Brock focused all his effort on pulling Jenna's pain. Easier to keep his mind off his hunger that way. It also helped keep him from noticing how soft her skin was, and how the curves of her body fit so nicely against him.
The absorbed pain of her injury--and the slighter irritation of his own--was the only thing that kept his body from having yet another sort of reaction to her, as well. Even then, he couldn't totally ignore the uncomfortable tightness of his fatigues, or the way the light flutter of her pulse against his fingertips where they rested against her nape made him yearn to put his mouth against her instead.
To taste her, in all the ways a man could crave a woman.
It took a great deal of effort to shake the thought from his mind. Jenna was a mission, that's all. And she was human, with the fragility and short shelf life to go along with it. Although if he was being honest with himself, he'd be the first to admit that he had long preferred mortal females over their sisters who were born Breedmates.
When it came to romantic entanglements, he tried to keep things casual. Nothing too permanent. Nothing that might last long enough for him to let down a woman who had grown to trust him.
Yeah, he'd already been there, done that. And he damn well had the guilt and self-loathing to prove it. No desire to go down that particular stretch of road ever again.
Before his memories could drag him toward the shadows of his past failings, Brock glanced up and saw the gated entrance of the Order's compound looming ahead. Renata announced their arrival to Gideon on her hands-free headset, and as the Rover rolled to a stop at the tall iron gate, it unlocked and swung open to welcome them inside.
"Gideon says the infirmary is prepped and waiting for us," she said as she drove to the fleet garage in back.
Brock grunted in response, hardly able to speak now for the crowding presence of his fangs. The whole back section of the Rover was bathed in amber, the glow of his transformed eyes throwing off light like a bonfire even from behind the dark lenses of his shades.
Renata parked the vehicle inside the large hangar, then jogged around to help him get Jenna out of the backseat and into the elevator that would take them down from street level to the compound headquarters belowground. Jenna roused as the doors closed and the hiss of the hydraulics went into action.
"Put me down," she mumbled, struggling a bit in Brock's arms as though she was annoyed with the assistance. "I'm not in pain. I can stand up by myself. I can walk--"
"No, you can't," he said, cutting her off, his words terse and rasping.
"Your body is in shock. Your leg needs tending. You won't be walking anywhere."
Through the daze of her lingering shock, Jenna glowered at him, but kept her arms linked around his neck as the elevator came to a stop at the compound below. Brock stepped out, walking briskly. Renata followed, the lug-soles of her combat boots thudding in counterpoint to the soft, wet patter of blood that dripped to the floor from Jenna's wound.
As they rounded a curve in the corridor that would take them to the infirmary, Lucan met them in the passageway. He stopped dead in his tracks, feet braced apart, hands fisting at his sides. Brock could just make out the subtle flaring of the Gen One's nostrils as the scent of fresh blood traveled the corridor.
Lucan's eyes zeroed in on the bleeding human, their gray color flashing with sparks of light, pupils narrowing swiftly to catlike slivers.
"Holy hell."
"Yeah," Brock drawled. "Gunshot wound to the right thigh, .45-caliber round with no sign of exit. We tied it off, but she's lost a damned lot of blood between here and the place in Southie where I found her."
"No shit," Lucan said, his fangs clearly visible now, twin points gleaming as he spoke. He grated out a harsh curse. "Go on, then. They're waiting for her in the infirmary."
Brock gave the Order's leader a grim nod as he continued past him. In the infirmary, Gideon and Tess had prepared an operating table for Jenna.
Gideon's face went a bit pale at the sight of her, and when he clamped his jaws together, a muscle jerked in his lean cheek.
"Set her down right here," Tess said from beside the surgery table, jumping in when Gideon, the otherwise calm and collected Breed male who'd stitched up his fair share of combat wounds for the other warriors, seemed at a loss now that the patient in question was human and leaking red cells like a faucet.
"Fuck me," Gideon said after a long moment, his British accent coming on stronger than normal. "That's a lot of blood. Tess, can you--"
"Yes," she put in quickly. "I can handle it on my own."
"Okay," he said, visibly affected. "I'll, ah ... I think I'm gonna wait outside."
As Gideon made his exit, Brock placed Jenna on the stainless steel table. When he didn't move away, Tess glanced up at him in question.
"You're injured, too?"
He shrugged his good shoulder. "It's nothing."
She pursed her lips, not entirely convinced. "Maybe Gideon ought to make sure of that."
"It is nothing," Brock repeated, impatient. He took off his shades and hooked them into the collar of his black shirt. "What about Jenna? How bad is she?"
Tess glanced down at her and gave a faint wince. "Let me have a look.
It's a shame my talent is suppressed because of the baby, or I could heal her in a few seconds, instead of the hour or more it's likely going to take to get the worst of the bleeding under control."
Tess had been a skilled and caring veterinarian before she moved in to the Order's compound and became Dante's mate. She'd since taken on a vital role as Gideon's right hand in the infirmary, tending to much larger--and, no doubt, more disagreeable--clientele than she'd dealt with in her former clinic in the city.