Kale gave up on the whole escape route and sat up as the need to move and take the weight off his back took over. Even though he didn’t want to leave the warm, comfy embrace against Aleksi’s side, where he was snuggled up tightly, the injuries on his back were starting to sting and ache too much for him to stay there.
“Help me up, please?”
Caleb shot up and over to him, taking his hand and pushing Aleksi’s away when Kale’s mate tried to help. “You can’t help until your doctor clears you. He said you’ll heal quicker than we do, but until then, you aren’t to so much as sneeze, or we’ll get kicked out of here and Kale will throw a tantrum.”
Kale growled, offended by the dig. “I do not
throw tantrums
.”
“Oh, no? Then how did we get in this room with your mate?”
There was no chance in hell that he was giving Caleb the satisfaction of being right. Kale was prepared to play devil’s advocate and argue the sky was green if he had to. In his own defense, Kale had had to do something drastic or else he would have been ignored and never allowed to visit Aleksi.
The moment the doctor had caught sight of his tears and the mating bite mark on his neck, everything had changed. The doctors and guards had been all too eager to help Kale get to Aleksi. But he was sticking to his guns. He had
not
thrown a tantrum. He’d merely pointed out that it was to their benefit to let him be with his mate. Otherwise, either Kale would find Aleksi himself or the more dangerous option could happen—Aleksi could come looking for him.
Pushing his advantage, Kale had also mentioned that Aleksi’s tiger was very possessive of him and wouldn’t like it if anyone smelled like Kale. That was before he’d deliberately brushed up against the doctor who didn’t want to let him go to his mate. When persuasion tactics didn’t pay off, blackmail usually did the trick.
“Have you been causing trouble, mate?” The shining gold-green of Aleksi’s eyes revealed the tiger liked that he’d fought to get to his side.
Unfortunately, Caleb chose to be chatty again and told Aleksi the whole story, smirking when Aleksi growled at the part where Kale spread his scent on other people. “I better not meet that guard,” Aleksi threatened dangerously. “However, you’re right. I would have ripped the hospital apart to get to you if you hadn’t have come to me when you had. I was just waiting for the doctor to finish his rounds so there would be fewer guards for me to incapacitate.”
Hearing that Aleksi would have come after him lifted a weight he hadn’t noticed had been sitting on his chest. “Well, I saved you the trouble, then.”
Kale pulled harder on Caleb’s hand until his brother got the hint and offered him his arm to use as a hook to hang onto. “Thanks. How are your ribs? They’re not Tic-Tacs, you know.”
As he stretched his legs and got the blood flowing again, it eased some of the buildup of pressure, relaxing his angry muscles.
Wincing, Caleb laughed, reached into his pocket then took out an orange pill bottle and rattled it at him. “Don’t hate me. You could have had your own little bottle of magic pills, but you pissed your doctor off.”
“And you could share,” he shot back with a glare as his injuries started aching. He kept pacing slowly in the hopes that the pain would ease off again.
“I would, but you know you’re allergic to aspirin.”
He sighed and nodded. He should have been more diplomatic when he was trying to get to Aleksi. Impatience had always been one of his flaws. Going back to his doctor to apologize wasn’t an option since that bridge was well and truly burned. “I know,” he sighed. “I don’t like you drugged up. You think you’re
down with the kids
.”
To Kale’s embarrassment, his older, sensible, straight-laced, always serious, manager brother stuck out his tongue and did the rock-on hand signal. “Whazzzup!”
“Oh…my God.” Kale shook his head and started laughing even though it hurt. He glanced at Aleksi and the humor froze in his chest. Aleksi was definitely not laughing. “Are you okay? Are you hurting?”
Aleksi sat upright in the hospital bed. Wincing, Kale could only imagine how much it must have hurt to do that with all the bullet wounds scattered over the muscular torso and stomach. One bandage blushed red in several spots.
Kale rushed back over to the bedside. “You’re bleeding. Caleb, get the doctor!”
“I am fine, mate. Did your doctor really refuse to give you pain medications? Pain from lashings is a mix of a burn and a cut and hurt. You doctor should never have let you go anywhere without pain management.”
The look on the shifter’s face sent a chill down his spine.
