Free Dom X - The Complete Box Set: Alpha Male Romance by M. S. Parker Page A

putting in for overtime, and I didn't do anything medical when I was technically off. I was fine with that. I kept an eye on his vitals, but mostly I just watched him.
    When I was working yesterday, I'd seen a tall, good-looking guy in the room. I hadn't had a chance to speak with him, but based on the haircut and the way he held himself, I felt safe in assuming he was a soldier. The man I'd spoken to at the base on Monday said he'd try to get in contact with one of Xavier's friends. I supposed that had been him.
    X, I silently corrected myself. Not Xavier. The staff sergeant had called him X. Just one of the things I'd learned about the soldier I'd been caring for.
    Like the fact that X didn't have any family. There wasn't a lot the staff sergeant had been able to tell me, but I'd gotten the impression that had been more because he hadn't known rather than any sort of privacy issues. X's mother was deceased, his father unknown. No siblings, grandparents or other relatives. He had someone listed as his emergency contact, but that was it. The staff sergeant had said he'd make the call, but that had been Monday evening and it was Wednesday morning now, and with the exception of the one soldier, no one else had been in to see X.
    He shifted slightly and I sat up, tensing as I leaned forward. Aside from the couple times I'd seen his eyes opening that first day, he'd been unconscious. He was on a lot of pain meds, which didn't make waking up any easier, but if he didn't wake up soon, even if only for a few minutes, I'd be even more concerned than I was now.
    When it came to traumatic injuries, only part of the battle was physical. Emotional and mental health came into play more than a lot of people realized. While there were, sadly, plenty of people who fought to stay alive and lost, there were also plenty of people who should've survived their injuries but didn't, simply because they gave up.
    If X had no family, no one to support him, no one to live for, I wondered just how high his chances of survival were. Yes, there were those with families and loved ones who gave up, but that support system at least gave them a fighting chance.
    I didn't know X, or what happened to him besides what I’d heard downstairs or in the news. I'd never laid eyes on him before Monday. We'd never spoken or even exchanged a real look. There was absolutely no logical reason for the sense of duty and compassion I felt toward him. It was beyond what I felt as a nurse toward all of my patients, even the ones I liked. I'd occasionally checked in on some patients more than others simply because they were a joy to be around, but I didn't think about them off-duty. I didn't stay over or come in early, and I certainly didn't sit by their beds and wait for them to wake up.
    I leaned back in my chair when it became clear that he wasn't waking up, just responding to a dream. I hoped he was having pleasant dreams. Something that soothed his subconscious. Something beautiful. Because when he did wake up, his life would be a nightmare. He would be in a great deal of pain, despite the medication. And that would be just the beginning.
    Once he could get off the ventilator, we could get a better idea of any sort of permanent lung or brain damage, then figure out where to go from there. He had months of rehab ahead of him at the very least, maybe years, depending on the need for skin grafts. His arm being both broken and burned would cause the most problems, even without the risks that came with his condition. Broken bones needed to stay immobile, but the arm would need to move so that the scar tissue could stretch and he could keep mobility in his arm.
    He was in for a long and painful recovery. A recovery that, no matter how well he did – barring an all-out miracle – meant he couldn't return to active duty. One of the few personal things the staff sergeant told me about X was that he'd been in the army for nearly a decade, joining up at nineteen. And that X had