by Nya Rawlyns
“Come on, Caty. Breathe. For me.”
Caitlin sputtered and coughed up blood, but she opened her eyes and stared at Trey in horror. “You’re not dead,” she gurgled.
“No, and neither are you. Caty, hon, don’t talk. I can barely understand you.” She looked perplexed and opened her mouth to speak but he placed a finger over her lips. “You may have punctured a lung. Now that I know what’s wrong with you, I can fix it but you have to help me.”
She mouthed ‘how’ and gripped his arm, trying to pull herself out of the water.
“No, no, you have to stay in the water.” He wasn’t sure how to tell her that she’d shifted, let alone the particulars. “You transformed and saved us. Now be quiet for a minute while I think how best to do this.”
Caitlin grew aware of a hollowness in her chest, almost an absence of feeling. She couldn’t detect a rise and fall, yet she sensed the oxygenated blood rushing through her arteries. Horrified, she rasped, “Oh my God, I’m a fish?”
Trey smiled. “Not exactly, hon. You didn’t grow scales anywhere I can see, but you have gills.”
“G-g-gills?”
“Yeah, that’s how you’re breathing. Let me fix the rib and get it back in place. I can heal the tear, but you have to work with me once I do that, okay?” She looked at him quizzically. “You have to shift back once I get the lung inflated. Can you do that?”
Caitlin paled, her body rigid, in full panic mode. In truth, she had no clue how she’d changed, or even when it happened. Apparently, her lover wasn’t the only one whose body took over in a crisis, but that didn’t help her now. She realized if they didn’t get her lungs functional, she’d be spending the rest of her life in an aquarium.
Trey busied himself pulsing energy into her rib cage, then he laid his hands on her breasts and kneaded gently. Caitlin murmured ‘pervert’ as he gave her his best leer. Satisfied that the lung would hold air, he told her, “Now it’s your turn. Just concentrate. That’s my girl.”
Caitlin tried holding her breath but the proto-gills seemed to function independently. She groaned, “I can’t.”
“You can and you will, or by the gods...”
Caitlin husked, “Choke me.”
“What the hell?”
“Shut off the air to the gills. Please.” She lifted her head out of the water and guided his hands to her neck. “Do it. There’s no other way.”
Reluctantly, Trey pressed the narrow openings closed as her body jerked spasmodically, struggling against the pressure. When her eyes rolled back in her head, he knew he’d lost, that in the end, he’d been the one to destroy the only good thing in his life. He moaned his agony as he stroked her neck, now smooth, free of the slits but still she did not breathe.
He pulled the limp body into his lap, silently cursing the fates and his gods, and pinched her nose shut, breathing life into the only creature he’d ever loved.
“Looks like you’re too late there, mate.”
Trey looked up at the three men holding Uzis inches from his head and wondered again why his life and his beliefs were built on lies. Resigned, he set Caitlin on the ground and prepared for his last battle.
The one nearest his position stared intently and said, “Hey.”
“Shut up.” The man on his right glared at the interruption. “You. Up. Hands behind your head. You know the drill.” He pulled Trey off the ground and slapped handcuffs over his wrists. “Okay, move it. I’m sick and tired of chasing you all over this fucking hellhole. You’re going back to Daddy. Alive or dead. Don’t make any difference to me.”
Trey twisted away and swung his good leg in an arc but the other leg gave way as his bones separated. The man swore at the near miss. Trey went down in a red haze of pain and anger. Someone spit out, “Shut him down,” as his head exploded and he sank into semi-darkness, minimally aware but unable to react. Voices gurgled off in the distance.
“Uh...”
“Now what?”
“This one isn’t dead.”
Boots stomped, the ground reverberating along his back. Whoever it was muttered, “Don’t look like much of an asset.”
The leader said, “Pick her up and carry her back to the other chopper. We’re not being paid by the hour and it’s getting dark. I want off this rock today.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Trey, welcome back. You had us concerned.”
“Father.”
Trey settled himself on the leather couch in his father’s spacious office. He held back a grunt of pain as the medic arranged his damaged leg onto an ottoman set nearby for his use. The cast encased his leg from ankle to upper thigh, leaving him little range of motion. The medic placed a pillow behind his back and fussed with an IV feeding morphine into his system, then nodded to his capo and left the room.
He avoided making eye contact with his father. The young boy desperate to please the patriarch and prove himself to his older brothers warred with the fortress of spite and hatred he’d carefully constructed as a man. Instead he focused on his leg, pondering why anyone had bothered to go to so much trouble to save his miserable hide when all he wanted to do was crawl into a hole and die. Why did they care when he was no longer any use to any of them?
He struggled to contain his emotions for he understood that his father would view any incapacity with disfavour. The elder would automatically assume it would strip away his will to live, that the loss of warrior standing would be a burden too great to bear. Such had always been their way. However, the old man had already lost one son in this debacle so it was possible he might do whatever was necessary not to lose another.
