Rayne's Return (Hearts of ICARUS Book 3)

by Laura Jo Phillips

  Rayne shook her head slowly as she stared down at the wound. This was the first time she’d actually been faced head on with her inability to feel pain. She could see the wound, she could see the blood, but she didn’t feel anything. No pain, no discomfort, nothing.

  “Salene,” Landor said calmly, “perhaps it would be a good idea to go check on the Gryphons. I’m sure your presence would help calm them.”

  “Yes, of course,” Salene said, setting her containers down on a table. “Excuse me.”

  Rayne looked up at Salene and nodded slowly to her sister’s silent question. Salene nodded back, then left the observation deck.

  “You don’t feel this, do you?” Con asked as he knelt beside Landor and started unlacing her boot.

  “No,” she whispered shakily. “I can feel your hands on my foot, but I feel nothing on my thigh.”

  “It’s all right,” Landor said. “The wound is self-healing. Another minute and it’ll be gone.”

  “I didn’t know it was there,” Rayne said. “I didn’t feel any pressure when it happened, nothing at all.”

  “And yet, when I used tri-phase to see if you had any pain, it knocked me to my knees,” Landor said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  “I’m not,” Landor replied. “I’m relieved to know there’s a way for us to discover if you’re in pain, and how much.”

  “There’s got to be a way to fix this,” she said miserably.

  “If there is, we will find it,” Con said. “The wound is almost fully healed, so all is well.” A minute later the wound vanished completely, leaving nothing behind but the blood. Landor stood up and wrapped his arms around her, forgetting about Jinjie who leapt to the floor. A moment later Con pressed against her back and they stood that way until Ari joined them. Con quickly told Ari what had happened, then they moved apart so he could hug her, too.

  “Black heart,” Jinjie said. “Him follow not?”

  Rayne looked down at the Jotunn, surprised to find him standing in front of the viewing window, staring out. “No, Jinjie, he wouldn’t dare to follow us here, even if he could. The Armadura is protected with Blind Sight.”

  “Black heart do be dare anything,” Jinjie warned. “Only Blind Sight do be make safe. Jinjie mean you do be not follow Black heart?”

  “Oh,” Rayne said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Black heart do be leaving,” Jinjie said gesturing out the view port.

  They all hurried to look where Jinjie indicated. “We don’t see anything,” Landor said.

  “Do be not see,” Jinjie said. “Black heart do be have Blind Sight. Jinjie feel.”

  “You can feel Weeble?” Rayne asked.

  “Jinjie do be feel evil,” he clarified. “Black heart do be evil.”

  “Could you guide us after him?” Landor asked.

  “No,” he said after a moment’s thought. “Black heart do be too far now.”

  “That’s too bad,” Con said. “I think we should destroy that place like we destroyed the Facility.”

  “Jinjie, are there others on that space station like the Gryphons?” Rayne asked. “Innocents, I mean.”

  Jinjie thought a moment, then turned around and leapt from the floor up to her shoulder, surprising everyone. She watched from the corner of her eye as he reached up to place one hand at her temple. Her mind was suddenly filled with images of people and creatures that Jinjie had witnessed going through the station. After the first few seconds, she closed her eyes to better see the images he was sending into her mind. There were so many different people, animals, creatures both humanoid and not, that they started to blend into each other. And then he showed her something that made her gasp and open her eyes as she fought back sudden nausea.

  “Rayne, what’s wrong?” Landor said, moving to stand in front of her and reaching for her hands.

  “This station is not the same as the Facility,” she said. “It has laboratory equipment, but it’s not a lab. It’s more like a storage facility, which is why they have so many hibernation tanks. The only reason the Gryphons were there is that we destroyed the Facility, where they intended to keep them.”

  “What made you gasp?” Landor asked again.

  “There’s a room filled with row after row of stasis units,” she swallowed hard. “Every one of them contains a Xanti.”

  “Dead Xanti, right?” Con asked.

  “Xanti do be dead,” Jinjie confirmed. “Black heart do be use evil for evil.”

