Page 289 of Claimed by the Ghost Warrior

Veyr grunted.

That sound froze me. I turned.

He had one hand pressed to his side.

Blood ran between his fingers, dark, pooling at the seam of his armor where it met the deck plating. Too much. His existing wound had opened. No. Worse. A fresh burn cut across the same area, blackened tissue over the old scar.

He looked at it once. Then he lifted his head and kept firing at the corridor where the attackers were advancing. Ignored it. The blood kept coming. He didn’t adjust his grip to cover it. Didn’t slow. Just kept firing, three rounds, four, until one of the shapes dropped behind a crate and the others went flat against the walls for a moment before returning fire with better cover. His hand stayed pressed to his side through all of it, and he never once looked down again after that first glance.

“Veyr!”

“Door.”

Right.

Door.

I forced my hands to move over the panel even though they wanted to shake, even though half of me was still turned toward him and the blood on the deck plating and the way he was breathing through his teeth now with every shot instead of between them. Medical transfer systems were not all the same. But they all cared about one thing more than people. Custody.

I looked at the panel again.

Emergency biological transfer.

Containment status.

Quarantine override.

There.

My finger shook. I pressed anyway.

Behind me, Veyr fired again.

Someone shouted.

Footsteps.

Closer.