“I apologize, boy. There was too much damage and you were in no shape to self-heal, even in stasis. Our people opted to take you to the hospital. Good thing.”
“Tell me about this ‘good thing’. How bad is it?”
“Compound fracture, severed artery, torn soft tissue and other things. You’ll need rehab. The best our healers have to offer.” Gunnarr settled onto the couch, leaving a wide space between them, a measure of respect for his son’s still lethal abilities. “This wasn’t all due to the fall, was it?”
“Let’s just say they were less than gentle in handling me.” An involuntary shiver ran down his spine in remembrance of the savaging he’d suffered. “I wish you hadn’t bothered. Why didn’t those apes just let me bleed out? It would have saved you a hell of a lot of trouble.”
Gunnarr ignored the implication and continued, “You might lose some range of motion. I’m told there are still issues with your hip. But we’ll see.”
“Issues.”
“Hip replacement is an option. But let’s get you through the rehab first and then let our medics decide the best course of action.”
Trey muttered, “Dammit.” He stared at the cast on his right leg, eyes unfocused as the drugs cascaded through his system. He’d need time to formulate a plan for escape, not that he had anywhere to go. He would be nothing but a liability to his uncle, if indeed Gothi even wanted him back. He thought it odd that his father’s men had been the ones to pluck him out of that hellhole of a dimension. How had they accomplished that little feat of legerdemain? Did Gothi know it was possible, and if he did...? Trey would let that question air for a while. It had too many implications that led down paths that could turn his world on its ear, even more so than it already had. It was likely his father had access to superior technology, yet that still did not explain how they had tracked him to the unmapped Portal. The more he pondered the odd sequence of events, the more questions he had.
“Why?” He wasn’t sure what he expected as an answer, if indeed his father would even understand what he wanted to know.
Gunnarr looked up, surprised that Trey could mentally function given the level of drugs in his system. He’d withheld the seriousness of his son’s injuries. He’d had to argue and bully the surgeons into not amputating the leg. It had taken fourteen hours and a team of the best orthopaedic specialists on the East Coast to perfor
m what they called a miracle. After that he’d called in chits from every clan leader, bargaining for the best of their healers to be sent to headquarters. His autocratic demands had put his organization under a heavy burden. He had yet to figure out how to turn the situation to his advantage. His position of Capo now rested on shifting sands.
Gunnarr pushed off the couch and walked to his desk, avoiding Trey’s question, for he knew exactly what the boy wanted to hear. He had no clear answer for the whiplash change of heart he’d had when he’d seen his offspring near death in the hospital.
Pulling out his desk chair, he sat heavily and brushed a hand over his eyes as he mentally ran through his options. He could lie, but his son was too smart to buy simple avowals of fatherly love and concern. That this young man had chosen a path at odds with tradition and in opposition to the best interests of family and clan was partially his own fault. He’d engineered the situation, in collusion with Eirik. He’d made that particular bed, not his son. It was something he could never admit, ever. The clans would see it as weakness and he was already under siege by the Miami group who daily impinged on his lucrative arms business.
Trey’s hiss of pain brought Gunnarr back to the question hanging between them.
“Can I get you anything? I can call the medic and have him give you something else.” He reached for the intercom button but Trey mumbled, “I’m fine,” as he adjusted his position to take weight off his hip. Gunnarr decided to go with the logical rationale first so he stated with finality, “Tradition.”
“That’s an excuse.”
“It’s a reason, boy. And it wouldn’t hurt for you to pay more attention to it.”
“We broke with that generations ago, Father. I made a choice. The old ways no longer pertain to us. I’m surprised you even came for me.” Trey grimaced and barked, “I want to know why.”
Gunnarr turned away to hide the lie in his eyes. With ice-cold resolve he said, “We wanted the asset. You happened to have it. Your track record with valuable property has not been sterling.”
“You don’t know anything about that.”
“Oh, but I do. Your uncle filled me in on all the details of your little escapade with the mother.”
Trey clenched his fist tightly enough to dislodge the morphine drip. He looked at it idly, as if relishing the agony to come, hoping to overwhelm the pain of betrayal.
“Gothi ... and you. I should have known.”
“Do you think we exist in a vacuum, boy? We are not as different as you might think. We work together when necessary to save the clans. And to clean up messes made by fuck-ups like you. How the hell you ever survived this long, I’ll never know.”
“The choppers. How?” Why he felt the need to fill in the blanks was a mystery, but the Portals had been his reason for living, his sacred trust. As a guardian he exercised immense power and assumed a terrible burden of responsibility, something hard-wired into his being. For as long as he drew breath, discharging his oath took precedence over everything.
And if I concentrate on honor and duty then maybe I won’t think about her ... maybe.
