Tiger felt her pain through her grip on his hand, and his anger surged again. He remembered the surprise and then outrage on Ethan’s face when Carly had bounded through the door to find him sexing another woman. The man had blamed Carly. But a male didn’t cheat on his mate. No matter what.
Which meant Carly had never truly been Ethan’s mate, not even in the human understanding of the bond. With Ethan’s act of betrayal, Carly was free of him. Free for Tiger to claim.
Another voice joined the throng. “Is he sedated?”
Tiger recognized the doctor who, through the first haze of Tiger’s rage and pain, had extracted what bullets remained in Tiger’s flesh. Tiger had come awake on the table and started to change in his panic, which had led to his being chained to the bed again.
Stupid clinic should have let Connor be there to calm him down. Then Tiger might not have flashed back to the sterile experiment rooms in what humans called Area 51, might not have been completely terrified.
“He’ll be all right,” Liam said, using his most charming, most Irish tones. “He just needed a bit of calming, as you can see.”
“Then I need him in the OR to finish.”
The doctor started to walk away, leaving the three nurses and another man in white scrubs looking unhappy.
“No,” Tiger said. Everything in him tensed again.
Carly’s brow puckered as she ran a soothing hand along Tiger’s wrist. “It’s okay. He just wants to sew you up.”
“He does it here. I don’t go back to that room.”
“Why not? It’s where he’ll have all the stuff he needs to put you back together, and sterilized so you won’t get an infection.”
She sounded so reasonable, so calming. And yet, she hadn’t seen the rooms they’d taken him to in the stone building in the desert, where needles and probes had pierced his flesh, where electrodes had crackled through his brain and under his skin. The experimenters wanted to see how much he could stand, so they put him through everything imaginable.
“It makes him remember bad things,” Connor said.
The cub, the youngest of them here, understood. Connor had always understood Tiger more than the others had.
Carly called after the doctor. “Wait. Why can’t you work on him in here?”
The doctor, looking harassed, turned back. “Because the light is bad, and I need my equipment.”
“Bring it in. It’s either that or have all these people fighting to get him to your operating room again.”The doctor ran a practiced eye over Tiger. “If you guarantee he’ll sit there and let me finish, I’ll do it. I’ll give him something for the pain, but it’s still going to hurt. If not, I’m putting him under heavy sedation, very heavy, you understand? Most people die under that kind of sedation, even Shifters.”
“He’ll be good.” Carly beamed a smile at the man. “Promise. Right?” she asked Tiger.
Tiger closed his hand around Carly’s wrist, feeling it slender and fragile, bones covered with silken skin. “If you stay.”
“I’ll stay.” Carly turned her smile on him, and suddenly the world was right.
Tiger said nothing. He stroked his hand up and down Carly’s forearm, mesmerized by the softness of her, the sweet scent. The doctor walked away, still annoyed. The other Shifters remained outside a certain perimeter around the bed, as did the soldiers behind them.
It didn’t matter. Carly had said she’d stay with him. Tiger would make sure it was forever.
* * *
Carly watched the doctor clean Tiger’s wounds, medicate them, suture the biggest ones, and steri-tape the others, with bandages for all. Tiger lay quietly while he worked, making no noise, holding Carly’s hand but not squeezing it.
No way could Carly have withstood someone poking and prodding tender wounds without sedation. She’d have flinched, fought, cried out, or at least snarled some swear words. Tiger did nothing, said nothing, didn’t move. The commander of the soldiers watched him, but kept his men back.
When the doctor finally walked out, leaving the cleanup to the nurses, Tiger pushed the sheets aside and rolled out of bed, stark naked except for his bandages. Carly tried not to look, but it was sure hard not to. He was a big man, and not just tall and wide. He was big all over. All over. She averted her gaze, but she had to force herself. He was . . . mesmerizing.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked him.
“Home.” The word came out with strength, but also with a wistfulness.
“You can barely walk.”
“I can do it.”
Tiger looked stronger, that was true. But, crap, he’d been shot. In the stomach.
Liam, who apparently was Sean’s brother, started to put his hand on Tiger’s shoulder, then lifted it away before he touched him. He turned to the head soldier. “You can release him to my custody now. He’ll be fine.”
The soldier frowned, light-colored brows drawing down. “Give me a minute.” He turned away, signaling his men to keep watch, pulled out a cell phone, and made a call quietly in the corner.
“We can take it from here,” Liam said to the nurses. “He’s good at healing himself, truly.”
“He can’t do any lifting, bending, running, anything stressful,” the head nurse said in a severe tone. “He has to keep the wounds clean, the dressings changed, and he has to take all the antibiotics. Every single pill. Can you get him to do all that?” She looked at Carly.