Vow In Blood

Chapter Five

Charming

That evening, as Zoey cleaned the wound again, Alexander asked, "Do you always carry a first aid kit?"

She chuckled, engrossed in dabbing the disinfectant over the stitches. "You should be glad I did otherwise; a bunch of strangers would be planning your funeral right now."

"I'm glad, actually," he said. "Where did you learn to stitch?"

She looked up at him, taking in his charming blue eyes. She grunted, shaking her head. Since when did she think his eyes were charming? Sighing, she said, "I'll tell you if you tell me where you learned to take out bullets."

"The easy answer is survival instincts," he said, cringing as the disinfectant pinched into his wound. "The other answer is that I grew up in a military setting, and taking out bullets from our bodies was one of the training we got."

Zoey wanted to ask more but felt she'd be probing too much, so she let it slide…for a while. "I have a major in Internal Medicine."

"A doctor," he said, seemingly impressed. "I would never have thought. My first guess would've been that you'd once been a paramedic."

"That too," she said, exhaling. After cleaning the wounds, she started putting on new bandages. After the bandages were neatly placed, she handed him another Tylenol tablet. "Here, it will help with the pain and fever."

The doctor said Alexander's fever wasn't worsening, but he felt cold. He excused it as the effect of being shirtless for the entire day with the temperature dropping outside.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," she said, packing her kit and putting it aside.

Later at night, they sat on the couch and shared Zoey's snacks. A while later, she sighed. "You know I packed enough snacks to last me an entire evening—which isn't much. We'll be out of food by morning."

"So?" Alexander said, furrowing his brows. "You get more food by morning."

"Excuse me?" she said, giving him a raised eyebrow. "You say that as though I must get food. I'm not your girlfriend, mister."

He grinned. "I could make you mine first if that's what you want."

"No, thank you." Zoey stuffed her mouth with more biscuits to hide the stupid blush that had crept up her face when he said that. It wasn't just the words—she'd probably heard better lines from men over the years.

Alexander had a unique way of speaking. His tone was clear and authoritative, and when he said something, she always felt a note of finality in his voice as though his words were the end of things.

He was confident, charming, and, above all… dangerously handsome. Sadly, the more Zoey thought about it, the harder she blushed, and she tried to hide it by lowering her face.

"You need to get more food, Zoey," he said. And I need a pair of clean shirts and trousers, too. Unless you love having me shirtless in here…"

She whipped at him. "W-what?"

He chuckled and leaned back. Zoey cursed herself for reacting to tiny things like those. But sitting so close to him on the couch wasn't helping. In the end, she sighed. "Fine. I'll get you a shirt or something. And some more snacks."

"Oh, princess," Alexander said in a seductively low voice and leaned closer. Zoey swallowed hard. She wanted to push him away, but her limbs seemed to have lost connection with her brain and didn't move despite all her mental efforts to get them up.

When Alexander's lips were close enough, he brushed hers and went for her ear. "You're blushing, Zoey. Should I kiss away the blush?"

Zoey finally regained her motor functions and punched lightly on one of the wounds on his chest.

"Aw, aw, stop!" he pulled away.

Zoey grinned. "I would punch you, but I'll save that for later. You can kiss away your pains."

"You can be mean."

She smiled. "I can be a lot of things."

Throughout their snack dinner, Alexander didn't make any further seductive attempts at her, though she was still battling with the after-effects of the little he'd tried. Her stomach would flutter when he was close to her or gave her that corky smile and whispered.

'What is wrong with you, Zoey?' she scolded herself.

Later, she checked on his fever again. It wasn't going up, but it wasn't going away either. There wasn't much she could do, so she asked him to get some sleep, hoping that by morning, everything would be okay.

"And where will you sleep?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Last night, I slept on the floor with my head propped on the couch."

"Didn't that hurt your neck?"

"It did…"

Alexander struggled and limped towards the hallway leading to the other inn rooms. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"To get you a bed. There's another couch in here. it's in a better condition than that one."

Zoey rushed after him, cursing under her breath. "Are you insane? You can't pull that thing in your condition!"

"Don't underestimate me, darling," he said, flashing her that smile again. It disarmed Zoey, making her forget to protest when he pulled the couch.

She joined in and helped him push it to the hall beside his. "There," he said, patting the couch. "A bed."

Alexander was trying hard not to yell out in pain after pulling that much weight. He silently got on his couch, hoping that it would relieve him. It didn't. Way into the night, he started grunting louder and louder.

His groans woke Zoey, who was alarmed to find that his body felt like it had been left in a fridge. "Alexander, can you hear me?"

He gasped. "It's… freaking cold… freezing!"

Crap. Zoey sorted through her bag but hadn't packed anything thick, and nothing she had brought was big enough to make a blanket.

Desperate, she used her tops and shirts to cover him up. He still wasn't warm enough. Every groan escaped his lips, making her more tense than the previous one.

"What to do?" There was nothing else she could do to keep him warm. They didn't have tea, blankets, heaters, or…

"God, I have to do this…"

It was the last resort, and Zoey would never have considered it had there been another option.

Swiftly, she started unbuttoning her shirt. She had to use her body heat to warm him up.