Page 22 of Einar (The Brigands of Ruk #2)
Chapter Twenty-Two
EINAR
Averting my eyes, I stare at the ceiling, so Slavic is not tempted to rip my eyeballs from my skull for looking at his mate. Repairing her body was the one and only exception to viewing her without coverings since she’s crouched over the top of my mate, brandishing one of my sharper medical knives as she snarls at us in a desperate attempt to protect her sister from a non-existent threat. Only … she does not know that.
“ Stay the fuck back.”
Her snarled words do not cause the response she wants because Slavic is just standing there, staring at her with his heart in his eyes.
“ I wondered if you were real, but damn, seeing is believing that’s for sure. You can put those eyes of yours back in your head Big and Ugly . I’ve never been one who enjoyed being gawked at.”
Slavic grumbles out a response, even though we all know the humans cannot understand us. “ Little Starshine , get down from there. You are safe. No being in this room will hurt you.”
“ Look , I think we’ve already had this discussion. I have no idea what the hell you’re rambling on about. With so many different species out here, … wherever the hell here is, you’d think some smart ass would have found a way to fix this damn language barrier.”
Concern fills me so I ease around Slavic , and I stalk over to the bed where my unconscious mate is still lying. I must startle Slavic’s mate because she had slightly lowered her weapon, but my appearance at her sister’s side must come across as an act of aggression. Her hand holding the knife darts out and slices a gash down the length of my forearm.
Gnashing my teeth against the hot pain emanating from the cut, I bare my teeth at her, both tusks fully exposed, in aggravation as my dark red blood drips down my arm onto the floor and bed.
I just cleaned this whole room and now I’m bleeding all over the place.
Slavic’s female moves away from me, pulling my mate with her as she goes.
“ We can do this all day, Green Giant , but you are not touching my sister.”
Snarling , I start toward her and watch as she recoils. I am so determined to get to my mate that I do not notice that Slavic took extreme offense to me growling at his mate. His protective instincts are going wild, just like mine. His rough hands grab me and launch me across the room toward the door. I land with a boom as my massive body collides with the unforgiving wall and pain radiates through my entire body.
“ What the frack, Slavic ?!”
Raising my head, I see Slavic standing over the top of me. His chest is heaving up and down as he fights an internal battle. I unintentionally provoked him even though his mate denied me access to my mate. Bracing myself, I wait to see if he is going to lose his shet on me or if he will regain control of himself.
A few nano-tics go by and when he doesn’t continue kicking my rear, I slowly rise to my feet, keeping a leery eye on him. Just because I am bigger does not automatically mean that I will win a fight with my older brother. We are evenly matched on that point.
Deep , wracking coughs snap my attention back across the room, and I watch as my mate sits up. The spines along my back begin to shift and rattle as my mate attains consciousness. Joy spreads through me and I start to go to her, but the second I move in that direction Slavic loses his shet. He grabs my long black hair in one hand and my throat in the other and uses his hold on me to throw me backward and out the door into the hallway.
Normally I am the calm one, but enough is enough. The leash I normally keep on my temper disappears as if it never was as Slavic and I start brawling like ill-mannered youths just outside the med bay as the females watch us, fear etched into their faces. Bikar appears out of nowhere and slams into Slavic and I , forcing us apart. Slavic is standing there, chest puffing with each breath and glaring at me. Bikar is talking but neither of us can hear him over the roaring of our blood in our ears. The gratuitous violence must be too much for my fragile mate because a faint whimper freezes me in place, my fist frozen in mid-motion as my head jerks around, peering at her through the open door.
A single moment of inattention is the opening Slavic has been waiting for because he lunges past Bikar and lands a solid punch on my jaw, hitting me so hard, his knuckles slide along my jawline and catch on one of my tusks, splitting the skin open as blood flies through the air.
Slavic’s bold mate whispers to mine, but I am too far away to hear what is said. When my mate offers no verbal reply but starts having a coughing fit…
FRACK . THIS . SHET .
Without warning, I dart past Slavic and back into the med-bay. My mate needs medical attention, and I am the gods’ frackin’ MEDIC . No one, not her sister or my brother, is going to stop me from taking care of her. Storming across the room, I stop in front of Slavic’s mate and snatch the knife from her before she can bleed me with it again. Tossing it aside, I pick her up and fling her at a fast approaching, enraged Slavic . His arms snap around her securely as I point at the med-bay door.
