I was already moving.
I found him slumped against a dumpster, one hand pressed to his side, the other braced against rusted metal. Up close, he was even bigger than I'd thought—six-five at least, with a frame that suggested serious muscle under the blood-soaked clothing. Dark hair cropped short. A jaw like it had been carved from granite.
His eyes snapped open at my approach. Grey. The color of storm clouds, of gunmetal, of something dangerous and barely contained. They tracked me with predator awareness, calculating threat levels even through what had to be significant blood loss.
His free hand moved toward his waistband.
"I'm a nurse." I kept my voice calm, my movements slow and visible. "I'm going to help you."
"Don't need help." His voice was a low rasp, rough with pain.
"You're bleeding out. You need a hospital."
"No hospitals."
He tried to push himself upright and nearly collapsed. I caught him without thinking—my shoulder fitting under his arm, my swimmer's build straining to support his weight. The man was solid muscle, easily two-twenty, and most of it was currently trying to become one with the pavement.
"Then let me look at it." I guided him back down, gentler this time. "I can at least stop the bleeding."
Those grey eyes studied me. Looking for deception, for threat, for any reason not to trust this stranger who'd appeared out of nowhere. I held his gaze and let him look. Let him see whatever he needed to see.
"Why?" The question was barely a whisper.
"Because I'm a nurse. It's what I do."
Something shifted in his expression. Not trust—not yet—but a loosening of that rigid wariness. He moved his hand from the wound.
The gash was maybe four inches long, across his lower ribs. Deep, but not as deep as I'd feared. Significant bleeding, but not arterial. He'd live—if I worked fast.
"This is going to hurt," I warned, already pulling supplies from the emergency kit I never rode without.
"Had worse."
Something in the way he said it made me believe him.
I worked quickly, years of ER experience guiding my hands. Irrigation first—saline to clean the wound, wash away the grit and blood. He didn't flinch. Just watched me with those storm-grey eyes, tracking every movement like I was something he couldn't quite figure out.
This close, I could smell him. Leather, copper, the sharp tang of adrenaline sweat. And underneath—something warm and masculine that made my pulse skip in ways entirely inappropriate for the situation.
"You're lucky," I murmured, applying pressure with a sterile pad. "Another inch to the left and this would have hit your kidney."
"Lucky." A ghost of humor crossed his face. "That's one word for it."
The bleeding slowed under my hands. I cleaned the area around the wound, applied butterfly closures to hold the edges together. He needed real sutures—this would scar without them—but stopping the blood loss was priority one.
My fingers lingered against his skin longer than strictly necessary. He had other scars there—faded white lines and puckered circles that spoke of violence survived. A soldier's scars, maybe. Or a man who'd lived a life measured in wounds.
"You do this a lot?" His voice was stronger now. "Patch up strange men in parking lots?"
"First time." I taped the bandage into place, hyperaware of the warmth emanating from his body, the way his muscles tensed and released under my touch. "Though I'm starting to think I should carry a bigger kit."
"I'm Axel."
"Kai."
"Kai." He repeated it slowly, like he was tasting the syllables. His eyes dropped to my hair—the violet highlights catching what little light reached us—then back to my face. "Suits you."
Heat crept up my neck. I blamed it on adrenaline.
