CONCEPTION (The Others) by Sarah McCarty Read Free Book Online Page B

bed. So
little and defenseless. So reliant upon her to do the right thing. What if she
was wrong? If they were wrong? It wouldn’t be the first time someone had
overestimated their abilities. “I can’t chance it.”
    “There isn’t any chance.”
    Something hard pressed against the top of her head. Deuce’s
chin? The sensation of being surrounded intensified, giving birth again to that
false sense of security. She squashed it immediately. The scarf slid across her
forehead as she twisted until she could see Dusan’s face. “They got you
before.”
    The flicker of his eyelashes told her he didn’t like to be
reminded of that. “The circumstances were unique.”
    Pain lanced up from her abdomen, grinding through her chest,
making it difficult to breathe, let alone speak. “Circumstances are always
unique.”
    The pain was too much to hold the position. She turned back
around to find Bohdan shaking his head, his brows lowered in a frown. He was a
damn scary man when he frowned. She instinctively leaned back into Deuce. His
hand opened over her midriff, pulling her into his chest. The unquestioning way
he offered her his support made her want to cry in relief and run in terror.
She had no defense against him. Never had, and apparently the last year hadn’t
changed that. She sat as still as she could, taking breaths to not only control
her pain but her instincts. She had to stop thinking of Deuce as her personal
miracle and start thinking of him as a man she was about to put in a horrible
position.
    “You hurt.” Bohdan’s frown deepened with the observation.
    She did not need them making a big thing of her injuries.
Even though her grandfather’s latest experiments had failed to restore the
incredible healing properties he’d initially created, she was still strong
enough to do what she had to. She had to be. She didn’t have any choice. “I’ll
be fine.”
    As if her assessment was a gnat he could wave away, Bohdan
motioned to her abdomen with his hand. “We need to tend to your wounds.”
    She looked at him, and then at Deuce. She couldn’t allow
that. If they succeeded they would know too much and never let her leave. If
they failed, their attempts could make her too weak to do what needed to be
done. “I’ll live.”
    The determination in those two words flicked Deuce on the
raw. Willpower may have gotten Edie this far, but she was worn out, her energy
weak and fading. She needed to be healed. As her mate, it was his duty to see
that she was. He stroked his hand over her shoulder, his finger catching on the
fold of her shirt. He pressed in, freeing his finger and the trapped air from
within the light fabric. The strong odor of blood welled around him, giving
birth to a foreign panic. She would not die. “You will allow Bohdan to examine
you.”
    She went stiff in his arms. “No.”
    “I will force this, mate, if I have to.”
    “You won’t. “
    She was badly mistaken in her belief. He would do whatever
he had to ensure her survival. He shifted his hands to her abdomen. The
waistband of her jeans was wet with blood. They would not slide off easily. He
would rather scare her than hurt her. With a thought, he made them vanish.
    She grabbed at air as if she could recover what was gone,
her shriek echoing in his ears as he stared at the blood-soaked bandage
covering her entire lower abdomen. Blood smears spread down her thigh. There
was a crudely gouged hole in her upper thigh. The flesh surrounding the seeping
wound was red and swollen, obviously infected.
    Bohdan took a step forward. A whisper of power and then the
bandages were gone. Eden cried out, Deuce swore and Bohdan’s breath hissed out
between his teeth. He stepped closer. Eden lashed out with her foot. Deuce
struggled to mentally contain her panic as it crashed through him. Following
the emotion back to its source with the intent to quell it, he ran up against a
barrier that should not have been there. He probed it carefully. It was