“The friend of a friend?” Kris asked.
“Gamers,” he replied. “It's a tight community, and for now—safe.”
There was a knock at the door. Daenerys let herself in, carrying several items. She set a package of sterile bandages on the table along with surgical tape, disinfectant, and antibacterial salve. The Belgian Malinois waited just outside the doorway.
“Be prepared,” Kris recited the motto, at the array of medical supplies.
Daenerys shrugged. “Game nights,” she explained. “Things sometimes get, how shall we say...?” She searched for the right words.
“Too real?” Kris guessed.
Daenerys smiled as she turned toward the doorway. She called to Pax in French. He fell into step beside her.
“Let me know if you need anything else. There's ale and wine in the kitchen. The bathroom is down the hall,” she added.
“Game night,” Kris commented when Daenerys had gone. It was a whole other world.
She went to the basin and turned on the water. Her hands shook as she grabbed a hand towel from the shelf above the sink and soaked it in warm water in the basin. She squeezed water from the towel, and grabbed another dry one.
“Take off your sweatshirt.”
“It can wait.”
The look in her eyes stopped him. He pulled off the sweatshirt and sat at the edge of the bed.
“You know, sometimes you're a real pain in the ass.”
“Back at you on that one,” she snapped, in no mood for conversation.
Exhaustion along with everything that had happened since leaving Inverness had taken a toll. She didn't know what time it was, or even what day it was. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was that someone wanted them both dead...
She removed the scarf and let it drop to the floor. The blood had dried on the makeshift bandages. The wad of paper towels was stuck to the wound. It had entered low at his side just below his ribs, then exited low in front.
It eventually registered—the sound, that crazy, insane descent from the abbey, the way he held back sending her on ahead. The gunman had been behind them.
She started with the wound low on his back, just above the waist of his jeans. She soaked it, then slowly peeled it away. She tore open a sterile pad and soaked it with disinfectant, then pressed it against the wound.
“Hold this in place.”
“You're good at giving orders.”
She ignored him as she applied two more thick pads on top in case the wound started to bleed again, then tore off strips of tape and pressed them into place.
“Lean back so that I can get a look at the other wound.”
“I can take care of it from here,” he told her.
He caught that look again. He winced as he leaned back against the headboard of the bed.
He watched her face as she peeled away the blood-soaked bandage on his side where the bullet had exited—the reaction at the sight of the wound, the deep breath she took, then the way she forced herself past it.
There was a toughness beneath the surface. It came from somewhere, more than a few weeks of wilderness training.
“Tell me about your brother.”
She hesitated, then reached for packs of sterile pads and tore them open.
She frowned as she cut several strips of tape, pressing them over the edges of the bandage to hold it in place.