  “Would we be killing innocents if we destroy the place?” Landor asked.

  “No,” Rayne replied, then looked at Jinjie for confirmation.

  “No do be prisoners what could be saved,” he confirmed.

  Landor tapped his vox and walked away, giving orders. “Do you think this is the wrong thing to do, Jinjie?” Rayne asked.

  “No, this do be good, Lady Bear,” Jinjie said. “Xanti do be evil, dead or no.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Rayne said. A moment later Landor rejoined them and they stared quietly through the observation window until they saw a bright white flash of light that nearly blinded them for a few moments. By the time their vision cleared, there was nothing left to see.

  “What happened over there?” Landor asked. “After we left with the Gryphons.”

  “Rayne do be mighty she-bear in fang and claw and heart,” Jinjie said. “Jinjie do be most honored to see.”

  “We could not agree more,” Con said proudly.

  “Thanks, Jinjie,” Rayne said. “Mostly, I was scared out of my wits, though.”

  “Fear do be not make courage less, Lady Bear,” Jinjie said with a shrug. “Fear do be make courage greater.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Landor said. “But I’d still like to know what happened over there.”

  “You left, I put my shield up and asked Salene to stay close, then I started looking around for something to bring back that might be helpful. Aside from whatever data might be in those hand terminals, we don’t know anything about these Doftle. I figured I might as well see what I could find. I grabbed what I could out of a cabinet and tied it up in that sheet, and then the door opened and in walked Weeble.” She told the rest of the story quickly, then said, “I had no idea that he wounded me. I felt nothing at all.”

  “Luckily you’re now Clan Bearen, so you self-healed quickly,” Con said, but the fear in Landor’s eyes remained. Rayne knew what he was thinking because she’d had the same thought.

  “I’m all right,” she said softly. “He hit my leg, not my stomach. Our daughters are safe, and so am I.”

  “I know, Kisu, but we will take no more such risks,” he said gruffly. Rayne smiled.

  “Of course we won’t.” Landor relaxed and took a breath when he realized she didn’t intend to argue with him.

  “Where’s the arm?” she asked.

  “There,” Landor said, pointing to the table where it lay beside the sheet wrapped bundle. “Why did you want to bring it back?”

  “Because not even my bearenca could do much more than break the skin, and that not very deeply. Not only that, but it took every ounce of strength my bearenca had to keep him from reaching Salene, which makes no sense to me. I thought the composition and density of their flesh, not to mention sequencing their DNA, might help explain something about them, maybe even tell us where they’re from. If not, it’ll at least be of interest to some of the council scientists.”

  “I’m certain you’re correct,” Landor said, looking at her with love in his eyes. “You do think well under duress. We didn’t even consider that, and we should have.”

  “Well, you had your own tasks to focus on,” Rayne said.

  “If you couldn’t bite deeply, how did you manage to sever the arm?” Con asked as he bent to look more closely at it. “And why isn’t there any blood?”

  “Good questions,” Rayne said. “Now that I’ve had a little time to mull it over, I think I might even know the answer to one o
f them.”

  “We’re listening.”

  “Wolef said that his scale would prevent me from being transported against my will. Apparently it works in both my human and bearenca forms. When Weeble transported, I was holding onto his arm, and he was smiling at me because he thought I’d be forced to transport with him. Since I couldn’t be transported, he was transported without the arm that I was holding. I bet he was surprised.”

  “It makes as much sense as anything,” Con said. “It looks like the wound has been cauterized.”

  “This limb is going to give us a lot of data about the Doftle,” Ari said after examining it without handling it more than necessary. “But how are you? Did you get hurt anywhere else?”

  “I’d say no, but I didn’t know about the thigh wound,” she said.

  Landor gazed intently at her for a long moment, then smiled. “You’re not in any pain, but you are very tired. We’ll take you back to our room in a few moments.” He kissed the top of her head, then turned to Ari. “Let’s get a few of the lab techs here to bag and preserve these things. We need a stasis bag for the arm, and I think we should leave that bundle Rayne collected as it is. We’ll just lock everything up so no one can tamper with it. It goes straight to the Council as soon as we get home.”

