Navuh tried to turn his head toward the sound and failed. His neck refused to cooperate, leaving him staring at the ceiling like a corpse prepared for viewing.
The footsteps grew closer, and then a face appeared above him, leaning into his field of vision.
A pretty woman, with flaming red hair and blue eyes that assessed him with clinical detachment. There was no warmthin her gaze, no kindness, just the cool evaluation of a physician examining an interesting case.
Her white coat was open at the throat, or maybe lower, but he couldn't see.
Why was a doctor wearing high heels?
And she was definitely a physician. Nurses wore scrubs. Physicians wore coats. He knew that even though he had never visited a medical facility. It was just common knowledge.
"Good morning, Navuh," she said in a voice that sounded crisp, professional, and detached. "I'm Doctor Bridget. I've been taking care of you since you arrived here."
American English. But with something underneath—a lilt that suggested Scottish, though softened by years elsewhere.
The implication crashed over him like a tsunami.
He'd been captured by Annani's clan.
Who else would know his identity and dare such familiarity, using his name without the honorific it deserved? Who else would speak to him in American English with Scottish undertones?
How had this happened? Had he been ambushed? Kidnapped? Betrayed?
His memories swirled, fragmented and hazy.
Why couldn't he remember?
Why was everything so broken?
And then, with the force of a lightning strike, it came back.
The cliff. Areana's fall. Areana!
"Areana!" The sound that emerged from his throat was barely more than a whimper, while he'd intended a bellow.
"Relax," the doctor said, and there was a strange note in her voice—not quite kindness, but not cruelty either. "Areana is fine. She went to shower and change clothes. She wanted to look pretty for you when you woke up."
Relief hit Navuh so powerfully that if he'd had control of his legs and been standing, they would have buckled. As it was, he only felt his heart expand, the vice that had clamped over it releasing.
Areana was alive.
She hadn't died in the fall.
"I didn't think you'd wake up this quickly," the doctor continued, moving around his bed, presumably to check on the machines. He couldn't see what she was doing. "I lowered the sedative dosage when it was safe to do so, but I expected you to remain unconscious for much longer." Her face returned to his field of vision. "You're doing better than anyone has a right to do after shattering every bone in your body and destroying or puncturing every major organ, including your heart and portions of your skull. The fact that you're conscious and coherent is miraculous. You should be dead, and for a while it was touch and go, but you'll live."
"Will I walk?" he asked and hated how vulnerable it sounded, how desperate.
"Of course. You're an immortal. Your body can repair even a broken spinal cord. But it will take time."
"How long?" he pressed.
"Weeks. Maybe months for full recovery. You won't be mobile anytime soon, so get used to this view." She motioned at the ceiling. "I can have the television angled in a way that you can watch. After having saved your life, we wouldn't want you to die of boredom."
Did that pass for professional bedside manner in these parts?
He had a feeling that it didn’t and that the physician needed retraining. Unless she was being so callous to him just because of who he was.
He could not blame her. He deserved her derision, but that didn't mean he would not make her pay when he was able.
