Chapter Eighteen
Renata stood at the pedestal sink in the bathroom, spat the last of her toothpaste down the drain, then rinsed with several handfuls of cool water. She'd gotten up much later than she intended. Nikolai said she had looked like she needed the rest, so he'd let her sleep until almost ten in the morning. She could have slept another ten days and she'd probably still be tired. She felt awful. Achy all over, weak-limbed. Unsteady on her feet. Her body's internal thermostat couldn't seem to decide between freezing cold and overheated, leaving her racked with alternating shivers and waves of perspiration beading on her brow and the back of her neck.
With her right hand braced on the sink, she put her other under the running faucet, thinking to clamp her cool, wet fingers around the furnace that burned at her nape. One slight shift of her left arm and she hissed in pain.
Her shoulder felt like it was on fire.
She winced as she carefully unbuttoned the top of a big oxford shirt she was borrowing from Jack. Slowly she shrugged out of the left sleeve so she could remove the bandage and inspect her wound. The tape stung as she peeled it away from her tender, aggravated skin. Coagulating blood and antiseptic ointment coated the thick pad of gauze, but the wound underneath was still swollen and seeping.
She didn't need a doctor to tell her that this wasn't good news. Blood and thick yellow fluid drained from the angry red circle surrounding the bullet's open point of entry. Not good at all. Nor did she need a thermometer to confirm that she was probably spiking a fairly high fever due to the onset of infection.
"Shit," she whispered at her haggard, sallow face in the mirror. "I don't have time for this, damn it."
An abrupt knock on the bathroom door made her jump.
"Hey." Nikolai knocked again, two quick raps. "Everything okay in there?"
"Yeah. Yeah, it's all good." Her voice scraped like sandpaper in her throat, little better than a hard rasp of sound. "I'm just brushing my teeth."
"You sure you're all right?"
"I'm fine." Renata wadded up the soiled bandage and tossed it into the trash bin next to the sink. "I'll be out in a few minutes."
The answering pause didn't give her the impression he was going anywhere. She cranked the water to a higher volume and waited, unmoving, her eyes on the closed door.
"Renata...your wound," Nikolai said through the wood panel. There was a gravity to his tone. "It's not healed yet? It should have stopped bleeding by now..."
Although she hadn't wanted him to know what was going on, there was no use denying it now. All of his kind had impossibly acute senses, especially when it came to detecting spilled blood.
Renata cleared her throat. "It's nothing, no big deal. Just needs new dressing and a fresh bandage."
"I'm coming in," he said, and gave the doorknob a twist. It held, locked from the push-button mechanism on the inside. "Renata. Let me in."
"I said, I'm fine. I'll be out in just a - "
She didn't have a chance to finish. Using what could only have been the power of his Breed mind, Nikolai sprang the lock and opened the door wide.
Renata might have cursed him out for barging in like he owned the place, but she was too busy trying to yank the long, loose sleeve of the shirt up to cover herself. She didn't care so much if he saw the inflamed state of her gunshot wound; it was the other marks that she wanted to make disappear.
The permanent ones that had been burned into the skin of her back.
She managed to get the soft cotton cloth around her, but all the shifting and tugging made her shoulder scream and her gut turn inside out as the pain brought on a hefty wave of nausea.
Panting now, awash in a cold sweat, she plopped herself down on the closed toilet lid and tried to act like she wasn't about to lose her stomach all over the tiny black-and-white tiles under her feet.
"For crissake." Nikolai, bare-chested, his borrowed warm-ups hanging low on his trim hips, took one look at her and dropped into a squat in front of her. "You're far from okay in here."
She flinched as he reached for the sagging open collar of the shirt. "Don't."
"I'm just going to check your wound. Something's not right. It should be healing by now." He moved the fabric away from her shoulder and scowled. "Shit. This doesn't look good at all. How does the point of exit look?"
He stood up and leaned over her, his fingers careful as he slid more of the shirt out of his way. Even though she was burning up, she could feel the heat of his body as he hovered so near to her in the small space. "Ah, f**k...this side is worse than the front. Let's get you out of this shirt so I can see exactly what we're dealing with."
Renata froze, her entire system seizing up. "No. I can't."
"Sure you can. I'll help you." When she didn't budge, just sat there holding the front of the big shirt in her tight fist, Nikolai grinned. "If you think you have to be modest with me, you don't. Hell, you've already seen me na**d so it's only fair, right?" She didn't laugh. She couldn't. It was hard to hold his gaze, hard to believe the concern that was starting to darken his wintry blue eyes as he waited for her answer. She didn't want to see revulsion there, nor, even worse, pity. "Will you just...go away now? Please? Let me take care of this myself."
"Your wound is infected. You're running a fever because of it."
"I know."
Nikolai's face went sober with some emotion she couldn't discern. "When was the last time you fed?"
She shrugged. "Jack brought me some food last night, but I wasn't hungry."
"Not food, Renata. I'm talking about blood. When was the last time you fed from Yakut?"