“It wasn’t meant as one.”
My lips quirk at her quips. I stroke her hair back from her face, gazing at her earnestly. I want to tell her so many things—that she doesn’t have to be afraid anymore, that I’ll protect her, and that I’ve missed her so much, having her in my bed feels like a dream I’m loathe to wake up from.
But I don’t. She won’t believe me—she stares at me with open caution and distrust. She’s severely traumatized by men, and it sounds like she has quite a lot of PTSD that encumbers her daily life.
I want to help her, but at the moment, I’m not surehow. The first step is to get her evaluated at medical—she looks malnourished and overly fatigued. Then, I need to look into getting her help for her mental health, because my Ember is very clearlynotokay, even if she puts up a good front.
I reach up, carefully releasing her from her chains, all sorts of sordid ideas crowding my thoughts. I can doanythingto and with this girl, and nobody can stop me. I can run down my list of fantasies andherlist of fantasies, though I expect it’ll take work to pull them out of her.
I’ve already deduced she’s a bit of a masochist—hence how wet she got both times I took out my anger on her ass. Now, I’m curious what her broad response to extremes is. How will she enjoy it if I tie her up firmly, edge her into oblivion, and then force her to come until she’s begging me to stop?
I trail a finger down her torso, staring at her swollen nipples, mouth watering. “How’s your ass?”
She blinks. “Fine. I’ve had much worse.”
The scars on her body tell me as much. She has averyhigh pain tolerance, which gives me room to getverycreative. At the same time… I have no intention of being next in the long line of men who have abused her and taken cruel liberties with her.
“Are you hungry?” I ask.
Her nose wrinkles. “You’re not my parent. You don’t need to look after my basic health.”
“That’s exactly what I need to do, since you’ve done a piss poor job of looking after yourself,” I counter. “Speaking of… we have an appointment to get to.”
“An appointment?” she repeats, frowning.
I nod. “Full assessment from our medical team. I made arrangements while you were in the annex. Can you walk?”
I wouldn’t mind the excuse to carry her around. I had a hard time understanding Greyson’s desire to take care of Scarlett—carrying her everywhere, hand-feeding her—until now. Now, it makes complete sense. Being Ember’s provider and caretaker, having her depend on me andtrustme, is a heady thought.
“Of course I can. You haven’t done anything debilitating yet.”
“And I won’t,” I remind her. “I don’t want to break you, Ember. Like I’ve already said, I want tokeepyou.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ember
The medical wing on the second floor is far more advanced than I expected. The corridor is so bright and sharp it stings my exhausted eyes. White walls, seamless and unblemished, stretch in clean lines under fluorescent panels that flood everything with clinical brilliance. The air burns with antiseptic and the floors shine like polished ice—everything screams of sterility.
As I move down the hall, guided by Max, rows of glass-fronted rooms reveal themselves like exhibits at some pristine gallery: exam rooms organized to the last instrument, recovery bays with beds covered in crisp white linens, laboratories humming with soft machinery. X-ray and MRI suites gleam behind layered glass, housing equipment so advanced it feels ridiculously out of place at a fortress for assassins.
There’s a team of doctors employed here, and several of them see me to evaluate various aspects of my health. I have an ultrasound, a full-body MRI, and bloodwork done. I’m quiet throughout the examinations, not attempting to pull anything, mostly because I’m invested in the state of my health. I haven’t been to a doctor for a checkup in nearly five years—courtesy of Dagon—and I know there’s bound to be some internal damage that hasn’t been addressed.
I also very much want to know what the prognosis on my brain injury is. It happened a long time ago, but the splitting migraines could hint that something could be seriously wrong with me—or they might just be chronic pain that I need to learn to grow used to.
All in all, I’m holed up in the medical wing for the better part of three hours. I’m already slightly hazy from what transpired earlier, and it only gets worse with time. I’m due for my crashing stage of my sleep/wake cycle soon—keeping my eyes open is becoming increasingly difficult, and the start of a migraine is tickling my temples.
Maximus stays by my side for everything, observing the doctors with hawkish eyes as they work. At the end, the lead doctor comes in to see us and go over the results.
“A few points of concern,” he says calmly. “The chief among them being brain scans. It shows old, albeit severe, damage to areas of the hippocampus and right medial temporal lobe. So the long-term memory damage you told me about,” he flicks a glance at Max, “is consistent with what I’m seeing.”
Max exhales a long breath. Takes a seat beside me on the examination table. I watch him from the corner of my eye; he looks broken at the doctor’s news, his face crumpled, eyes dejected. We must’ve been close whenever we knew each other.
“Is there any way to get the memories back?” Max asks.
“It’s not outside the realm of possibility, but it’s improbable at the moment,” the doctor says. “Her brain scans show a severe deficiency in the prefrontal cortex—that part of her brain is shrinking. From what I can see, it’s shrinking rapidly.”
“The fuck?” Max sounds panicked. I’d be touched over his concern of me if I gave a shit. “Why? Is it because of the injury?”
