Blood and Bone: (Royal Blood #6) by Amity Cross

Author:Amity Cross [Cross, Amity]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-04-13T22:00:00+00:00

* * *

My safe house was dark when we arrived.

X shivered in the backseat as he lay on his side bleeding all over the upholstery. I was going to have a grand time explaining that to the detailer when I went to get it cleaned.

I practically dragged X inside, his arm flung over my shoulder, his feet scraping along the ground and up the stairs like a zombie.

Helping him onto the kitchen table, I stripped his damp clothing off his body and cast it aside. He all but fell back onto the hard surface as I lay a blanket over him to help bring his temperature back up. Grabbing a reading lamp from the lounge room, I plugged it into the socket by the table and pointed the globe toward the wound, illuminating the true extent of the damage.

Rolling X’s body to the side, I placed a clean sheet under his shoulder, then retrieved a box of latex gloves from the cupboard and pulled a pair on my large hands. It had been a long time since I had to administer this kind of first aid, but as the situation presented itself, the procedure came back to me like I’d never skipped a day.

Feeling the wound with my fingers, I examined the location of the bullet. Common sense told me to leave it where it was, get the bleeding under control, and stitch him up…but that all depended on how deep the metal was embedded into his shoulder.

I’d witnessed the fight from afar and through a sheet of rain, so I had no idea how close Moltke had been when he pulled that trigger. My finger hit rough metal, then tendon and bone, and I knew I had to do something about it. X could lose the functionality in his right arm, and he’d curse me to hell and back if he ended up a handicapped assassin.

Grabbing my surgical kit, I pulled out my tools and selected a pair of long nose pliers. Back in the day, I’d been required to patch up a lot of guys on the go. Gunshots, blunt force trauma…and many more gruesome wounds that required a steady hand and an analytical mind to patch up without proper medical care. When you were in the employ of bad men, hospitals were a no-go zone. This old dog had picked up a lot of tricks in his day.

Beginning my work, I dug into the wound, dabbing the blood that rushed to the surface with a wad of gauze in my left. X’s eyes flew open as I searched for the bullet, the tip of the pliers scraping against bone.

He grunted, his mind obviously foggy with cold and the pain that was no doubt assaulting every nerve ending in his body.

“Apologies,” I said as he gritted his teeth. “I’d leave it in, but it’s far too close to your shoulder. I assume you want to use your arm again.”

X grunted, his hands tightening around the edge of the table.

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