First Aid

Chapter 7: First Aid

The SUV skipped their old safehouse entirely and pulled into the garage of a secure corporate tower downtown. Apex kept a private floor there. Within ten minutes Kael had Julian inside a bare, sterile suite that smelled like bleach and leather.

The second the steel door locked, whatever had been holding Julian up gave out. He slid down against it, chest heaving, like he’d just run for miles.

Kael didn’t stop moving. Torn jacket, blood still drying on his neck, and he swept the apartment anyway — checked the windows, pulled the shades, tested the comms panel.

“Perimeter secure.” His voice was rough but steady into the wrist mic. “I have the principal. Nobody comes up without my say.”

He tapped the earpiece off and turned to look at Julian.

“You hurt? Did anyone grab you? Trample you?”

“No.” Julian’s voice came out thin. He pushed off the door, eyes fixed on the side of Kael’s head. “I’m fine. You shielded me the whole way. But you’re bleeding. That camera hit you hard.”

“It’s a scratch.” Kael shrugged out of his ruined jacket and dropped it over the back of the sofa like it was nothing.

Julian’s breath caught. Under the jacket, Kael’s shirt was wrecked, and a dark bruise was already spreading across his shoulder blade through the damp fabric. The cut behind his ear was still bleeding, staining his collar. The sight of it made something tight and angry twist in Julian’s chest.

“That is not a scratch.” Julian’s voice snapped back to something sharper. He marched to the bathroom, threw open cabinets until he found a first aid kit, and carried it back to drop on the coffee table with a thud.

“Sit,” he said, pointing at the sofa.

Kael looked at the kit, then at him. “I can handle a cut myself. Go shower. Get the tear gas out of your hair.”

“I’m not moving until you sit down and let me clean it.” Julian crossed his arms. He was a mess — torn blazer, wild hair, dirt on his cheek — but he didn’t budge.

“Julian—”

“Sit down, Thorne, or I’ll call your boss and tell him you bled all over the safehouse.” His voice wasn’t as sharp as he wanted it to sound. It came out closer to pleading.

Kael sighed and sat on the edge of the sofa. He pulled his tie loose and undid the top buttons of his shirt, exposing his neck and shoulder. The movement revealed more of the solid muscle and the darkening bruise.

Julian pulled on gloves, grabbed an alcohol wipe and a bandage, hands shaking a little. He stepped in, standing between Kael’s knees.

It put them close. Kael had to tilt his head back to look up at him. Up close the cut looked worse — deep, jagged, torn by a piece of broken plastic. The bruise on his shoulder looked hot and angry. The heat of Kael’s body radiated against Julian’s legs.

“This is going to sting,” Julian said, quieter than usual.

“I’ve had worse.” Kael’s voice rumbled low, close enough that Julian felt it against his skin.

Julian tore open the wipe and rested his free hand on Kael’s good shoulder to steady himself. The muscle under his palm was tight as a wire. Warm. Solid. He felt the slight shift of Kael’s breathing under his fingers.

He cleaned the cut carefully. Kael didn’t flinch, didn’t make a sound — but his breathing changed, catching slightly as Julian leaned in closer.

Julian focused on the wound, wiping away the dried blood, the smell of copper mixing with Kael’s cologne. The quiet between them felt charged, almost fragile.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Julian murmured. He brushed a drop of blood off Kael’s jaw with his thumb, lingering a second too long against the stubble. The roughness of it under his skin made his pulse skip. “That camera weighed forty pounds. It could’ve broken your spine.”

“It would’ve crushed your skull.” Kael’s eyes tracked his face, dark and steady. “My spine for your life. That’s the job.”

Julian stopped wiping. He looked down and met Kael’s eyes. The room felt suddenly airless. The space between them was almost nothing.

“Is that all this is?” His voice dropped to almost nothing. “A job?”

Kael didn’t answer right away. He looked at the dirt on Julian’s cheek, at the rawness in his eyes that had nothing to do with tonight’s crowd.

Slowly, he lifted his hand and set it against Julian’s hip.

It wasn’t a bodyguard’s touch. The weight of it was deliberate, warm through the torn fabric. Julian gasped, quiet, his fingers tightening on Kael’s shoulder. The contact sent a sharp, electric current straight through him.

“No.” Kael’s voice dropped lower, rougher than Julian had ever heard it. His thumb moved slightly against the torn fabric at Julian’s hip, a slow, almost unconscious stroke. “It’s not just a job anymore. We both know that.”

The space between them shrank to nothing. Julian could feel Kael’s breath against his mouth. He leaned in, eyes falling shut, chasing the heat of him. Kael’s hand tightened on his hip, pulling him in another fraction of an inch.

*BZZZZ.*

The wall panel screamed to life, an emergency call cutting through the room.

They jerked apart like they’d been shocked.

Julian stumbled back, face burning, heart slamming against his ribs. He dropped the wipe on the table and pressed his shaking hands into fists. The ghost of Kael’s hand still burned against his hip.

Kael swore under his breath, dragged a hand down his face, and forced himself steady before crossing to the panel and slamming the receiver button.

“Report.”

Julian stood frozen in the middle of the room, half-listening to Marcus’s voice crackling through about press releases and waivers. He looked at the first aid kit. Then at Kael’s back.

The cut was clean now. But something else had already broken open, and there was no closing it back up.