Page 3 of Tempting Jupiter (Arena Dogs #2)

Chapter Three

Jupiter woke to a sharp spasm in his belly and a confusing mix of scents.

An unfamiliar figure leaned over him. Acting on instinct, he tried to shove the shadowy attacker away, but his muscles were weak.

The silhouette hunched over him blurred at the edges as light bled around to reveal hints of the creature’s identity.

Clothed, small, bloody—with Jupiter’s blood.

When he lurched forward, the flex of his abdominals shot shards of icy, strength-stealing pain through his muscles.

His right arm didn’t respond at all, and the left moved only inches before it bumped benignly against his torturer.

“Hey, hold still, big guy. I’m working here.”

The voice was gruff, annoyed, and female.

As she looked up from her task, light painted her features and Jupiter’s vision adjusted to his current reality.

She was human. He lay on the floor and she kneeled beside him.

There was something chemical overpowering her feminine scent markers.

What he could read from her, told him she was anxious but not why.

Despite her demanding tone, she was not a guard. Not a threat.

“What are you doing?” Forcing out the words helped focus his mind. Roma had few females on staff. Most were medics.

“I’m trying to close this wound. I’ve got sealer here, but it’s a mess.”

He lifted his head to look down his body. The woman’s hands were steady, but she was trying to push the edges of the wound closed with only her fingers and they kept slipping in the blood.

“I said hold still, damn it. You’ll only make it bleed more.

” She reached for a crimson-soaked wad of gauze and wiped futilely at the blood.

“Crap! The sealer won’t bond if I can’t get the edges together.

I think the major repair job inside is okay, but you’ve ripped the wound open and torn it even farther.

What did this, anyway? Looks like someone tried to punch a hole in your chest.”

The memory of the spike stabbing into his chest flashed in and out of his thoughts.

It had been an accident. A misplaced elbow and a spiked gauntlet worn by his opponent.

Jupiter’s thoughts went to Seneca. They both were meant to die in that match.

The ache of worry for his pack brother rivaled the pain of the hole in his gut.

“Damn.” The woman’s curse refocused his attention on the present.

Her focus was entirely on her task.

It was going badly.

Where were the tools of her trade? He’d spent enough time in the med center to know them all on sight.

Clamps? A suture threader? No arena healer lowered themselves to the floor to treat a Dog.

No, she was no medic. He looked around but recognized nothing.

The unadorned walls were close. A bunk hung from one wall, and an energy field of some kind filled the only exit.

Jupiter tried again to lift his left hand. His arm stretched out along the floor until it bumped against the woman. He managed to bend it, but lifting it clear of her was beyond his strength. “Help me pull my arm over you.”

“Uh, I’m a little busy—”

He growled with all his strength to stop her flow of words and gain her compliance.

Her head lifted and she met his stare with wide, surprised eyes.

The vivid green of them startled him when everything else about her was muted and unadorned.

She wore her hair in a skull-hugging style that ended in a knot at her neck.

Her clothes were a dull black and they covered her skin, neck to toe.

“Do. It.” He ground the words out between clenched teeth.

“Oh-kay. But if you die, it won’t be my fault.” She stopped and twisted to wrap her hands around his left forearm.

She ducked under it and then brought it close to his torso. His nostrils flared as he got a better whiff of her. Beneath that chemical tinge that masked her scent, there was none of the stench he associated with humans. Her subtle female essence coiled in his lungs, soft and tempting.

“You’re human,” he accused. Her scent shouldn’t stroke his senses.

She leaned over him again. “Yeah, you got a problem with that?”

“Yes.” He flexed his hand and his claws flicked out.

Her startled gaze darted to his and she studied him through her lashes. She swallowed as if her words had lodged in her throat then sat back on her heels. “Well.” A false note of teasing lilted through her voice. “I suggest you wait until after I’m done patching you up before you kill me.”

He dipped his chin in agreement. “That was my plan.” He strained to better see the jagged tear in his chest, then hooked one claw into the edge of the wound. He ignored her indrawn breath and pulled the flesh toward the opposite side.

“Alright then.” Her tongue slipped out, depositing a line of moisture across her pink lips. “Will you be able to get your… claw out if I apply the sealer across it?”

“You’ll have to help, but yes.”

She nodded, but it wasn’t directed at him.

