she came back to herself, she realized that Tenset was quietly watching her. Although she was bone weary from her efforts, she remembered the directive about keeping her abilities to herself. If she’d remembered it a few moments ago, she wouldn’t have done such a thorough job, but what was done, was done.

“Not nearly as bad as I thought,” she announced, slurring a little as she tore one of the skirt strips off. She roughly started to bandage the completely pristine area adding, “keep this on for a few days, and you’ll be good as new.”

As he reached a hand to her face, she hastily got up, stumbled a little, and mumbled about seeing if the horse was all right. She could see it was still on its feet, so there might be something she could do for the beautiful beast.

A hand reached up to steady her hip, “Sweetheart, I know what you can do, there’s no need to hide it anymore,” his soft voice told her, making her heart stutter.

“I don’t know what you mean, I’m not too bad with a bandage, and you should never underestimate the power of prayer.”

“We both know that’s not what I mean.” His voice was low and steady, as if he was speaking to a skittish animal. It would have been irritating if she wasn’t so tired.

“I’m fairly sure there is nothing you can do for Ox, I stabbed him in the back of the neck. Let’s go check on the horse before any of his friends of this turn up.”

The reminder of a further threat galvanised her into action. But she took a moment to reassure him.

“He was dead before he hit the ground. You didn’t have a choice, thank you for saving my life.”

He snorted. “Me saving your life? I’ll remember that one.”

Taking his hand, she helped him to his feet, although as they walked over to the horse, she wasn’t sure which one of them was holding the other up.

Tenset pulled her to a halt, a distinct frown on his blood stained face. “You don’t take the pain yourself do you?”

She patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’m a complete wimp. If that had been the deal, you wouldn’t have seen me for dust. I’m just tired. It takes a lot of energy to heal. Once I’ve had a sleep and something to eat, I’ll be right as rain. I don’t think I’ll be up for a party tonight though, and neither are you.”

“Don’t worry, we’re nearer my place than the palace anyway. When we get there I’ll send some messengers out to let everyone know where we are.”

By this time, they’d reached the poor animal.

The poker had entered the gelding’s neck from the front, but although it was still lodged in its flesh, it wasn’t too deep but she had no real idea of the structures she’d be dealing with.

“Can you help him too?” Tenset asked softly.

Chesara could see the pain and panic in the white that was showing in the poor beast’s eye. She’d never healed a horse before, but she didn’t see why she couldn’t.

“He’s flesh and blood the same as you,” she murmured more to herself than Tenset as she continued to examine the wound whilst trying to calm the pain-filled animal.

“It’ll have to come out before I can heal it, but he’ll be able to go right after I’ve healed him, the blood loss isn’t too bad, unlike you. You’ll need to take it easy and drink plenty of fluids. I beefed up your blood production, but the raw materials have to come from somewhere. I’ll just check what things should be like on the other one...”

She moved to the other horse, leaning into its soft comforting bulk as she sank her perceptions into the vibrant flesh as she checked the healthy structures she’d be working on in the injured animal. The brief rest seemed to help as the horse nibbled gently at her hair. Tenset’s voice made her reluctantly open her eyes.

“We could cut him free and double up on this one. We’ll ditch the carriage, it’ll take far longer by road, and I’ve sent the driver home. Can you ride?”

She gave him a ‘stupid man’ look.

“Of course I can ride. I’m actually rather good at it,” Chesara huffed, and then blushed as Tenset’s raised eyebrows and smirk..

She smacked at his arm. “Grow up will you.”

She couldn’t let her own feelings get in the way of helping this poor animal. The med bay and Dagus seemed like it’d happened days ago, not the few hours it had actually been. Connor would not be a happy bunny if he knew what she’d been doing, but then again, she doubted that the fight or Tenset’s injuries would have occurred. He would have let her help Roseanne though.

“Wait for me to deaden the nerves, and then when I nod, pull the poker out, slowly and steadily, so I can stop any serious bleeding as we go.”

Tenset patted the horse’s shoulder and murmured calm words to reassure it.

“You didn’t deaden any of my nerves, do you like horses more than people? Or is it just me?” he asked with a smile, showing he was just playing.

“Maybe,” she said with a grin of her own, deciding that two could play at cheeky.

“However he,” she indicated the horse with her chin as her hands were already placed on either side of the bolt, “is likely to stomp on me if I hurt him, and you were barely conscious. Besides he’s not in danger of bleeding to death in the next two minutes.”

Much to her amusement she saw his face fall as her words brought it home just how close to death he’d actually been.

“Ready?” she chirped brightly, and at his nod, she closed her eyes and focused. Horse anatomy was quite a bit different to human, but nerves were nerves, and she soon found them, and slowly changed the chemical composition of the membranes, making transmission of pain impulses impossible.

Keeping her eyes closed she nodded, and the flesh under her hands jerked slightly as the metal rod was slowly but firmly pulled out. She immediately went to work on stopping the bleeding, before repairing the wound, knitting the blood vessels and flesh together, she didn’t bother with making the skin ’pretty’, and she left the nerve block in place because she didn’t have the energy to remove it.

