“Should I get Ma?”Scarlett asked.
“No,” Leo said, his voice scarcely audible above the white noise in his brain.
He felt his brothers moving him, but kept drifting in and out.So tired.Needed to sleep.Yeah, he’d feel better once he’d slept for a few hours.
“Where are we taking him?”Felix asked.“To Ma or to his quarters?”
“His quarters,” Saber said.Leo was right.They didn’t want Ma to see him like this.“Damn, he’s out.”
He and Felix carried Leo, following the back trail to the family quarters rather than going through the middle of the complex where guests might see and ask questions.
“He’s losing a lot of blood,” Felix said.
“Yeah.Shifting might help, but he won’t be able to if he’s going in and out of consciousness.”What the fuck had happened to him?Saber knew there’d been something wrong, but Leo had brushed his questions aside.
Each week, he seemed to lose weight, and he’d shaved off all his hair a few days ago before taking off for Dalcon earlier this morning.His brother had become secretive, his temper uncertain.
In Leo’s quarters, they stripped off his clothes and surveyed his wounds.There were scrapes and bites over a large portion of his body, a big wound on his belly and hip, and his dick looked an unnatural bright red.
“Fuck,” Felix whispered.“What the hell happened to him?”
“I’ve never seen wounds like this before.”Saber checked Leo’s pockets, hoping to discover some sort of clue as to where his brother had been, and came up with a thick wad of cash.He held it up, and Felix whistled.
“That’s a lot of money.Cage fighting?”
“The authorities shut them down.I haven’t heard anything about an underground club opening.Besides that doesn’t explain that.”He pointed at Leo’s groin and winced.
“I’ll get Casey.She might have seen something similar,” Felix said.
Saber nodded, concern for his brother a tight weight on his chest.He’d tried to get Leo to talk, and now he wished he’d persisted with his efforts.Maybe Casey would be able to help.Casey Seonaid, Felix’s mate, had once been in the Dalcon military and had traveled the galaxy while undertaking her duties.
Felix hurried away, and Saber inspected Leo’s wounds more closely.Although his brother appeared to be out, irregular spasms shook his frame.Saber’s nostrils flared, and he caught a medicinal scent.Frowning, he straightened.Someone had cleaned Leo up and attempted to doctor his wounds.Someone had cared enough to try to get him home.But who?
“Hell.”He hated to think of Leo’s appearance before the mystery party had treated his injuries.
Felix returned with Casey, and Saber stood aside to let his brother’s mate examine Leo.
“Scurvy sky pirates,” Casey whispered, her brown eyes widening beneath the fringe of her brown hair.Her narrow face held intelligence and a fierce frown.“If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were Spiderus bites.I’ve seen it once on the planet Voracious.The female of the Spiderus race kills her lovers.It usually takes more than one session, but she gets nourishment from their essence.”
“Essence?”Felix asked.
“She drinks their semen and their blood.One of my men got entangled with a female.We found him dead, and the Spiderus woman had vanished.”
“A Spiderus?So like a spider?”Saber asked.“How does that work?I sure as fuck wouldn’t roll naked with a spider woman.”
“From what I understand, they take on a humanoid form and are very attractive.It’s only if they have a buildup of essence that they are able to revert to their other form and mate.At least that’s what I’ve heard.There are a lot of rumors floating around, and it’s difficult to discern between truth and fabrication.”
“Christ in a campervan,” Felix said.“What do we do?”
Casey moved closer and examined the largest wound.Leo moaned but never woke.“I don’t like the look of this one.Is that bone I can see?”
“We need to wake him.Get him to shift to feline,” Saber decided.
Casey picked up one of Leo’s arms and took his pulse.“It’s fast.Too fast.In this condition, I doubt he’ll be able to shift.”
“We could treat his wounds and let him sleep for a bit,” Felix suggested.“Monitor him.He shouldn’t attempt a shift when he’s this weak anyway.The last thing we want is for him to get stuck in between.”
Casey gawked at him and Felix.“You can get stuck?Why didn’t someone tell me this?”