Her eyes were on his injury. “Okay. That’ll work.

” Her hands shook as she pressed the tube of sealer to his injury, but he didn’t think it was his threat or the gore of her task that disconcerted her.

She didn’t seem to know much about Dogs and he suspected it was the disadvantage of being in unfamiliar territory that had her rattled.

“I can’t feel my right arm.” It worried him. He’d thought before, it might have been an after-effect of the sedative.

“Trust me, it’s still there.”

“I know that.”

“Thought you couldn’t feel it.”

“I can’t, but my eyes are working well enough.”

“Glad to hear it and thrilled to hear you’re a glass-half-full kind of guy. A little optimism never hurts in a challenging situation.” Head still bowed over his abdomen, she continued to work. “I haven’t had a chance yet to patch up the injury on your shoulder, but it doesn’t look too bad.”

“Not being able to use my hand is serious.” He kept still, not wanting to slow down her work.

She huffed. “Yeah, well, you won’t be able to use anything if you’re dead.”

“True,” he muttered.

A laugh bubbled out of her. “Careful. If you start acting all reasonable, I might get soft and fuzzy over you. The ability to be reasonable is rare in your gender. It puts you ahead of ninety percent of the men I’ve met.”

He knew she was making a joke, but even imagining a bonding between them shook him. It wasn’t that human women had never chosen him for pleasure, but they had always treated him as a thing, a curiosity. “You were surprised by my claws?”

“Yeah, I’ve been a little preoccupied with keeping you from bleeding to death. I hadn’t really looked at your hands.”

If she didn’t know Dogs, she couldn’t be working for Roma. “Who are you?”

“I’m the human trying to get your bleeding stopped. If you’ve forgotten that already, maybe I should check for a head injury.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” he said through a tight jaw. “But it tells me little.”

She blew out a breath and rested her hands on his abdomen as she straightened. “Done. Since you’re awake and making such delightful conversation, I guess the blood-doubler I gave you is working.” Her mouth curved in a grin that plumped her cheeks and stretched her soft lips tight.

The weight of her hands, a casual touch rather than a task-oriented one, made his stomach twist.

“You can call me Fee,” she said.

“What kind of name is that?” Fee meant payment in his mind.

“Short for Feeona, but let’s keep that between us, okay? I’d offer to shake hands, but mine are all bloody and yours are, well…” She shrugged and it turned into a shoulder roll. “I’d better look at that other wound but let me clean my hands first.”

She started to stand and he wasn’t ready for her to go. “Wait.”

She stopped and looked at him, eyebrows arched high over those intelligent green eyes.

“Help me free my claw first. It will require putting your hands in the blood again.”

She nodded. “Tell me what to do.”

He bent his hand back to try to work the curved tip out.

“Press against the skin around the claw.” He cut his instructions short when he saw that she understood exactly what he intended.

Her palms rested flat on his belly. The heat of them burned her touch into his memory.

Her fingers pressed, gently working his claw out of the injury.

When she had it mostly free, he flexed his hand to retract his claws. The trapped one slipped free.

She seemed to shake herself, then stood and strode over to a cleansing station in the corner. “You got a name?”

He could think of no reason to hold back the name chosen for him by the masters of the arena. “Jupiter.”

She looked over her shoulder as she held her hands out toward the cleanser. “Suits you.”

“Does it?” He’d never bothered to ask if the name had meaning.

“Sure.” A chemical mist soaked air whooshed across her hands, removing all traces of his blood. “Old Earth mythology, right? God of sky and thunder.”

They’d named him for a god. The thought galled him.

She threw away the gauze in a waste disposal unit.

When she returned, she went back to work, treating his injuries with calm efficiency.

Her graceful movements reminded him of Seneca.

Smaller and leaner than other Arena Dogs, Seneca had mastered every frightening technique that relied on dexterity, agility, and precision.

It had honed him into something deadly but fluid and sensual.

Jupiter needed more information if he was to find his pack brother. “Who brought me to you?”

“Captain Fitzhew and his crew, but not to me specifically. I’m not a medic. I only know the basics.” She pressed her fingers gently around the edge of the shoulder wound. “Injuries are always a possibility in my line of work.”

Gentle as her fingers were, pain spiked through his shoulder. He clenched his teeth and kept his misery to himself. “Your line of work?”