Chapter Nine
Charlotte
I had the God-awfullest weird dreams while I slept—all about a snake made of flames that wrapped itself around and around me, crawling all over my body and making me itchy and restless and hot.
When I finally woke up, I thought I was still dreaming.
Stacks of neatly folded clothes were sitting at the foot of my bed and Kristoff was putting them away in my dresser, obviously trying to be quiet so as not to wake me. He had taken off the white lab coat—which was good because it looked like it was about to burst at the seams—and was just wearing the light green scrub. The thin material of the top was stretched tight over his broad, muscular shoulders.
“What…what are you doing?” I asked, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. It looked like he was cleaning but that couldn’t be right—could it? The few guys I had been with before I gave up on dating wouldn’t have been caught dead doing household chores. It was beneath them—unmanly. Yet I had never seen anything more masculine, somehow, than my huge, seven-foot tall, self-appointed bodyguard folding my undies.
Hey—he was touching my undies!
“Excuse me!” I jumped out of bed and went to rescue my best black lacy panties from his large hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Serving you, my Lady.” He shrugged innocently. “Forgive me—did you want to wear those now?” His eyes drifted down to the area between my thighs and I remembered that the black lace teddy I was wearing didn’t have any panties to go with it. Also, it had somehow hiked itself up so that my little mound of well-trimmed curls was showing.
“Oh my God!” I pulled the hem of the teddy down as quickly as I could. “How…why…don’t look!”
“Forgive me.” He turned his head away considerately while I pulled on the panties.
“Where’s my robe?” I demanded, looking for it. “I don’t remember taking it off—or getting in bed either!”
“I carried you to the sleeping platform and removed your outer garment so that you could sleep more easily.” He spread his hands. “I ask your pardon if that makes you feel uncomfortable. I wanted only to serve you.”
He looked so innocent that I felt bad accusing him of anything pervy. I still couldn’t find my robe so I crossed my arms over my chest, frowning at him.
“I just…” I shook my head. “Did you actually do my laundry?”
“I protect and serve,” he said simply.
“Okay, well…” I looked around and finally spotted my robe, folded neatly on the side of my bed.
“You don’t need to fear to show your body to me, my Lady,” he remarked as I put it on. “The Empress has no secrets from her personal Guard.”
“Well this Empress does,” I snapped. “I don’t know you well enough to run around barely dressed. There.” I felt better when I put my robe on, though I knew I would feel more in control if I was wearing scrubs and a lab coat instead.
Speaking of wearing scrubs, I noticed that Kristoff had reached beneath the stolen scrub shirt he was wearing and was rubbing his chest and abdomen, right where he had been wounded.
It reminded me that I was his doctor—or had been last night when I’d stitched him up and given him a blood transfusion. Since then he’d escaped from the hospital, run all the way here, and had fought off an attacker who wanted to kill me. Then he carried me to bed and let me tell you, I am not light. All that and I hadn’t even thought to check his wound! What was wrong with me?
“Take off your shirt,” I told him abruptly.
He raised his eyebrows at me.
“For what reason? Do you wish a different type of service, my Lady? Because though my chastity is sworn to you—”
“No, no—nothing like that!” I said quickly, feeling my cheeks get hot. “I just want to examine your wound. The stitches I put in should dissolve when you’re healed but that’s going to be a while—I want to make sure you didn’t pop any of them fighting that thing. Or doing laundry.”
“As you wish.” He tugged the shirt over his head, and spread his arms, displaying himself for me.
“Oh…” I whispered. His chest was absolutely mouthwatering—seriously, it looked like something out of a porno aimed at women or gay men. From the heavy musculature of his pecs right down to his eight-pack abs he was completely ripped. Of course, I had seen him the night before when I treated them but then I had been completely focused on saving his life. Now I could really appreciate what Sebastian had been going on and on about—shirtless, Kristoff looked like some kind of a Greek God.
The stitches—you’re supposed to be looking at the stitches! an accusing little voice whispered to me.
Right…the stitches.
But there were no stitches to see. To my utter amazement, they were gone—and so was the wound they had been holding closed. The only thing left was a long, faint scar that started just under his collarbone and ran down his long, muscular abdomen into the waistband of his scrubs.
“What in the…how is this possible?” I asked out loud. Forgetting to be intimidated by his amazing physique, I stepped forward and examined him, tracing the long, nearly invisible scar with my fingertips. His skin was warm—almost hot—but not in a fevered kind of way. More like it was his normal body temperature. As before when I had touched him, I felt a strange tingle jump between us, like a low-level electrical current. I barely noticed it—I was too caught up in witnessing what appeared to be some kind of medical miracle.
Kristoff made no comment or complaint and it wasn’t until I was starting to explore the end of the scar, under the waistband of his scrubs that he caught my hand in his own, much larger one.
