
CHAPTER 27
It was well into the night before they had finished administering the medication and ensuring that none of the three patients were about to go into distress. Becky was stable, at last. Not quite better yet, but at least not getting any worse.
Cassidy was exhausted. Both physically and emotionally. How did Tor do it? How did he deal with the weight of life and death?
Night had fallen while they worked, the absolute darkness broken by a bright flash before the distant sound of thunder rumbled overhead. Tor was still busy checking on Emily, who had begun showing signs of breathing distress as well before they had started the menziquartal, so she stumbled, alone in the hallway, toward her room.
She stopped at the doorway, not really processing. there was nothing there. Her room was empty.
Well, not empty exactly, it had the typical bed and equipment all of the examination rooms had, but her personal effects were gone. She blinked at the sudden moisture forming behind her eyelids. Tor must have had her things moved back to the dormitories. It’s what made the most sense. Now that she wasn’t in quarantine the examination rooms should definitely be used for...well...examinations. The trouble was she didn’t think she could make it all the way back to the dorms without collapsing. So she stood there, staring and wishing her things would just re-appear. Suddenly she just couldn’t hold it in anymore. She sank down to the floor, thunking her head back against the door jamb.
“Cassidy?” Tor’s voice was soft, his handsome face marred by a frown as he approached from the main room. She supposed coming across a collapsed woman in his building was alarming, considering. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“The dorms are so far.” She whined. It wasn’t the end of the world. She knew it wasn’t, but there was no telling her beleaguered emotions.
Tor’s frown deepened and he looked her over speculatively, as though he couldn’t quite believe that she would be in this state and be uninjured.
“The dorms,” he repeated, coming to a halt in front of her. God he was tall from this angle. Which was super apparent because he crowded into her space before crouching in front of her. They’d been working frantically for the better part of an hour, so he should smell like sweat and the solution that they used for sterilization, but somehow he smelled like the air after a summer storm. A scent she was coming to associate with him. “I don’t understand,” he admitted, “explain to me what the problem is.”
“I don’t even know,” she sniffed. “I just...can’t handle the dorms right now.”
And she couldn’t. The trip there seemed insurmountable, and, not only that, the remaining unmarried women were there, and there was no way she was going to get away with being left alone. They would want to be friendly, or ask questions, or gossip. Especially if she arrived this time of night.
Tor’s gaze was intense and scrutinizing, the deep green of his irises flecked with little flakes of gold. He searched her eyes, looking for something.
Then she sniffed again and he huffed, closing his eyes briefly and shaking his head. Then he stood, confusing her briefly before bending down and pulling her up.
“Come on,” he told her gently.
She was too exhausted to protest, but her curiosity peaked, especially when he lead her past the main entrance and down the right hall, toward his room.
“Uh...” she hesitated when he opened the door.
“No theatrics,” he told her, pulling her inside.
The room was as she remembered, like a warm, inviting cabin-library. Tor ignored her suddenly stiff demeanor and guided her toward the bed.
“Uh...Tor?”
“You’re tired and I’m tired,” he told her. “We’re both adults and it’s the middle of the night. You don’t want to go to the dorms, and I don’t want you in an examination room. Get in the bed, Cassidy.”
“Won’t that...”
He stopped and looked at her then, and she could see it. The same exhaustion she felt pulled at him, his shoulders sagging with the effort of yet another argument. “Won’t that what?...Give your suitor’s the wrong impression?”
Wait...what?
He leaned in toward her, and for a moment that exhaustion was secondary to something else, something possessive and a little desperate. “I don’t give a fuck about your suitor’s, Cass. As far as I’m concerned we’d be giving them exactly the right impression,” he growled and then pulled back the blankets, and, rather unceremoniously, shoved her beneath them, clothes and all. “But tonight we are both exhausted, and I want to sleep without worrying that you are out there collapsed somewhere.”
“Okay,” Cassidy frowned at this new, possessive Tor with a bit of apprehension. The right impression? Oh crap. Well, after that kiss she supposed she should have seen that coming, and she’d sort of hoped for it...hadn’t she? Truthfully, she’d been crushing on Tor for a while now. He was smart, and a bit blunt, and he cared so much that it made him a little abrasive.
The problem was she both wanted Tor’s attention...and didn’t. She didn’t stay to breed a houseful of brats. She didn’t think Tor was playing around either, in which case she should probably tell him...
“Go to sleep, Cass.” He stripped off his shirt, and her mouth went dry. Even from behind the muscles of his torso were perfectly sculpted, without an ounce of softness. When did he have time for the amount of exercise it took to maintain such a figure? Maybe the Livarians were just naturally ripped?
The lights flickered out, leaving the room in an absolute darkness, the new storm brewing outside blocking out any moonlight that might have filtered in. The bed shifted a little as Tor climbed onto it, on top of the blankets, she was both relieved and disappointing to discover.
There was a moment of hesitation where several possibilities hung in the balance, and then a strong arm circled her waist, pulling her closer, tucking her in against the length of his body through the covers.
“Sleep, Cass. We can figure everything else out in the morning.”
He’s trying so hard. Let him in Cass.