Cyborg Nation by Kaitlyn O'Connor (english readers TXT) 📗

their fluid movements, seeing their skill and agility and strength was like watching the finest of athletes perform seemingly impossible feats.

And these wonderful, absolutely amazing men thought she was special!

Luckily for her they weren’t nearly as discriminating as they should have been.

Her pride and joy dissolved, however, as she descended enough to notice that they hadn’t moved. They were still laboring for breath, standing, but in a way that she finally realized denoted determination to remain on their feet. It was hardly surprising, and yet it made her heart clutch in her chest. She examined them more carefully with her gaze, searching for wounds. She could see nothing, however. They were so spattered with blood there was no way to tell how much was theirs, if any, but she knew they couldn’t have come off from the encounter totally unscathed.

As remarkable as they were, they’d been injured in the crash just as she had, and then fought a standing battle against the trogs, and now another one. Even if they hadn’t sacrificed some of the nanos that helped them heal so rapidly to save her, the nanos had had far more to deal with in a very short time than she thought would be ‘normal’.

The thoughts had no sooner formed in her mind that the urge hit her to rush to them and check them to reassure herself that they weren’t badly hurt. She couldn’t ‘rush’ anywhere, though. She couldn’t even get up because she’d had to abandon her crutch to hold on to Gideon. She tried anyway. Seeing her efforts, Gabriel looked around for the crutch and Gideon and Jerico strode toward her and crouched to examine her.

“You were hurt from the fall?” Gideon asked, looking her over searchingly.

Bronte’s chin wobbled at his concern for her when he’d nearly gotten killed—they all had. She shook her head. “You’re hurt,” she managed finally.

He stared at her for a long moment. “It is nothing. I am more tired than hurt.”

Even admitting that much told her it was worse that she’d thought. “If it’s no more than a scratch it’s too much,” she said, bursting into tears.

Gideon and Jerico exchanged an uneasy glance. “She is unsettled from the fighting,” Jerico said finally.

“I am not unsettled by the fight!” Bronte said angrily, mopping at the tears with the back of her hand. “Yes, I am! But I’m upset because you’re hurt! Let me see where you’re hurt,” she demanded.

Gabriel had arrived by that time. The three men exchanged speaking glances that annoyed the hell out of her.

“It is nothing more than a nick here and there and you could not see it for all the muck,” Gideon said reasonably.

“I want to look anyway,” Bronte said fiercely.

Shrugging, Gideon lifted his sword to sheathe it. As he did, Bronte spied three gashes along his side across his ribs, another on his chest and one on his belly. There were more on his arms and hands and even a couple on his thighs. As he’d said, they were ‘nicks’, none of them deep or long but all of them had drawn blood. Gabriel and Jerico looked as bad—like pin cushions and even though none of the cuts looked life threatening, together they’d let a good bit of blood, probably more than they could afford given the fact that they’d barely had time to recover from the last blood letting. No wonder they were so tired. It wasn’t just exertion. It was from blood loss.

It frustrated her that she couldn’t even get up to attend their wounds, couldn’t at least bathe them off and fuss over them.

“We should go now,” Gideon said when she’d finished examining Gabriel’s wounds.

“I think I’ll walk awhile,” she said. “I’m sore from being carried.”

Gideon stared at her for a long moment and finally nodded, looking down at the blood and even more disgusting flecks of flesh clinging to him. “We will bathe in the sea once we have crossed the rocks.”

She hated for him to think she didn’t want him to touch her because of the mess, but she was not going to let any of them carry her when she could see they were going to have a hard time carrying themselves. Besides, they would have to move slowly if she walked and that would give them a little rest, not as much as actually sitting down to rest, but at least they wouldn’t be pushing themselves to hurry.

Without feeling any qualms about it at all, she began to complain about being tired as soon as they’d reached the beach again and asked if they couldn’t rest for a while if Gideon was determined not to make camp yet.

He didn’t like it. She could tell he didn’t. He kept scanning the cliffs and the edge of the woods while she scanned him to make certain his wounds had closed. Finally, he turned to look at her assessingly.

She felt his gaze, knew as she saw his expression out of the corner of her eye that it had dawned on him she usually didn’t complain and that he was wondering if she was really too tired to keep going. She ignored the look examining Gabriel and Jerico carefully as they returned from bathing. To her relief, she saw that most of their wounds had closed. Gabriel had a long gash on one thigh that was still bleeding sluggishly. She thought it was the fact that it was an almost horizontal slash that made it gape slightly.

Tugging him down by pulling on his wrist, she examined it more closely. It wasn’t deep, but the wound needed staples to close it, she thought worriedly. After looking around hopefully for something to use, she finally tore a strip from the front flap of his loincloth, pushed the wound together the best she could with her hands and then tied the strip of fabric around his thigh. She didn’t think it would hold it together well, if at all, but it made her feel better to at