Tohr shook his head - only this time it was in an attempt to improve his hearing. "What?"
"She's refusing the drugs. I can't get her to consent, and I didn't know who else to call. I can't reach Xhex - and no one else is close to her. She's suffering - "
"Drug her anyway - "
"She's stronger than I am. I can't even get her back on the bed without her lashing out. But that's not the point - ethically, I can't treat someone who doesn't let me. I won't do that. Maybe you can talk to her?"
At that point, Tohr's eyes got with the program and actually focused on the female. Her white coat was torn, one lapel hanging loosely like a flap of white skin. Clearly she'd been roughed up.
Tohr thought of Wellsie in her needing. When he'd gotten down to their room, it had looked like the place had been ransacked. The bedside ta
ble and everything on it knocked over and broken. The clock radio on the floor. The pillows off the mattress, the sheets split.
He'd found his female on the far side, on the carpet, in a ball of agony. She'd been naked, but flushed and sweating even though it had been cold.
He'd never forget the way she had looked up at him and, through her tears, begged him for what he could give her.
Tohr had mounted her fully clothed.
"Tohr. . . ? Tohr?"
"Have you quarantined the other males?" he mumbled.
"Yes. I even had to send Manny away. He was. . . "
"Yeah. " The guy was probably calling Payne in from the field. Either that or spending a lot of meaningful time with his left hand: Once a male got exposed, he was perma-hard for some time, even if he left the vicinity.
"I also told Ehlena - and she said she's got to stay away. I guess sometimes one female's cycle can affect the others? And nobody wants to be pregnant around here. "
Tohr put his hands on his hips and bowed his head, pulling his shit together. He told himself he was not some animal to take Autumn on whatever bed she was lying on. He was not. . . .
Shit, how much was he willing to trust that resolution? And what the hell was she thinking? Why the fuck wasn't she taking the drugs?
Maybe this was a ploy. To get him to service her.
Could she be that calculating?
The next scream was heart-wrenching - and pissed him off. In its wake, he told himself to turn around to the supply cabinet and put the thing to good use - except he couldn't leave Doc Jane. Sure enough, she'd make another attempt to help Autumn and get shanked again.
He looked over at the healer. "Let's go down together - and I don't care if she consents or not. You're going to put her out of that misery even if I have to pin her to the fucking floor. "
Tohr took a couple of bracing breaths, jacked up his leathers.
Jane was talking to him, no doubt spouting all kinds of ethical-this and ethical-that, but he wasn't hearing it.
That walk down the corridor took forever: With each step, his body's needs tightened up, transforming him into a bomb of instinct. By the time he got to the door of the recovery room she was in, he was bent over, clutching himself at the groin even in front of Doc Jane. His cock was pounding, his hips straining -
He opened the door. "Fuuuuck. . . "
His bones nearly snapped in two as half of him went to lunge forward and the other half had to hold himself back by the steel jamb.
Autumn was on the bed, on her stomach, one knee up to her chest, her other leg extended out at a tortured angle. Her shift was twisted tight around her waist, and soaking wet from the sweat, her hair a knotted mess tangling around her upper body. And there were spots of blood near her mouth - she'd probably bitten through her lip.
"Tohrment. . . " Her broken voice rose up. "No. . . go 'way. . . . "
He lurched over to the bed and put his face in front of hers. "It's time to stop this - "
"Go. . . 'way. . . . " Her bloodshot eyes met his without focusing as tears streamed down her spectacularly colored face, the hormones suffusing her skin with a peachy tint like she was an old-fashioned, hand-painted photograph. "Go - no - "