Page 56 of Kai (Alpha Heroes #13)
Kai
I blinked my eyes open and found Cece’s worried face hovering above me. A deep frown etched her forehead, and her lips were moving, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. I might as well be wearing earplugs. I felt weak and woolly, and my chest hurt like motherfucking hell.
If pain was a sign of life, I was doing great.
“Kai!” Cece’s shout startled me as my hearing came online. “Can you hear me?”
“How can I not?” I stuck a finger in my ear. “You’re shouting in my face.”
“Thank God.” Her eyes filled up, and the angst tensing her features ached worse than my chest. “Don’t you dare go out on me again, Marine.”
“You got it, sweetheart.” I managed a faint smile and gazed down.
A waterproof bandage covered the spot throbbing on my chest. The pain drummed to the beat of my heart. The last thing I remembered was passing out in front of the sink while trying to take care of my wound.
Several blinks and a glance later showed me I was in my bed.
A bunch of red-stained towels piled behind Cece, and my med kit stood open next to her.
The IV hooked to the vein in my forearm and the needle taped to my skin announced Cece had kept me hydrated.
The empty pre-loaded antibiotic syringes discarded on the night table told me she’d gone into full doctoring mode. She was the reason I was alive.
“How did you get me here?” I asked, still a little hazy.
“Once I stopped the bleeding, I dragged you to bed,” she explained, her face pale and her eyes worried.
“You were heavy, but we made it. You lost a lot of blood, and you’ve got one angry stab wound on your chest. You’re such an idiot, Kai.
” Her voice broke, and a tear escaped from the corner of her eye. “You should’ve told me.”
“I thought I had it under control.” I rose on an elbow, saw flashes of red, and slowly lowered myself down onto the pillows. “Back at the dinghy, I stuck a cloth over the wound to staunch the bleeding. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“It is a big deal.” I spotted a glimmer of tears in her eyes. “Stop moving. I don’t want you to bleed again.”
Memories of the last few hours came pouring in. “Levine?” I asked.
“Still out.” She nudged her chin toward my Tak, which was propped up against the wall. It showed an image of the merc just as I’d left him, trussed and slobbering from the corners of his mouth.
The asshole had fought me. The pain had marked the second he’d angled his knife around my tactical vest and stuck his blade in me.
I hadn’t realized the extent of the bleeding until I felt faint.
When I returned to Serenity , my priority had been to secure Levine and make sure he couldn’t harm Cece.
“Sorry, love.” I reached out and took her hand. “I thought I had time to take care of myself.”
“You were wrong.” With an angry swipe, she wiped a tear from her cheek.
“The wound is deep. It could’ve killed you.
I loaded you up with painkillers and antibiotics I got from your med kit.
You’re lucky that the blade didn’t puncture one of your major arteries or your thoracic cavity.
For all I know, you could be bleeding internally. ”
“But then again, I’m not dead, so there’s that.” I shrugged, then winced when I discovered that shrugging was a terrible idea. “Plus, I heard there’s a doctor on board.”
“A doctor in pharmacology!” she snapped. “You need a proper doctor, an MRI, a hospital, and—”
“Cece, slow it down.” I squeezed her hand. “I’m good.” Without letting go of her hand, I lifted my good arm to check the time. “Oh, shit. Is it mid-afternoon already?”
“It is.” She raked her teeth over her lower lip. “You were out for a while.”
I hated the worry that etched two lines between her eyebrows, the anguish that swelled her eyes with new tears. The cracked, flaking skin of her lower lip revealed she’d been chewing on it for a while.
“Thanks for taking care of me.” I took her hand and kissed it. “What’s Levine’s status?”
“He’s been snoring all day.”
Either the man was highly susceptible to the sleeping sedatives, or I’d overdone it, a possibility given that I’d had to triple the dosage to get the brute to stop his fuckery.
Either way, the meds should wear off soon.
Next time I faced the SOB, it was gonna be a war of minds. I had to get ready for it.
I pushed up from the bed.
“Please, Kai, you need to rest.” A repressed sob hiccupped in Cece’s throat. “When you didn’t wake up, I was afraid you were dying. You could still die on me.”
Without warning, the fierce woman I knew fell apart. Tears were not something I associated with Cece. She balled up around her knees, rested her forehead on her knees, and wept oceans of tears.
Her anguish cut through me like a cleaver. She’d faced all kinds of deadly threats since I’d found her. She’d handled them with poise and courage, and yet it was a blade to my chest that had her wailing like a child.
“Hey, Cece?” I sat against the pillows and gathered her against me. “I’m okay.”
“This is my fault,” she mumbled between sobs. “I almost got you killed!”
“Your plan worked.” I cupped her cheek and lifted her face until her red-rimmed eyes met mine. “We got the fucker. Give yourself a break. This one’s a win.”
She lifted a tear-streaked face toward me. “But I—”
“You’ve been carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders long enough, blaming yourself for everything that goes wrong. You don’t need to do that anymore. You’ve got me. Together, we will survive this shitshow. Okay?”
She sniffled. “Okay.”
I wiped the tears from her beautiful face. “No more crying.”
“I don’t cry,” she protested even as she wept.
“You do now.” I cupped her face and whispered, “And that’s okay.”
***
Cece
The afternoon encroached on the longest day of my life.
It’d rained all day, and the air smelled of ozone and wet grass.
I’d monitored Levine, but I’d stuck to Kai’s side.
His wound had been no joke. He had to be incredibly strong to push through an injury like his.
He’d lost too much blood. It’d been hard to stop the bleeding.
Thank God Kai had been out of his senses while I stitched him up. All my life, I’d wanted to cure diseases, but I had chosen the research path for a good reason. I didn’t like hurting good people. The thought of causing Kai pain had brought me to the brink of despair.
I’d held it all together until he returned to me.
And then… I’d fallen apart. In front of him.
I’d wailed until my eyes ached, but he didn’t call me a sniveling brat or demand I quit weeping.
He’d just held me, despite his wound, making me feel safe even as I cried on his shoulder.
Even when he was weak, he was strong. Even though I was usually strong, he gave me space to be weak.
I released a long exhale. Now that he was awake and I’d burned through a lifetime of tears, I could breathe a little easier.
I wiped my eyes and checked his bandage, pressing the edges with my fingertips to make sure it had sealed well over his skin. “How does your arm feel?”
He made a small motion and winced. “I don’t think Leftie here wants to go to work right now.”
“The blade damaged your left pectoralis major. It connects to your arm at the humerus and helps with the lifting, lowering, and pressing motions.”
“Look at you go,” Kai teased me with a brilliant grin that melted my insides. “The doctor of pharmacy remembers her physiology well.”
“Sometimes, I’m not a complete dummy.” I velcroed his medkit closed.
“You’re brilliant, so stop putting yourself down,” he ordered. “How many times is it going to take for me to say this before you believe me?”
“I have no freaking idea.” I lifted my shoulders and let them fall. “A while? Since moving your arm is a bad idea, should I strap it down to your torso and immobilize it?”
“Nah. I’d rather have the option to move, even if it hurts. We’ll be sailing out of here in a few hours, and I may need Leftie.”
My lower lip protested with a pang of pain when I chewed on it. “Do you think we can make rendezvous tonight?”
“I have every intention of making rendezvous.” Moving carefully, he stretched out his back and cracked his neck. “I need to be up and running before the turd wakes up.”
“Too late.” A booming voice drifted from above, followed by a snicker. “Turd’s up.”
My stare flew to my Tak. Dickface, aka Jack Levine, stared straight at the camera.