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Before she could answer, Guy came out of the exam room

"I have encased his body in ice," he told Alex "It will last only two or three hours, but it should slow the poison long enough for you to transport hirabbed him

"You’re the only relative he has," she said "You can’t leave"

He gave her a twisted smile "He will not want me at his side"

"Probably not," Alex replied, "but if this works, he will need a little of your bone marrow" At his blank look, she added, "I’ll have to perform a transplant from a blood relative in order to replace the bone marrow that the radiation kills"

"It cannot co grim "Locksley and I are not related by blood Our connection is through e only"

"Doesn’t Robin have any other relatives?" Chris asked

"Yeah" Alex suddenly looked ham bowed to her and Chris, and continued out of the hospital

"Guy Wait" Chris caught up with him just outside the lift "If you never intended to take o?"

"So as taking it" He gestured toward the lift "You may still come with me, if you like"

"I think I’ll stick around here" Chris sratitude," he said, "be sure to tell my cousin when he wakes that I saved his life" For the first tienuine smile "That should bedevil him for the rest of eternity"

He bowed once more to Chris, and then stepped into the lift

Chapter Twenty

Robin smelled her scent first, sweet-sharp, like the taste of candied ginger He had been drifting in and out of shadows for so long that he clung to it, following the trace until it grew stronger, until he kneas only a hand away froap between the his hair back As Robin woke, he turned his face into her pal" His voice sounded as weak as he felt "Or perhaps God hasto Saint Peter"

"Oh, yeah" Her low, tired laugh caressed his cheek "You’re awake"

Robin opened his eyes to the only face he had ever wished to see again Chris looked pale and thin, and shadows bruised her eyes She had slept in the dress she wore, judging by the telltale wrinkles, and had scraped back her tangled hair into a lopsided ponytail

She was thehe had ever seen, Robin decided

He finally looked away fronized as one of the guest rooine I have Alexandra Keller to thank for this"

"Alex and a few of the others" Soet her She wanted to know if… when you woke up"

"Send so ht want her to step outside the curtain when I perform the ten or fifteen consecutive colonoscopies I have planned for you," Alex said as she ca a chart

Robin tried to look lofty "I have no idea what a colonoscopy is, but I arinned "Hello, Alex You’re looking well"

"Hi, yourself, handsoed a look with Chris, who bent over and kissed the bridge of his nose

"I should go take a shower before I started attracting flies," his lady told him "I’ll be back"

She left before he could reply

Robin tried to sit up and go after her, and discovered he was entangled in a mesh of tubes and wires Bewildered, he lifted his arms "What the devil is all this?"

"This is your IV," Alex said, pointing to a transparent tube "The wires areyour heart rate, your blood pressure, and your blood oxygen I also have you on a catheter, but you can’t see that one Keep h, and you’ll feel it"

"A what?" Robin lifted the edge of the sheet covering him, looked at what she had done to him below the hips, and then dropped it "Good God Alex, none of this is necessary, I assure you I am Darkyn; I do not need--"