He was kneeling beside her almost before he remembered moving, his heart a hammer against his ribs, his entire body taut with adrenaline that had nowhere to go. “God damn it, baby.” His words came out harsh, angry, even as he flicked on the light and focused on the wound, trying not to let the sound of her pained breathing distract him from doing what he had to do to help her.
But he couldn’t stop the stream of angry words. “What the hell did you think you were doing? You could’ve hit your femoral artery.” He was fucking glad to see that she hadn’t. The knife, however, had gone in deep. “If you wanted to die, you should’ve told me. I’d have done it for you.”
He gripped her leg hard, holding her in place as he reached for a nearby bureau, yanking out an old but clean shirt. “Leave it,” he snapped when she went to pull out the blade. Her silent tears grated on his every protective instinct. But he was tearing the shirt and using the material to put pressure on the wound—working around the knife embedded in her—even as she sobbed. “It’ll heal fast with the proper care, though I’ve a mind to sew you up myself. The stupidity—”
“Dev.” Fingers on his stubbled jaw. Tear-stained eyes met his. “I was trying to kill you.”
“So why did the knife end up in your thigh?” Under his touch, her skin was delicate, so easily bruised. “Talk.”
A slow blink. “I couldn’t drop the knife.” She lifted her hand to her mouth as if ashamed.
He gripped her chin. “You call me next time. You fucking scream. You don’t stab yourself.”
“I couldn—”
“You could,” he said, his tone hard. “If you can fight the compulsion enough to stab yourself, then you can fight it enough to let me know something’s wrong.” Continuing to keep pressure on her thigh with one hand, he used the other to rip away the hand she’d been using to cover up a nosebleed. “How bad?”
“Not so bad.” She went to turn her head away but he forced her to face him as he used a strip of fabric to wipe away the blood.
Her cheeks pinkened. “I can do that.”
It was the sheer normality of the reaction that convinced him she wasn’t lying about the consequences of fighting what had clearly been an implanted suggestion. “It’s fine.” His voice was still sandpaper raw, and when she flinched, he knew it wasn’t from the pain. Putting down the strip of cloth when it became obvious her nose had stopped bleeding, he dropped his head to press a kiss to the top of her knee.
An indrawn breath . . . then gentle feminine fingers in his hair, stroking, calming. He shuddered, felt his hands clench on her thigh, forced himself to loosen his grip. “We need to get you to a medic.”
“You can do it.” Another stroke through his hair.
He lifted his head. “No. The wound’s too deep. I want someone qualified to look at it.”
“I can’t be DNA scanned.” Fear glittered in her eyes.
Leaning forward, he gripped her nape and held her in place for a kiss that had no tenderness in it, he was so fucking scared for her. “I’ll take care of it.” But first he wanted her dressed, warm. “Keep the pressure on.” Slapping her hand onto her thigh, he found his T-shirt, pulled it over her head, then wrapped her in a blanket.
She took a gasping breath and watched as he grabbed his cell phone from the bedside table without getting up. Flipping it open, he coded in a familiar number. “Connor,” he said when the phone was answered on the other end. “Can you make a run to my place?”
“You hurt?” Instant alertness.
He could hear movement, as if Connor was already grabbing his gear. “No. But bring your full kit. Knife wound, deep.”
“Bleeding?”
He glanced down, parting the blanket. The cotton of the shirt wasn’t soaked through. “Contained, but there was some loss of blood before I got it stopped.” Holding the phone between ear and shoulder, he used a couple of strips of fabric to wrap the makeshift pads into place.
“Patient conscious?”
He looked into hazel eyes gone a muddy green with pain. “Yes.”
“Keep him that way. I’ll be at your place in ten.”
Hanging up without correcting Connor’s assumption on the gender of his patient, Dev put the cell phone back on the table and got up. “Connor lives close. He’ll be here soon.” As he bent to pick her up, she protested. He ignored her. “Katya, I’m going to do exactly what I want, and you’re going to let me.”
She held on to his shoulders as he carried her to the bed and sat down with her in his lap. “I am?”
“Yes.” His lips were on hers before he even knew he was going to kiss her, his hand once more at her nape, his knuckles brushed by the soft fall of her hair. He licked his tongue across the seam of her lips, gained entrance, and then he turned the raging animal in him loose. Because, how dare she hurt herself?