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“Throbbing,” she confirms.
He touches her chin and tilts her gaze upward, shining the light in her eyes. Seemingly satisfied with what he finds, he releases her and captures her wrist to check her pulse. Her legs tremble, and the sight guts me. Protectiveness radiates through me, and I press my palm to her knee, relieved when the trembling eases under my touch.
Savage releases her, and my impatience wins. “Well?”
“Her pulse is a bit slow,” he replies, “but considering she’s been sedated, that’s normal. My assessment is that she’s simply living the aftermath of too many drugs.” He pulls a blood pressure cuff out of his bag and wraps it around her arm, asking her, “When was the last time you ate?”
“I have no idea,” she murmurs, “and I feel too nauseous to even think about food.”
He doesn’t comment but waits for the machine to deliver the reading. “Also low, but again, I expected as much.” He trades the BP machine for a small pouch and tears it open. “This is glucose gel. Low blood sugar can produce all your symptoms and be caused by drugs and a lack of food, and yes, even the nausea.” He offers her the pouch. “Get this down, and we’ll get your sugar level to a safe spot. I need to draw blood, and I don’t want you to end up passing out on me.”
She wets her obviously dry lips and just stares at his hand and the offering. “I don’t think I can get it down.”
I reach for the pouch myself, and Savage eases to the side, allowing me the room to shift in front of her. “Try a little for me, baby,” I urge. “I need you to just take a tiny bite for me.”
“No, I—”
“Yes,” I insist, firmly this time. “You have to do this.”
“No,” she whispers.
“Yes, Alana. You have to try.”
She expels a shaky breath. “Stubborn man.”
“Yes, I am.” I hold the gel to her lips, and she sucks a little into her mouth, and then a little more. It’s a good ten minutes before I manage to get most of the supplement down her.
“Give it about ten minutes to work, and then I’ll draw her blood,” Savage says.
“Why are you taking her blood?” I ask.
“We need to find out what drugs they gave her.”
“I’m still here,” Alana scoffs at us both. “You’re talking like I’m not.”
Savage grunts, and then, in a pirate voice, says, “A feisty wench, now, isn’t she? She’ll bite your hand off if you let her.”
To my surprise and pleasure, Alana laughs, because the truth is, Savage says the stupidest shit that no one else would get away with. “Did you just call me a wench?” she challenges, and her voice is stronger now, her cheeks pinched with color that wasn’t there a few minutes ago.
“A wench is, by definition, a lady,” Savage assures her. “But who really wants to be called a lady? Not me, I’ll tell you.”
“I’m pretty sure no one will call you a lady, Savage,” Alana says, her lips tilted up and her eyes alight over his silliness.
She finishes off the gel, and when I claim the empty container from her, she points a playful finger at me. “If you call me a wench, I’ll have to punish you.”
“Oh no,” Savage says, holding up his hands. “None of the sex talk with me around. You’ll make me miss my wife.” He pulls out a syringe. “Let’s get the bloodwork done so you two can go home and bang the headboard, and I can do the same.”
Alana snorts at his shocking boldness, and by the time she stops laughing, he’s drawn her blood, and not only does she tolerate it well, she seems wildly better now. Her eyes are brighter, her energy level improved. “I’m actually hungry now,” Alana announces, pressing her hand to her belly.
“Then you need to eat,” Savage approves. “And at this point, I’m done with you, but I’ll feel better if I escort you both to your place.”
Alana’s foot begins to tap, and her hand settles on her chest just below her neck, her jovial mood fading into palpable edginess. “Because you think they’ll attack us, or because you think I’m going to pass out?” she asks.
I squeeze her legs, drawing her attention to me, and only when she fixes her pretty blue eyes on me do I say, “They’re not coming back. It’s over.”
She rejects my answer without a prelude. “This one incident might be over, but the war is not. It won’t be over until we end it, and him, and we didn’t this time. He almost ended me.”
The word almost cuts me as deeply as shards of broken glass. This event could have ended differently. She could be gone, the woman I love with all that I am, ripped from this world and my life. It all drives home the foolish way I drove us apart, forced our distance, and just simply believed that life without me would be better for her, if not miserable for me. But my father somehow knew that I’d never let her go, and therefore, he never let her go.
