Mattie wasn't sure that she understood the difference between compulsion and thralling, but he was right about her being too distraught. "Obviously, I was very upset. I was scared, and Ithought that Tarik would force me right then and there with his friends watching and maybe taking turns." She looked at Dimitri, who had cracked his eyes open. "Dimitri saved me. He was so incredibly brave."
"He was stupid, and they were idiots," Petrov said. "All of them. The one who attacked you is an animal, and the others should have known better than to let it get that far." He turned to Dimitri. "You could have been killed, you idiot. What the hell did you put in that syringe?"
Instead of answering, Dimitri closed his eyes again and drifted off.
"They stopped Tarik from killing Dimitri," Mattie said.
"Only because they were afraid of what would happen if Dimitri died." Petrov shook his head. "The enhancement project is too important. Navuh would have had them all executed if Dimitri had been killed in a bar brawl."
Mattie nodded. "That's what they said."
Petrov turned away from the bed. "He needs medicine, and you both need food. I'll get them."
"Thank you."
"Of course." He glanced at the bed. "Stay with him. I'll be back soon."
"I'm not going anywhere until I have to leave for my shift in the bar."
When Petrov left, Mattie pulled a chair up to the bed, sat, and took Dimitri's hand. His skin was dry and hot, and his pulse was rapid beneath her fingers.
She didn't know how to help this man who had risked his life to save her, but she could stay with him, hold his hand, and be there when he woke up.
Dimitri drifted in and out of fevered sleep, occasionally murmuring things in Russian that she couldn't understand. She caught a couple of names, and here and there she heard a word she knew, but that wasn't enough to figure out what he was dreaming about.
She was starting to doze off when the door opened again, and Petrov entered with a large bag slung over his shoulder. He set the bag on the desk and began unpacking its contents. There were other thick blankets, several bottles of water, a couple of packets of crackers, a large container of soup, two spoons, and several pill bottles.
"From the medical supply," he said, holding up one of the bottles. "Fever reducer. Strong stuff. Should bring his temperature down."
"How did you get it?" Mattie asked.
"I know people." He shook out the blanket and covered Dimitri with it. Then he reached for the pillbox and a bottle of water and handed them to her. "Wake him up and make him swallow two of these."
Dimitri was deep in the fever's grip and barely responsive, so it took some effort to rouse him enough to get the pills down. He swallowed obediently, too weak to question what he was taking, and then slipped back into sleep almost immediately.
"It'll take some time to work," Petrov said. "After that, the fever should start to break."
Mattie took a new bottle of water and sat on the bed next to Dimitri so Petrov could have the chair. "Thank you for the medicine and the food."
He sat down, stretching his legs out in front of him. "He's my assistant, and I'm responsible for him. I just hope this is not something serious." He looked at Dimitri's bandaged neck. "How bad is it under there?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "I didn't look since I applied it."
"It doesn't make sense for the venom to cause a fever, so it must be something else, but we can't take him to the island clinic while his neck still shows the evidence of the bite. We need to avoid an investigation as much as those immortals do. Dimitri attacked Tarik with a syringe. That's a big no-no unless it was in self-defense."
"He was defending me."
Petrov smiled a sad smile. "Defending a woman is not a valid reason in this place. These barbarians have no respect for women."
Regrettably, he was right.
"He saved my life, Doctor Petrov."
He studied her for a moment. "Call me Konstantin."
"Matilda." She extended her hand. "Mattie to my friends."
He shook her hand with surprising gentleness. "What do you want me to call you?"
