"Leave it."
"Simon —"
"She needs more. I'll be fine." He wouldn't admit that his vision grew spotty and his hands felt cold. She looked better. She needed it more. He could eat a couple of steaks and take a good nap and would be right as rain. Her chest rose and fell more evenly, deeper and without the wet squelch of a punctured lung. Relief made him almost as faint as the blood loss.
Ethan took a deep breath and continued trying to align her broken leg so it would heal correctly. "Have you considered what she might say when you tell her she's now a bear? She wasn't exactly a country girl to start with. I don't know many bears that live in the city."
"I'll cross that river when I come to it." Simon blinked, feeling clammy and sweaty, and finally cleared his throat. "I think that's enough."
"So you're about to pass out? Great." Ethan leaned over thegirl to remove the needle from Simon's arm, shoving gauze against the wound to stop the bleeding, but took more care with removing the IV from her chest. "Hopefully we got enough into her heart and brain to save her. Only time will tell."
Simon closed his eyes as he leaned back against the cab of the truck, wanting to float back to the lodge, but he kept his hand on her shoulder just so he could feel her skin, warm under his fingers. Something jostled him and he found Ethan glaring at him and holding out a bottle of sports drink and a granola bar.
"For fuck's sake, Simon. You know better than this. Get your blood sugar back up. We're almost to the lodge and we don't need the guests seeing you fall flat on your face."
Finn made a rude noise inside the truck and Simon shot him a dirty look over his shoulder. But he took the sports drink and granola bar, wolfing both down until he felt a little sick. Finn pulled the truck as close to the back of the lodge as he could manage. Cooper met them there, helping Ethan carry the backboard and the girl inside. "The guests are watching a documentary about the Cascades in the movie room. They'll be occupied for at least another hour. I tried to buy us some time to get her settled and looking less — dead."
Simon wanted to hug and punch the man at the same time. But he focused only on putting one foot in front of the other. They reserved the room nearest the back door for two things: uncontrolled shifts and sick bears. It locked from the outside, so a berserk bear could be contained within, and had enough equipment to treat almost anything that might kill someone in the woods. He collapsed into the comfortable chair near the door to watch them transfer Zoe to the hospital bed. Finn dropped a bag of food in his lap as he passed through, juggling bags of saline and an IV pole from the storeroom.
Simon didn't want any of them touching her. Only hisblood loss settled the bear enough to let Ethan treat her wounds, but when he dipped a washcloth into warm water to clean the blood and dirt off her, Simon shoved to his feet. "I'll do that."
"You can barely stand, Simon." Ethan glanced up and eyed the other men in the room. Cooper and Finn beat a hasty retreat, and Ethan faced Simon alone across the girl's bed. "Just chill out and let me finish this."
Simon growled deep in his chest, and reached for the washcloth. "I will clean her."
Ethan massaged his temples, then held his hands up in defeat. "Fine. Clean the blood off of her, cut off her clothes so we can see whether she's healing, and call me when you're done. I need to call in some prescriptions in town, otherwise we'll run out of morphine by tomorrow night. If she needs it."
He shut the door behind him, almost a slam, but Simon didn't care. Zoe was his mate and if anyone would groom her, it would be him. She lay still and quiet in the white hospital bed. He took a deep breath as he studied her face. The cut on her scalp was definitely smaller. Most of the small scratches on her face and chest had disappeared, and her heart beat steadily on the monitor next to the bed.
Simon used the giant shears Ethan left on a nearby tray to cut through her clothes until he could pull the tatters away. They were past saving anyway, covered in blood and mud and spilled fluids from the car. He would buy her new, enough to fill up the closet in his room. He left her underwear on, uncomfortable with her being unconscious when he saw her naked for the first time, and covered most of her with one of the clean white sheets as he wet the washcloth again. He started with her hand, cleaning off each finger, then her palm, then her wrist. He worked slowly, carefully, and changed the water out for warmer as soon as it grew cloudy with debris. He dried her, too, so she wouldn't get cold.
It took an eternity but he didn't care. His back and knees ached, and his chest ached, and a sharp pain stabbed through his temple. The blood loss and stress and receding adrenaline did a number on him, but all that paled in comparison to the satisfaction of caring for his mate.
He made sure to cover her fully when Ethan knocked, though Simon still cleaned blood from her feet. The other man eased through the door and leaned against the wall, watching him more than their patient. Simon didn't bother to look at him though the irritation turned his voice deep and grumbly. "You got a question, friend?"
"You broke the code. Turning her without permission."
Simon paused, then forced his hands to continue manipulating her left ankle, still swollen and discolored despite his blood coursing through her veins. He didn't dare look at Ethan lest the rage inside him burst free. He and Ethan had been through far too much, in far too many places, for such a simple statement to ruin it. "Watch yourself."
Ethan eased into the chair near the door, picking at some of the shredded fabric and disgorged stuffing. "Even if you'd been the best brain surgeon and cardiologist and trauma doc in the entire world, you couldn't have saved her. There weren't any airbags in that truck, man. The steering wheel got her in the face and chest. So don't question your choice to turn her. It sucks and she might hate you, but she's still alive because you did that."
Simon didn't cease his work even though her feet were clean. He picked up some ointment and worked it into the knots around her ankle, then bound it up with gauze and sticky wrap bandages. Bruises always took longer to disappear. "There's not a doubt in my mind about that."
"I didn't think there would be." Ethan rubbed his face and rested his head on the back of the chair, staring up at the ceiling. "You sleeping down here for a while, I take it?"
"Yeah." He hadn't really thought about it, but Simon damn well knew he would sleep in that infirmary until she was better. Until he could convince her to sleep in his room, in his bed, so he would know she was protected and safe. He shuffled to the head of the bed and moved the sheet enough so he could bandage an ugly abrasion on her shoulder without exposing the rest of her.
"Finn is pulling one of the cots out of the storeroom for you. I'll send in food for both of you, and you eat every damn bite, do you hear me? Cooper is going to distract the guests until they check out tomorrow, but we have six new ones checking in day after. We need to come up with a plan for that. In the meantime, keep her quiet and warm. If we need the restraints, tell me. She could really hurt herself if we're not careful."
Simon nodded, tucking the sheets in around her, and retrieved a soft blanket from the cupboard to spread across her. The steady beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor was the sweetest music in the world. He watched her face as she slept, the morphine dripping into her arm from an IV in the back of her hand, and remained close to her as they brought a cot and bedding for him, as Ethan sent in an enormous tray full of food, as his legs went numb and he sat down only because he would have fallen otherwise. Through it all, for every moment, the bear chantedwant want wantin his head. He fell asleep in the cot, facing her, with the sound of it in his thoughts.
8
ZOE
Everything hurt. Zoe groaned as she forced her eyes open. A steady beeping filled her ears but nothing else made sense. The last thing she remembered was driving, trying to talk Tate into picking her up, and then a deer. Swerving. Pain and red flashes and pressure in her chest. Then nothing.
Her vision blurred and her eyes wouldn't focus. She was warm, at least, though it didn't help the deep ache in her bones and muscles. Zoe tried to move her legs and adjust how she lay in the bed, but cried out as sharp pain spiked in her side.