  Ari kissed Rayne, then speed traveled away while Con began inspecting the containers Salene had brought. “This is the one I took from the waste receptacle. What’s the other one for?”

  “Salene put some of the gel that was in one of the hibernation tanks into it,” Rayne said. Con nodded. “Good thinking. The med techs were in such a hurry to wash the gel off of everyone that they didn’t think about saving any of it until it was nearly too late, and much of what they did save is contaminated with water and soap now.”

  “Why were they in such a hurry?” Rayne asked.

  “The gel in the hibernation tanks contains high levels of radioactive material, which is why it burned us when we touched it.”

  “It burned you?” Rayne asked, shocked. She immediately grabbed Landor’s arm and began pushing at his sleeve, but he put a hand over hers, stopping her.

  “We rinsed it off as soon as we got here,” he explained. “That’s why it took us a bit longer than it should have to return. We’ve already healed, so there’s nothing to see.”

  “Why would they do that?” she asked, then shook her head. “Was it just to cause pain?”

  “From what we’ve learned about the Doftle so far I would guess that had something to do with it,” Con said. “But on the practical side, it kept them from shifting, and drained their energy, making them very weak.”

  “How are they?” Rayne asked.

  “They’re not in very good shape. The med techs were still rinsing the gel off last time I checked. They’re entire bodies are one big radiation burn which is, of course, incredibly painful. Blake suggested putting them in hibernation tanks until their bodies heal, but they objected to that. Strenuously.”

  “Isn’t there anything else that can be done for them?” Rayne asked.

  “No,” Landor replied. “Drugs won’t work, as you know, and neither will healing tanks. Their bodies are too weak and their injuries are too great for them to self-heal quickly. As long as the radioactive material is completely removed, they’ll eventually be able to self-heal. It’ll just take time.”

  “How far are we from the nearest jump point?”

  “A week,” Landor replied. “Once we reach it, we’ll only be a day from Jasan. Then Jareth can heal them. We’ll send a message ahead to let them know we’re coming.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing we can’t follow Weeble any more, otherwise we’d be really unhappy right now,” she said.

  “Yes, it would have been difficult to let Weeble go, but we would never sacrifice our own,” Landor said. “Thanks to you, we don’t go home empty handed. We have the hand terminals, Weeble’s arm, all the things you took from the lab. The Council will be ecstatic.”

  “Don’t forget about Jinjie,” Rayne said, turning her head so she could see him still sitting on her shoulder. “You know a lot about the Doftle, don’t you?”

  “Jinjie do be know many things,” the Jotunn agreed. “But Jinjie do be know Doftle names only.”

  Rayne smiled. “Since we now have several Doftle hand terminals, I don’t think that’ll be much of a problem anymore.”

  Afterword

  Salene stopped the treadmill and reached for the towel draped around her neck. After drying the sweat from her face she reached for the bottle of water hanging from her hip. She took a long drink, then recapped the bottle, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirrored wall to her left. She stepped off the treadmill and walked toward it, studying her reflection.

  Her hair was back to normal, thanks to Rayne, and her burns were nearly healed. She had a dozen unsightly scars, and another dozen less unsightly, but except for the rather large one on her cheek they weren’t readily apparent so long as she wore long sleeves and pants. She’d chosen to stay out of a healing tank so that she could follow the Gryphons, and she didn’t regret that choice. Unfortunately, it was beginning to seem as though the scars were an issue for her men, and that was a wound that she couldn’t hide beneath her clothing.

  The door opened and Rayne stepped into the room, closing the door to insure their privacy. “Talk to me, Salene, please. Tell me what’s going on.” Salene shrugged, but Rayne wasn’t giving up that easily. “I hope you don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you wear your hair covering half your face. The scars are bothering you, aren’t they?”

  “Not me, no,” Salene said, turning away from the mirror. “But I think they bother Talus, Jon and Kar.”