Leaning against the mountain of warm flesh for a moment as her head spun slightly seemed a sensible idea. The multiple healings on top of Dagus this morning, plus the fact she still hadn’t eaten were telling on her. She’d used her patients energies as much as possible to heal themselves, but now she had a throbbing headache and the ground was looking awfully comfortable.

A finger lifted her chin, and she opened her eyes to a face full of concern. “You all right sweetheart?”

“I’ll survive; just tell me there’s a bed with my name on it not too far away.”

Tenset gave her a smile that she just knew had melted far harder hearts than hers and leaned in to kiss her gently.

“You are truly unique,” he murmured against her lips.

White-hot anger followed the brief stab of epic humiliation.

“You fucking son of a putrid Kackbad. Idiot that I am, here was I thinking it was me you liked, but just like everyone else I’ve ever met, you’re only interested in what I can do.”

The sooner she got out of here and back to Connor so she get off this stinking hell hole of a planet the better.

C
hesara’s reaction to the line he’d used so successfully, many times before caught him completely by surprise. Most women loved to be considered unique and special.

He stood in silent amazement as she swiftly undid the harness of the horse she’d healed, whilst exposing him to the most eclectic repertoire of intergalactic insults he’d ever heard. Hell, he only understood about a third of the things she was saying, and he didn’t want to know the meaning of the rest.

He came back to his senses as she pulled herself up onto its bare back.

“I’m fucking tired, dirty, and sick to death of being seen as a freak. I’m going back to the embassy, and if your precious Lord and Lady Harmon still want my help, they’d better get to the port before breakfast cos I’m going home.”

Before she could kick the horse forward, he reached up and grabbed its bridle. He’d been somewhat stunned by his sweet and seemingly innocent companion’s skilful use of profanities, but her taking off back to the embassy was certainly not part of the plan.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to upset you.” He indicated his blood soaked shirt. “Obviously I’m glad you can do what you can do, otherwise I’d be dead, and Roseanne would be in that bed for the rest of her life. But I’d like to say, that even without your healing ability, you would be remarkable, particularly because of your charming, genteel personality and astonishing grasp of ‘exotic’ language.”

He hit her with his best smile and twinkling eyes, it’d never failed, then again the ‘unique’ line had never failed anyway.

As she let out a snort of amusement, he knew his famous charm was working again, although he hadn’t had to work this hard for a woman for years. It was, refreshing.

“You are clearly exhausted, and although I hate to admit it, I’ve felt better. As my home is far nearer than either the embassy or the palace, I suggest we head there. I don’t think either of us should be travelling any more than we have to tonight.”

He could see her considering the distance they’d come since leaving the embassy. A slight drizzle of rain in the air seemed to make up her mind, although she wasn’t giving in entirely.

“Fine.” A finger jabbed in his direction. “As long as you promise to get me back to the embassy first thing tomorrow, you have a deal. And I’m not going to carry on pretending to be something I’m not, this is me, foul language and all. If you don’t like it, tough.”

She pulled the horse’s head away from his grasp, sending it into a canter in their original direction.

Hastily he mounted the other horse although the movement pulled at his newly repaired chest. At least she hadn’t set off at a gallop. The moonlight was bright, but still, she didn’t know the road and the possibility of her falling pushed yet more adrenaline into his body.

“You ok?” he asked when he caught up with her a few minutes later.

“Will you stop asking me that?” she snapped back, and he grinned.

“What are you laughing at country boy?”

Tenset just shook his head. Telling her that her ‘tough act’ was about as effective as a chocolate teapot probably wouldn’t help matters. To be honest, she looked as if she was having trouble staying on the horse she was so tired. And unless he was mistaken about the sort of highly protective environment she’d grown up in, she’d probably just witnessed her first bar fight and murder/attempted murder.

Yes, she’d probably seen far more severe wounds, but he bet she’d only seen them inside a nice sterile med bay. There was no way the Federation would let their prize asset be in as much danger as he’d just put her in. Did he feel guilty? Too bloody right he did, but he felt even more guilt for the fact that hundreds of his own people were starving.

It had been essential to determine if she could do what the rumours said she could, before risking everything on this scheme.

As they came up on the shortcut, he indicated the almost hidden opening in the trees to their left. Once on the path, he kicked his mount into a gentle canter. It was a less jarring movement than a trot, and these horses could sustain it without a problem.

“I can’t see a damn thing,” she called from beside him.

“Don’t worry, the horses know their way home, just give him his head and we’ll be home and dry in about fifteen minutes.”

Tenset shook himself and concentrated on the track ahead, rather than her long, slender legs that were wrapped around the horse’s flanks, the pattern down the side made them look even longer. He could even see that the markings covered the outside of her foot as she’d lost at least one of her shoes. She looked even more wild and exotic as she moved as if she was part of the beast between her thighs. Envy for the horse bubbled up, there was only a thin piece of cloth between its bare back and her luscious flesh.