A flicker of something passed through his face. Like he understood exactly what she meant. Like he knew what it meant to help the wrong people. Like he definitelywasthe wrong sort of person.
She swallowed. Focused on the road. Her GPS said she was only twenty-seven minutes from the hospital.
Just a little longer.
She managedto get a call through once she hit the edge of town. The man was unresponsive. She told the operator her ETA and tried to answer their questions.
She didn’t know much about him or the situation. He was big. He was bleeding, everywhere. He’d been conscious when she found him, but now? Not so much. And she had no idea whohe was, where he came from, or why he was out there naked and exposed, staring up at the Northern Lights, dying on the side of a cliff.
The emergency operator insisted she stay on the phone until help arrived. The emergency room doors slid open before she could even turn off the engine.
A wave of blue scrubs and white coats rushed toward the vehicle. A middle aged man who looked like he knew what he was doing leaned in to assess the unconscious, bleeding man in her passenger seat. He looked like a doctor. She hoped he was a doctor.
“Sir, can you hear me?” The doctor pressed two fingers to his pulse point. “He’s burning up.” The doctor pushed and poked and lifted one of her passenger’s eyelids, shined his flashy light into blank, sightless eyes.
Was he dead?God, please don’t let him be dead.
“I can’t find a pulse. We need to move—now.”
Raven barely had time to register the doctor’s words before they pulled him from the car, loading him onto a gurney.
She should wait out here for the police. The emergency operator told her they would want to talk to her, would come by the hospital to take her statement. They had her name and number, knew where to find her.
The kinds of wounds her naked man was covered in screamed of violence. Not a random stabbing or mugging, but something vicious. Criminal. Ruthless. She should just get back in her car and wait for the police. Tell them what she knew—which was nothing—and go home, take a hot shower, burn her blood-stained clothes and forget this ever happened. She did not need to get involved. She’d seen this kind of violence before. Knew the type of people who could hurt someone like that. She should freaking run—not walk—as far away from the injured man as she could get.
Instead, she hesitated. Then—against every bit of common sense and all logic—she followed him inside.
Two hours later, the hospital lights buzzed softly, the smell of antiseptic thick in the air. Raven sat on the edge of a plastic chair, gripping a half-empty paper cup of coffee that had gone cold in her hands. She’d talked to the police, given her statement. They’d confiscated her drone footage. Of course they had. She’d have to go back out there tomorrow and start over. The officers had been professional, but not unkind. They’d kept her number and told her she was free to go.
“So why am I still here?” Raven muttered and forced a gulp of tepid coffee down her throat. She didn’t even like coffee. Damn it. She just needed something to do with her hands, to settle her nerves. She told herself she didn’t need to know anything at all about the man. She told herself she just needed to know if he was going to survive. That was all. She would stay until she knew he was going to be all right. That was it.
Then she’d leave.
The doors to the trauma room remained closed.
She exhaled, shifting in her seat. Something about him nagged at her. The way his body had burned with fever but the air around him had been freezing. The way his voice had carried something final. Truth. Conviction. The way she’d found him in the middle of nowhere, bleeding like he’d fought a damn war.
Coffee slid down her throat like cold sludge, her gaze flicking toward the hallway where they had taken him.
She just needed to know if he was going to make it, if she’d gotten him to the hospital in time, if he was going to survive. Something inside her demanded the knowledge, literally nailed her feet to the floor any time she tried to get up and leave. She couldn’t abandon him, not when her instincts screamed that he needed someone to protect him.
Laughable, really, when she considered the size of him. The heat. The muscles. The raw masculine strength. Everything about him called to her. Seduced her. Intrigued her. Made her want to touch. Explore. Ask questions.
Even the goddamn mystery of who he was and how he ended up where he did.
Don’t be stupid, woman. He’s trouble with a capital T.
She’d left the city—and the crime, mystery, suspense, murder and violence—behind. Moved as far away as she could get. Left her past behind, too. Convinced herself she didn’t miss anything about that old life. Not the blood. Not the intimidation. Not the criminals and their twisted codes of honor. She couldn’t go back to that kind of life no matter how sexy the stranger was. It had cost her too much.
But something about this man drew her like a moth to a flame. A lamb to the lion’s den. A horny wench to a hot piece of man meat. She’d tried not to look—down there—of course shetried.Was it her fault he was hung like a horse and built like a piece of art? No one couldnot lookat him. Not even Mother freaking Theresa. He was just that perfect. Not looking would be an insult to God Himself.
Enough.
She would make sure he was alive, that he was going to survive. Then she would go and never look back.
CHAPTER 2
King Erik, Five Hours Later
