“This was not your fault, Elora. Monq suspected you might be stronger than people… here. Sol knew it, too. They should have told you.” He looked down at his own cup. “In their defense, however, they wouldn’t have thought anybody trained by this organization would be stupid enough to spar with a woman. Any woman.”
“So you’re mad at Ram?”
“Yes, Elora. I always suspected that he is an imbecile who managed to con his way through the program and today he provided insurmountable proof.” He glanced at Kay who just shook his head a little and looked away. Elora was staring at him like she didn’t approve of what he was saying. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s our imbecile and we take care of our own.”
“How much of a freak am I?”
He regarded her with that all-is-well-because-I’m-here composure. “You’re not a freak. Just…strong. We need to find out how strong. Clearly we’re botching the job of hosting an inter-dimensional traveler. But that’s our fault. Not yours. Tomorrow we’re going to go to the fitness center together.” He nodded toward Kay. ”You and Kay and I. Monq can come if he wants. And we’re going to find out exactly how strong you are.
"Don’t worry about Ram. He’s tough. He’ll be fine and we’ll figure this out.”
Elora looked at Storm and then back down at her cup. “I was watching the sparring and all I could think about was how many mistakes they were making and about that injured boy we saw. And I was thinking that, maybe he wouldn’t have been hurt like that if he was trained differently.” Looking between Storm and Kay, she said, “It was hard not interrupting to say, ‘No. Not like that.’ Can I be honest?”
Storm looked dumbfounded, but nodded.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I wouldn’t want you to lose people if some slight changes in style could make a difference.”
Storm looked over at Kay to see his reaction. Kay just raised his eyebrows and took a sip of coffee, giving him a look that said, “You’re on your own.”
Yeah. Storm was a little ruffled. First, this oh so feminine fantasy took out his teammate - his Bad Company teammate - without breaking a nail or breathing hard. And now she was suggesting that the knights of Black Swan were pussies. The ironic thing was that he guessed he'd had it in the back of his mind that he would invite her to work out so he could show off a little. Did that ever backfire!
His pride might have a hard time digesting this, but, so far, he was doing okay with not letting indignation get the best of him. He decided to take the high road a step further and see where it led.
“Okay. Tell you what, after we do an evaluation of your physical abilities, Kay and I will let you show us a couple of moves. If you can give us a tip that makes us better, who knows?”
She pressed her lips together, nodded, and then her stomach growled. She didn’t have enough experience with men to laugh it off so she blushed.
Storm just said, “Yeah. I second that. We missed dinner. When they let Ram out of here we’ll all go down to the lounge and get them to make us a hamburger.”
Elora perked up. “They’re going to let him leave?”
“Sure. A broken rib isn’t that big a deal. They’ll tape it up, give him some pain meds, and he’ll be good as new in a few weeks.”
“A few weeks?”
“Yep. Four to six.”
Elora surprised Storm by saying, “And you won’t go back out until he’s well?”
“By ‘out’, you mean on active duty?” She nodded. “No.”
Elora seemed pleased about that. He was about to ask why when the doctor came in.
All three of them stood up. The physician was a man of few words. “Fracture. Six weeks off rotation. If he doesn’t put any strain on the rib, he’ll be practically as good as new. Get him back to his own bed. If he’s hungry he can eat, but the pain meds may take the edge off his appetite and he’ll be sleepy.”
Storm and Kay both nodded and thanked the doc. “Can we go get him?”
“He’s all yours. Two doors down.” The doc’s face melted into a goofy little smile. On his way out he said, “Kind of a character, isn’t he?”
When Storm and Kay left the waiting room, Elora stayed behind not knowing if she was welcome. After a few seconds Storm jogged back to say, “You can come.”
Ram was sitting on the side of a bed, shirtless, in just his sweat pants, with a small section of tape around his ribs.
Elora tried not to notice the intricacy of the musculature on his chest and abdomen, but sweet heavenly gods he was beautiful. He was a living graphic of what might be possible if everything happened to work in perfect concert on the design of a male body. As if she didn’t already feel bad enough, now she had a second layer of guilt over ogling the person whose bone she had broken. She stood there chewing her bottom lip while Storm and Kay offered to help him up.
Ram’s eyes kept coming back to Elora. He didn’t seem angry, more interested in where she was and what she was doing. She hoped that didn’t mean he was afraid she would lunge at him and do more damage.
When asked if he was hungry, he said, "No. Loopy. Sleepy."