“ Get the frack out of my med-bay, Slavic . My mate is in distress and yours is causing nothing but problems. I cannot help my mate with her here, so get gone!”
The female in Slavic’s arms is not stupid. She immediately figures out that we are separating her from her sister, and she goes wild. I wince in sympathy before my mate’s weak cry breaks my hearts. Her voice is filled with so much fear and despair, it is painful to hear.
Lord , why? Why did I wake up?
If we’re being really honest, waking up was the last thing I wanted to do. I shouldn’t be surprised to wake up in yet another unfamiliar place, but I can’t help but look around in leery astonishment. I’m lying on a rather comfortable bed, in what appears to be some sort of medical facility. Forcing my eyes open, they immediately land on an IV line connected to a tube that runs into the wall at my side, dripping some sort of clear liquid into it. I guess some things really are universal. Someone , or something, saved my life.
Pity .
A commotion of some sort catches my attention. Painstakingly , I roll my head in the direction the noise is coming from, only to realize Ruby is crouched over the top of me … and she’s buck ass naked. I really didn’t need to see a closeup of her snatch, but here we are anyway. If I had any humor left in me, it would be almost comical the position I’m in. However , relief fills me that my sister is alive and seemingly well, or at least okay enough to crawl on top of me to protect me from whatever is making that awful racket.
Lifting my head, I peek around her bare ass and what I see fills me with terror. There are massive … things fighting outside the door of the room Ruby and I are in. They’re almost as big as the sneaky snakes that stole us from Earth . One is a dark gray color that reminds me of a stone gargoyle, but the other … He’s even bigger than the gray one and is a mossy green color with brown undertones. It reminds me of peat moss and it’s almost pretty. If it weren’t attached to a being almost twice my size with a mouth twisted by a huge pair of tusks, two massive horns that would put Hellboy to shame sticking out of his forehead, and spikey looking things sticking out of his back. A being that is currently trying to maim another of its own species from the looks of it.
Preparing myself for pain, I force myself upwards. To my surprise, my body isn’t in any discomfort, but I feel the tickle in the back of my throat and know what’s coming before it starts.
Great . Yet another coughing fit. What I wouldn’t do for a hit of albuterol right now.
A whimper escapes me, and it causes the green giant to freeze in place, his head snapping around to peer across the room at me where I’m peeking from behind Ruby’s body, watching them fight. The gray one must see big green’s inattention as an opportunity, because he sucker punches Big Green in the face, cutting his knuckles open on Moss Man’s tusk in the process as I watch the blood arc through the air.
Grabbing onto Ruby’s arm, I notice the little knife she’s holding as I use her to help pull myself up all the way up. Once I’m in a sitting position, I focus on a few deep breathing exercises as Ruby whispers a question at me.
“ Are you ok?”
No , Ruby . I am not okay.
The words are lodged in my throat, and I can feel tremors wracking my body as panic begins to take over my mind and I stare back at the colossal green creature looking at me. I know better than to let myself get upset when I’m already having issues breathing, but my mind is at its limit. My panic blooms and I feel my airways closing up, which causes me to start coughing again.
To preoccupied with suffocating, I miss Moss Man approaching until Ruby’s comforting weight is gone. Snapping my eyes open, I watch as she flies through the air, presumably thrown by the snarling mass of green in front of me, and lands in the gray gargoyle’s arms. Moss Man’s gigantic arm is lifted, and I follow the length to a lethal, clawed finger pointed at the door.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out he wants everyone else to leave. Including my sister! I watch as Ruby loses her shit.
“ Ruby …”
My weak call only makes it worse because Ruby doubles down as she desperately tries to get out of the gargoyle’s arms and back to me. The last thing I see as the door slides shut behind them is her flailing in a monster’s arms.
Focusing on the menacing mass of green in front of me, I feel myself retreating into the comforting, quiet place in my mind. I’m not sure what he wants from me, but the possession blazing in his creepy, dead yellow eyes promises nothing but pain. The last conscious visual I have is of him reaching for me as I blissfully slip into my happy place.