When extreme and sudden blood loss prevented blood from reaching vital organs in a human, it could lead to rapid death. I suspected it was the same for Taran. I’d seen it before, when the body shut down so quickly, and I found that my hands were unaccountably shaky as I lowered Taran to the table and stepped back so Worron could treat him.
As I did, I was grabbed roughly from behind by a strong hand and whirled around to face an angry, alarmed Prince Larz, who had followed me and was trying to get past me to get to the boy that I now knew was his adopted son.
“What are you doing?” he shouted at me, his eyes wide as he tried to reach Taran. Considering the fact that he was bleeding from a wound on the back of his head, I was surprised to see him still on his feet.
“Why did you take my son? Vannos has sent for his physicians.”
“Your Highness,” I said, putting up a hand to stop him. “Allow my medic, Lt. Worron, to help him. He’s highly trained in emergency trauma care. He has special drugs and equipment brought along specially to treat the royal consorts and others with similar bodies, including Laltanans, like your son.”
His breathing steadied a little, but he was still glaring at me, trying to decide what was to be done. “But…what do you mean?” Larz shouted at me. He was swaying on his feet a bit, and his face was still distraught. “He’s only a medic. Vannos has sent for his personal physicians. Surely, they’d be better trained to help him.”
“I’m sorry, Your Royal Highness, but in this case, I have to disagree. A physician on Moravia treats Moravian and Tygerian patients with different anatomy from Taran’s. Not significantly different, but enough that it takes specialized training. My lieutenant can help him far more with his equipment designed for his particular needs until he stabilizes. Please step back, sir, and let us help your son.”
He still looked as if he wanted to argue, but help came from an unexpected source.
“Yes, General, go ahead and help him,” the Consort Janos said as he came up behind his husband. “Prince Larz isn’t thinking straight, and he needs attention too.”
He stretched out a trembling hand to me and his voice had a pleading, humble tone that I never would have expected from a man that I’d been told was arrogant and demanding—a man who had put our young prince in chains and made him a slavewhen he was first kidnapped and taken to the distant planet of Laltana. That was the story I’d heard, anyway.
I gave him a quick nod and turned back to watch Worron treating the boy, a little surprised to find that my own hands were trembling more than a little. Worron was concentrating first on stopping the blood loss and was packing the wound with a great deal of hemostatic gauze, a specialized, agent-impregnated dressing—usually by a drug called kaolin—designed to rapidly stop severe, life-threatening traumatic bleeding by speeding up the body's natural clotting process by as much as five times. It was used for packing deep wounds like this stab wound, where tourniquets couldn’t be applied, in areas such as the neck, chest, groin or back. It was usually effective within minutes, especially with the medic applying intense pressure to the wound, as Worron was doing. Meanwhile, another medic was setting up an intravenous port in Taran’s arm to begin restoring fluid and administer any drugs he might need. Our Tygerian scientists had drugs that promoted fast healing. They were nothing short of remarkable. If Worron could get the bleeding stopped and treat him for shock, then he should recover from this wound quickly. I knew this, but it didn’t stop me from worrying.
By this time, quite a crowd had gathered around us, almost all of it family. But I still looked around at their faces suspiciously, wondering which one these onlookers had been the one who had tried and nearly succeeded in killing Taran. I knew that person had to be in this room. Apparently, Prince Mikos was well aware of that too, and I saw him go past us and over to the doors to speak to my men. I figured he was making sure they wouldn’t allow anyone either in or out of the room.
As for me, I needed to step back to guard Prince Larz with so many people clustered around us, but I couldn’t seem to moveaway. Not yet. My heart was beating rapidly too, and I willed myself to calm down.
I was still unreasonably angry about Taran being hurt in such a cowardly way—struck in the dark to put him out of action—when I knew he’d probably been trying to protect Prince Larz. I didn’t think he’d been the actual target, nor was Prince Larz . The attack on Larz had been a diversion and Taran had simply got in the way. I believed the target was Janos, the most hated man in this room. Larz had received a blow to the head to put him out of action so the real target of the assassin would be unprotected. Taran was collateral damage.
Larz looked pale and though he was strong, like all Tygerians, I still thought one of Prince Vannos’s physicians should be checking him out.
The other members of the royal family were close by, standing in a circle a few feet away. I didn’t like their proximity, as the person who had stabbed Taran and hit Prince Larz over the back of the head was still nearby. I called out to my guards to draw closer and surround the royals, keeping an eye on the king and the princes in particular. I also reminded myself that I needed to take some kind of action, instead of simply standing around watching them work on Taran. There was nothing more I could do here for now. Yet I was still reluctant to leave, though Prince Larz was looking at me oddly, probably wondering why I was hovering over his son. I had to wonder why myself.
I turned abruptly to leave and cross back over to the Laltanan “Royal Guard” on the other side of the room, noticing that the King’s Consort Blake slipped into my place as soon as I left and had his arm wrapped around Prince Larz’s waist, whispering to him and comforting him. Larz was embracing the much smaller frame of his omak as well and was murmuring something to Blake that I thought might be an apology for hisrude words earlier, during the meeting. Blake was nodding and patting him on the arm.
King Davos, who had, at some point returned to the room, was watching them, his eyes still intent and still unforgiving. Though the royal couple bickered often, we all knew never to underestimate the powerful affection the king had for his human mate. Anyone, including his own children—and probably including the king himself—would be wise not to upset the consort or hurt him in any way. It was no doubt why Blake hadn’t hesitated to tackle him when he’d pulled out his weapon. He’d known he was safe. No one else would have had the nerve to try it.
When I reached the group of “Royal Guards,” still standing on the other side of the table, they all looked up at me challengingly, particularly their leader, whom they’d all been clustering around. He looked more like a human from Earth rather than a Laltanan, with his hair cut short on the top and sides, like an old-style Alliance marine. He had streaks of gray in his short hair, a short beard and a few lines around his eyes.
He stepped forward and confronted me. “How’s Taran doing? Was he badly injured? How did this happen anyway?”
“I thought you and your people might know more about that than I do. You were the closest ones to him. Standing right behind him and his parents, weren’t you?”
His eyes narrowed at me. “The lights went out. And what are you trying to say anyway? That we didn’t do our job?”
“Since that job was to protect Prince Larz and his family and since two of then were injured—one of them badly—draw your own conclusions. Like the rest of us are doing.”
His face turned red and he took an aggressive step toward me. “You smug bastard. Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?”
“Someone needs to,” I snarled back.
“Who the fuck are you anyway?”
I pulled back my fist to show him exactly who I was, but my arm was suddenly grabbed by someone who had stepped up behind me. I whirled around and saw Prince Larz standing there, his face taut with anger, though that anger wasn’t directed at me.
He leaned over and spoke only inches from the human’s face. “You should thank me,” he said softly, though with more than a little menace.
“W-what?” the man sputtered, clearly intimidated by the prince. “Thank you for what, sir?”
“For saving your damn life. This man you just insulted is General Kirstos Vargarra, commander of the Imperial Guard. I’ve seen the Imperials kill people with one hand. Are you familiar with the Tygerian Imperial Guard, Luc?” They’re the ones who will be coming to Laltana, if my father and brother have their way. He’ll bein charge, damn it, if this goes the way my father wants it to. Do you understand that?”