Paling, Aleksi started shaking and there was a thin sheen of sweat glazing his brow. Aleksi pushed a lock of blond hair behind his ear, looking agitated. Kale put his hand over Aleksi’s and turned it over to trace the lines on his mate’s palm. Aleksi immediately calmed and Kale kept doing it until Aleksi leaned back against the pillows again.
His back was on fire as he moved and the fabric of his shirt scratched at him more like it was wire wool instead of light cotton.
“I’m fine. You’re fine.” Before Kale could really say anything else or do anything to comfort the shifter, there was a noise at the door. Aleksi growled as the guard cleared away the door grates and stepped inside, followed by a man wearing a vest that looked like the Kevlar ones S.W.A.T teams wore on crime shows underneath his white coat.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Sanders, how are we feeling?” The doctor, in his forties maybe, stood shorter than he was, but wider built and more muscular than the doctors Kale had seen in the other part of the hospital.
“I’m fine.” Aleksi waved off the man. “Check my mate. He’s in pain,” Aleksi instructed firmly.
Dr. Sanders raised his eyebrows.
“You are not fine, Mr. Cooper, but I can see why you are concerned about your mate.” The doctor took the stethoscope from around his neck and approached Kale, running his gaze over him in a way that made Kale feel like every nook and cranny was being assessed and filed away.
“Cooper? That’s not Russian,” Caleb pointed out, ever the tactful pothead.
“Scott’s brother, Robert, found me, gave me a home and trained me. I took Robert’s middle name as my last when I joined their family because that’s the name Robert uses on missions. A few of the others did the same actually, when Robert rescued us.”
Aleksi flicked Kale’s brother a glance but had turned to look at Kale when he answered. To be honest, Kale had wondered the same thing too, but he didn’t want to ask the man he’d basically married what his last name was. It was ridiculous.
There was no more explanation from Aleksi, but Kale hadn’t really expected that much from his stoic mate, especially with other people in the room.
“Mr. Andrews, is it?”
“Yes, Dr. Sanders,” he answered obediently as he was poked and prodded. He turned around without a word of protest when he was directed to remove the borrowed hospital scrubs. He glanced at Aleksi but the man’s face was set stubbornly, waiting for Kale to do as the doctor directed.
With help, he managed to get the shirt off and he eased the elastic waistband of the paper-thin pants down so the back was just under his ass and the front still covered his private area. The last thing he wanted to do was flash everyone.
“The wound is clean and although the area is swollen, I don’t foresee long-term issues past the healing period. How do these feel on your lower back and buttocks?”
Running his inspecting fingers gently over Kale’s ass and back, Dr. Sanders made a non-committal
hmm
noise. Kale couldn’t stop himself from flinching away from the doctor’s fingers.
“Sorry.”
“No need to be. Frankly, I am surprised you were allowed to leave your bed at all. Where is your pain medication?”
Kale winced again “I don’t have any. There was a morphine drip in my arm when I woke up a few hours ago but a nurse took it out before I came down here. I needed to see Aleksi.” He added the last part defensively when he glanced over his shoulder to see the Dr. Sanders scowling, his expression dark.
“Are you telling me that your doctor did not give you anything for the pain?”
“I told him I felt better than I did,” Kale admitted reluctantly, not looking at Aleksi when the shifter hissed quietly. “Stop it, Aleksi. You’re scaring the guards.”
In truth, the guards hadn’t moved much, just readjusted their grips on their tranquilizer guns, but it probably wasn’t best to test their restraint.
“Are you allergic to any medications?”
“Yes, aspirin, but I don’t take other pain killers if I can avoid it because it irritates my stomach.”
“Okay. I’ll go e-file a prescription. I recommend an anti-inflammatory to reduce the swelling from your moving about and an anesthetic spray to numb the area for you. This is a serious injury, Mr. Andrews. I appreciate the need to see your mate. I have worked with shifters for a long time now, but you could have seriously set back your recovery by pushing your body too hard.” The doctor stepped away from him, picked up the medical clipboard from the bottom of Aleksi’s bed and started scribbling notes.
Feeling chastised, Kale redressed then sat on the edge of the bed. For someone who had slept for two days, he was exhausted. By the time he refocused on the conversation, the doctor had unwrapped Aleksi’s numerous bandages and was examining them.