  Rayne frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It doesn’t? Even you have to admit they’re ugly.”

  “So what?” Rayne asked. “I had scars everywhere and I do mean everywhere. It didn’t bother my Rami in the slightest. At least, not in the way you mean.”

  “The Bearen-Hirus are good men, Rayne,” Salene said. “You’re lucky.”

  “I am,” Rayne agreed. “I think that if the Gryphons weren’t good men too, you wouldn’t love them so much.”

  “Maybe I didn’t know them as well as I thought I did.”

  “Please, Salene, tell me what’s going on?” Rayne asked again, begging now.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” Salene said. “That’s the trouble. They left the infirmary yesterday morning. You know that, right?”

  “I know they asked for a private male-set room, so I assumed as much, yes.”

  “I didn’t know about it until I went to the infirmary to visit after breakfast and they weren’t there. I found out what room they were in and went to see them, but they wouldn’t let me in. Talus wouldn’t even open the door. He just told me through the door that they needed to sleep, and that it was easier for them to do it without an audience.”

  “I remember you saying much the same thing to Blake,” Rayne pointed out.

  “I did, but I was talking about people I didn’t know.”

  “What else?”

  “They won’t look at me,” Salene said so softly it was nearly a whisper.

  “They won’t look at you?”

  Salene shook her head. “They each took one look at my face a few days ago, when they were well enough to get up and start moving around, and that was that. Ever since, they look at my feet, their feet, the floor, the ceiling, anything but me.” She shrugged. “They won’t look at me, they won’t let me into their room, and now they won’t talk to me.”

  “Is that so?” Rayne asked, coldly furious.

  “Rayne?” Salene asked, then reached out, but Rayne shook her head.

  “No, Salene, this is not acceptable.” With that she spun around, yanked the door open, and marched up the corridor with Salene trailing behind her. She passed the elevator and entered the stairwell, ran up two flights, then pushed the door open so hard it slammed into the wa
ll, displaying a temper that Salene had never once in all their lives witnessed in her middle sister.

  Suddenly, Landor, Con, and Ari appeared in the corridor, blocking Rayne. “Kisu, what’s wrong?” Landor asked.

  “Please move aside, Landor,” Rayne bit out between clenched teeth. Landor felt her fury, and a glance at Salene’s pale face a few feet behind her told him the subject, if not the precise reason. They’d tried getting the Gryphons to talk a few times but had gotten nowhere. If Rayne could rattle them enough for some sense to seep in, then they weren’t going to stand in her way.

  Landor stepped aside, and Ari and Con followed, allowing Rayne to continue her march up the corridor. She stopped in front of the Gryphons’ room and started pounding on the door with her fist, not stopping until it opened. Talus stood in the door way, glaring down at Rayne until the Bearen-Hirus’ warning growls forced him to moderate his expression. Rayne shoved the door open and marched straight in, forcing Talus to back quickly out of her way.

  “What’s going on?” he asked warily, carefully not looking at Salene which only added fuel to Rayne’s fury.

  “You three are the biggest, most selfish, self-centered, self-serving assholes I’ve ever had the displeasure to meet, and since I spent an entire year in the Doftles’ hands, I’ve met quite a few,” Rayne growled, shocking everyone, including her Rami. It was the first time in Rayne’s entire life that she’d ever used a swear word.

  “My sister chose…chose…to suffer through the pain of burns that went to the bone…to the bone!...knowing she’d have horrific scars afterward only because she wanted to save your sorry butts. Her words were I can live with scars, but I can’t live without Talus, Jon, and Kar.” The Gryphons went pale, but Rayne was too upset to notice. “You repaid her sacrifice by ignoring her, avoiding her, refusing to even so much as look at her or talk to her because she’s no longer pretty and perfect enough for you. How dare you treat her this way? You’re are not worthy of Salene’s sacrifice, and you’re definitely not worthy of being her Rami. Not even a tiny bit.”

  By the time Rayne paused to take a breath her Rami were growling furiously, their anger equal to hers after hearing what she’d said.