“My Lady,” he said, his deep voice hoarse. “I don’t believe…I don’t think it would be wise for you to go further.”
I tore my eyes from the faded scar and saw that there was a different kind of “miracle” happening in his scrub bottoms. His thick, heavy shaft had come to full attention and was pressing hard against the thin green material. He was so long the broad, mushroom-shaped head was almost peeking out the top.
Blushing, I dropped my hand hastily.
“I’m so sorry. I’ve just never, uh, seen anyone heal that big…uh, I mean fast! I’ve never seen anyone heal that fast before,” I stammered, feeling my cheeks get even hotter. Oh God, this was so embarrassing!
“Forgive me for the way my body reacts to you,” Kristoff murmured. “It is…inexcusable.”
“Well, I was kind of, uh, touching you.” I cleared my throat. “Not that I meant to, you know, turn you on or anything. I just wanted to examine you. I can’t believe you healed so rapidly!”
“Why are you surprised?” he asked, sounding surprised himself. “You healed me last night—you’re a Healer, correct? Is that not your La-ti-zal power?”
“My what kind of power did you say?” I asked, frowning at him.
He sighed. “I keep forgetting that you’re ignorant of the galaxy beyond you. Listen…”
He told me a lot of stuff about the Goddess of Mercy and the Ancient Ones, whom she had created and given the seeds of life to sew across the galaxy. And about La-ti-zals, who were females blessed with extra gifts from the Ancient Ones.
“Only I thought that the gifts were dormant until you left your planet’s atmosphere,” he remarked. “At least, that is how it worked for your other two friends, Lady Zoe and Lady Leah.”
“What? You’re saying that Zoe and Leah have, uh, special gifts too?” I frowned at him. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “From what I understand, Lady Zoe is an Opener and Lady Leah is a Healer. I thought you were one as well.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t have any special gifts. Except, well…” I trailed off, thinking of my touch-sense. But I had never told anyone about that before.
“What?” he asked. “Please, my Lady—I need to know.”
“I…sometimes I know things about people when I touch them,” I said reluctantly. I’d been keeping my secret for so long
it made me feel naked and vulnerable to say it out loud.
“A Knower?” He frowned. “That is a rare talent indeed. Do you also have visions or dreams that portend the future?”
I thought of the strange dream I’d been having about a snake made of flames twining around my body and shook my head.
“No, my dreams are pretty much nonsense—like everybody else’s. And the, uh, touch-sense—that’s what I call it—usually just works the first time I touch someone. Like with you, I knew that you’d recently been fighting for your life and that I couldn’t give you regular O neg blood because it might kill you. And—”
“And?” he prompted in a soft, low voice.
“And that’s all,” I said quickly. There was no way I was going to tell him the third thing I had picked up from him.
That of all the men I had ever touched, he was the only one I knew my body would react sexually to.
Just thinking about it made me feel hot and cold all over. I tried to push it out of my mind but it didn’t want to go. The fact that he was standing there looking so damn sexy and mouthwatering didn’t help any either.
“Um…you can put back on your scrub shirt now,” I said, feeling like it would be safer not to have him half-naked right in front of me. “I don’t know how it happened but you certainly seem to be healed.”
“It was your blood,” he said quietly, pulling the too-tight scrub top back over his broad chest. “It saved my life—but you should not have given it to me. I am not worthy to receive such a gift from the Goddess-Empress herself.”
I sighed. So we were back to that again.
“About the Empress thing…” I began.
“I have been thinking,” he said, before I could get going. “I have a small message cube that her majesty, Sundalla the 999th recorded for me to give to you before she Ascended to the Heavens. It’s tucked away in a secret compartment of my belt. If I could just get my armor I could show it to you. Perhaps it would change your mind.”
I didn’t think anything could change my mind about believing that I was supposed to be the ruler of the whole freaking galaxy but I was willing to watch the message out of sheer curiosity.
“Sure,” I said, shrugging. “I’ll watch it but I’ll have to go get your armor first.” I looked at the clock on the wall. “My shift starts in about an hour and a half and it’s going to be at least twelve hours long so you’ll just have to wait until…” I stopped because he was frowning and shaking his head.
“You cannot go to the House of Healing alone and unprotected,” he growled. “It’s been long enough since I incapacitated the first droid that another attack is imminent. Your enemies will be waiting for you to step outside your door to swoop in and kill you.”
“What?” I put my hands on my hips. “I hope you don’t expect to go with me—you’re an escaped patient, remember? Security will be on you like a duck on a June bug the minute you step in the door.”
“Neither of us is going,” he said calmly.
“First of all, you don’t tell me what to do,” I said angrily. “And second, how are we supposed to get your armor if neither of us goes to the hospital?”
He frowned. “I think I know of a way. How enamored of you was that male I choked for disrespecting you last night?”