“It seems that you are healing exceptionally well. I suggest we leave the new dressings on for another few hours until my next visit then we can discuss when you’ll be fit for travel and the like. I would say that your animal nature is particularly resilient. There are very few races that can heal this quickly. If I didn’t know you had been with us for two days, I would say that these wounds occurred weeks ago.” The doctor gave Caleb a quick onceover as well, suggesting that his brother stay in the hotel opposite the hospital tonight instead of sleeping crammed up in the uncomfortable hospital chair.
True to his word, the doctor left then returned a few minutes later with an orange bottle for him and a spray for Kale’s back. It must have been clear that Aleksi wasn’t going to shift or lose control. The guards left quietly and didn’t re-engage the door grates. The doctor’s visit had obviously confirmed that Aleksi wasn’t a shifting threat.
“Hey, you have a view.” Caleb’s statement made him realize the room actually did have windows. They had just been covered with similar grate to the door, but these had to be controlled remotely because they were retracting to reveal a nice view of the city.
If they weren’t in a hospital, this would probably be a tourist trap.
“How far down do the injuries go, mate?”
Kale tensed at the question. He’d managed to keep his face to Aleksi throughout the examination so Aleksi still hadn’t seen his wounds.
“You need to apply the numbing spray.” Aleksi’s voice left no room for Kale to wiggle out of it or change the subject. Caleb had seen the injuries when he’d been unconscious but
he
hadn’t seen them, so he didn’t know what they looked like. He only knew they felt massive, as if the whip Not-Barry had stuck him with had flayed him wide open and the doctors hadn’t sewn him up yet.
“Caleb can do it,” he said, holding the spray out to his brother. He gave Caleb a pleading look.
Caleb frowned and stared at him for a long moment. His brother must have figured out that he was stalling so that Aleksi didn’t see his back. His brother jumped up from the chair and headed to the door. “Sorry. I need to go to the bathroom. Aleksi can do it.” No one would have guessed Caleb had busted ribs by the way the traitor all but sprinted out of the room.
“Kale. Why don’t you want to show me?”
“Because I don’t know what they look like and I don’t want you not to want me anymore, okay? I almost lost you and I don’t want you to be disappointed that I don’t look like the person you mated.” Until Kale started spewing out the words, he wasn’t sure what he was going to say, then he just couldn’t stop. “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. Caleb was abducted, beaten and subjected to watching that sick fuck dress a hooker up like me, wearing my underwear and using my shampoo and body wash then he strangled he poor guy. You were shot—
shot!
—because of me, and all those people Not-Barry killed are on my conscience, stains on my soul. You deserve better.” Kale sobbed, finally breaking down and covering his face with his hands as he sat heavily on the plastic chair next to the hospital bed.
“Kale. Come here.”
Shaking his head, Kale continued to scrub away the tears streaking down his face. It
was
all his fault. If he hadn’t made a target of himself or if he’d simply let Not-Barry get him the first time, then the real Barry would still be alive and so would the police officers, the prostitute and Caleb, and Aleksi would be fine too.
“Kale, stop thinking like that right now! We would definitely
not
be fine. Yes, those people might well have been alive but they could just as easily have been hit by a bus or have died a million different ways at any second. Caleb would have lost his baby brother, his only family. And I would still be alone and searching for a mate I was never going to find, because my other half is you. I
deserve
you.”
Kale looked up through his fingers and saw Aleksi had gotten out of bed and was kneeling in front of him.
“You have to get back into bed before you pop a stitch or something.” Kale tried to lift Aleksi by putting his hands under Aleksi’s arms and pulling, but the big shifter didn’t move at all. “Aleksi, please.”
“I want you to say that what Not-Barry did was not your fault. I want you to say it to me and you then I want you to show me your injuries so I can apply the spray the doctor gave you.” Aleksi looked into his eyes as he spoke and the intensity of the stare unnerved Kale.
Since he’d woken and come down here with Aleksi, he had started to feel an echo of Aleksi’s emotions. It wasn’t anything intrusive or controlling. In a way, it was comforting to know he wasn’t alone but it also meant that Aleksi would be able to feel his emotions too.
“You can’t always get what you want,” he said hotly, wiping his face in his arm so he could see clearly.