“Easy,” said Dr. Yoli with a frown. “You need to do it slowly. I can help you.”
“I will take it from here,” said a new voice. This one was deep and male and sounded like satin on gravel. He immediately had one hundred percent of Ash’s attention. Ah, she could listen to that gorgeous, deep, accented voice all day long.
Ash’s breath halted in her chest as a tall man bent over her.
“My name is Zade Baru-Nok and I am the high physician here. I will be in charge of your care while you are here. Do you understand?”
Ash nodded, but she barely heard his words.Thiswas Dr. Zade? Her awareness was swallowed up with the task of staring at him. Thick blond hair fell over his forehead in gleaming waves. Dark brows slashed low over bright, electric blue eyes. They were the color of the Caribbean Sea, or maybe, the color of her computer screen when it was in a bad mood. His mouth was set in a firm line, but his lips hinted at sensuality. From high, angled cheekbones to a straight nose that looked carved from marble, his features were a study in rich aristocracy.
The rest of him was encased in a tight gray suit, which accentuated a tall, muscular body that moved with smooth control. Everything about him exuded confidence, certainty and command. Ash could not tear her gaze from him. She had never seen male perfection before that moment.
Around his neck, he wore a strange metal band, several inches wide and as thin as a piece of paper. It sat right against the skin. A set of green lights illuminated along the bottom edge. It didn’t look like jewelry. In fact, he appeared uncomfortable with it. Despite being certain she had never seen anyone so hot in her life, something about him felt familiar, as if she already knew all those chiseled features, already knew that sexy voice.
A red light flashed in her eyes. She blinked.
Zade held a small light between his fingers. “Follow this light with your eyes only,” he said, moving it side to side, up and down.
Ash dutifully followed the red light.
“Can you move your limbs for me?” he asked her.
She stretched her fingers and moved her feet. He seemed very interested in her left leg and ran the red light, which she realized was more like a sensor device, up and down her leg. The device’s cool, glass end touched her skin.
“Can you feel that?” he asked.
“Yes. Why?” She swallowed, dragging her gaze from him down to herself. In a reclined position, she could just see her toes peeking over her body. “What happened to me?”
Zade smiled. She’d seen this type before to know it was a practiced expression: warm enough to reassure that things were okay, with just enough sympathy to convey that things werenotokay. “You were in an accident.”
The words were a body slam into a wall. They were exactly the same as the ones she’d been told the last time she woke up in a hospital. She closed her eyes. Pain, which had faded andbeen processed long ago, cut sharply. “Shaun,” she murmured, even though she knew, logically, that this was a different time, a different place.
Zade’s gaze went sharp and narrow on her. His nostrils flared. “Who is ‘Shaun?’”
Ash waved a hand, then placed it over her face to hide her wince. “Someone who died,” she whispered, letting out a gurgle of pained laughter. “I’m not losing my mind. I know the past from the present. It’s just…forget it.”
He returned to her foot, scowl firmly in place. The device touched the bottom of her foot. “Can you feel this?”
“Yes.” Annoyance turned the word into a hiss. “Will you please tell me where I am?”
His gaze flicked to hers. “You are a patient on the medical deck of the Baylan base ship Raplan-B.” He tapped a finger to her big toe. “Can you feel this?”
What?Had she heard that correctly? Ash reared up, pushing to a seated position and causing her head to swim and her vision to blur. “Yes, I can fucking feel it. It’s myfoot.” She wriggled her toes in an exaggerated fashion. Actually, her footdidfeel a little strange, like there was a slight delay in her choice to move her toes and the action of it happening. Still, it all worked. “See? Now explain to me why I’m here and not on Earth.”
“You were transported here because you were bitten by a creature of unknown alien origin.” He gestured to her left leg, which seemed so interesting to everyone. “Its venom did extensive damage to your lower leg and I was given clearance by your government and family to reconstruct it for you.” His face relaxed into a much more natural-looking smile, revealing pleasing grooves beside his mouth. “It was a very successful procedure, if I do say so.”
The blood drained from Ash’s head. “Reconstruct?”
His lashes lowered, shading his eyes which had changed from vivid cobalt to indigo. “Yes. I am sorry that your leg could not be saved. We fashioned a new one for you. The tissues are Baylan, as we did not have the time or ability to synthesize human tissues. But we will discuss the tissue rejection factor later, when you are recovered. You will need some physical therapy, as you call it, before you will be able to walk normally.” As if deciding that he was giving too much information, he closed his mouth and crossed his arms. “What questions do you have?”
Questions pummeled the inside of her skull like hailstones. What was the “tissue rejection factor?”How was her entire fucking leg replaced to look normal?She pulled her gaze from him and stared at it in disbelief. Itdidlook like her leg at first, but then she saw the differences. The scar from falling off a bike in the third grade was gone, as was the freckle cluster on her ankle, and the wonky, sideways nail of her pinkie toe. The left was a perfect match to the right, with the exception of the slight difference in skin tone and a thin line that ran the circumference of her calf, just below the knee. It didn’t even look like a scar, but more like a seam. She rubbed her temples. “There were other people with me.” Her memory was so hazy. She couldn’t remember faces or names. “How are they doing?”
He paused. His expression settled into one of practiced sympathy. “I am sorry to say that you were the only survivor of the attack.”
The floor dropped out from beneath her. “The only… Are you sure?”
He nodded. That reassuring-but-consoling smile was back. “Yes. If it is any consolation, the four women who accompanied you did not suffer long. The attack appears to have lasted seconds. My deepest sympathies on the loss of your friends.”
She put a hand to her mouth as her stomach twisted. “I’m going to be sick.”