“Ah, yes, I suppose you are curious about that.” Gunnarr settled back in the chair, content that he was on solid footing as the cat was already out of that bag and he had nothing to lose in revealing what too many people already knew.
“We warded the Portals ... rather, Eirik did as he was the most gifted—more so than the rest of us.” Gunnarr looked out the window, gathering his thoughts. “We needed neutral access points. Despite our precautions—all those efforts to mask our passage through this dimension—we weren’t always successful. And our people suffered terribly, the Inquisition repeated over and over throughout recorded history. We required bolt-holes for when conditions in our dimension became untenable. And, even more, we needed a way to tap into a breeding population to maintain our numbers and seek out others like us.”
“I know all this.”
“Hmm, yes. Well, technology had the potential to be the bane of our existence. Humanoid populations spread throughout the dimensions, with varying levels of ... what should we call it?”
“Sophistication?”
“Exactly. The risk that other worlds might acquire advanced technology and possibly use it against us simply wasn’t worth the risk. Our scientists developed the means to disable most devices, not all of course, but enough to discourage anyone from playing arms dealer to the universe.”
“Did it work?”
“For the most part. It discouraged the more entrepreneurial amongst the clans. We are, if nothing else, a practical group. Even your uncle will look to the bottom line when push comes to shove.”
“How many know?”
Impressed that his son paid close attention despite being in obvious pain, he explained, “As few as possible, our chief scientists of course, Eirik, myself, Tyr and Lorne. Some of the lower ranks have access to certain elements, but generally we guard this knowledge with a blood oath.”
Clenching his fists, Trey struggled to rise. “You risked everything to secure,” he choked on Caitlin’s name, “the asset.” He couldn’t risk uttering it; the pain and loss was still too raw. He needed to keep his options open and avoid revealing the one secret that no one seemed privy to—his bonding to a mate. “Why is ... was she so important?”
“She’s a shape-shifter, full blown. And I can attest to that, though I did not get to see it for myself, but Knutr did.” Gunnarr rose from his seat and paced the room. “Think about it. Eirik’s people have the technology to genetically manipulate for specific traits. To shape-shift? The applications are mind-boggling. To have the means to truly mask our identities in whatever dimension we care to traverse? It would free us from our incarceration, in this dimension and that land of ice we now call home.”
“You both agreed to this course of action?”
“Of course not. But we have convergent interests, and our paths crossed on occasion. Do you think your uncle would pass up an opportunity for such a prize in favour of pursuing petty disagreements?”
Trey hissed in pain. His head spun with each stabbing shock to his system. He had misjudged everyone’s motivations, played his version of the boy scout, do-gooder role to perfection. He’d bought all the lies because he needed something in his life, a higher purpose to fill the empty spaces. He’d been called ‘soul-less’. Even Caitlin thought him a demon—a devil—at first. His mate knew him better than he knew himself.
He barely heard his father barking into the intercom as he floated in and out of consciousness. He thought he was lost, adrift and hollow—without purpose, without a reason to live. He’d been wrong, about so many things. Eirik was no better than his father. They had the same goals, the same bottom line. His uncle just managed to hide his pursuits with elegant phrases and misdirection. The end result was still manipulation and control. His father had never lied to him. He might not agree with his ends or his means, but at least he knew where he stood.
Gunnarr pointed to the medics moving a gurney into position and growled, “I want him under surveillance twenty-four-seven, two per shift. Not one of you goes home until he is functional. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal, sir.”
Gunnarr anxiously watched the men load his son onto the gurney and wheel him out of the office. He’d given Trey just enough to wet his curiosity and perhaps trigger the one thing that would guide him back to his rightful place by his side. He still had the small matter of Bryn’s death and the clan’s expectations for resolution. If he worked it right, he could secure the sympathy vote for a grieving father and a disabled son—surely punishment enough for all involved.
He went back to his desk and placed a call.
“Eirik. He’ll live. But I don’t know if he’ll have full use of that leg. I’ve got every medic at my disposal working on it. Uh-huh. Yeah, whatever your people can do. I know. I’ll have my admin give you daily updates. All right.”
He checked his watch, then went to the w
indow, staring sightlessly at the parking lot far below.
“Capo?”
“Ah, there you are. Have you located...?” Gunnarr paused when he saw the man’s expression. “What is it?”
“We found the other chopper.”
“So spit it out, Kieran. I have enough on my mind. I don’t need to play twenty questions.”
Kieran grimaced and took a step back. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”
****
“Ma’am, if you’ll follow me please.” The orderly led the way into a small office off the observation chamber.
Caitlin followed with difficulty. Her muscles still felt weak, unused. They’d removed the feeding tube the day before but her throat still ached and she could only utter barely audible grunts.
“Please take a seat.” The orderly waved to a hard plastic chair. She sank into it gratefully.
“How are you today, my dear?” Eirik entered, leaning heavily on his cane. “We make quite the pair, don’t we?”
Caitlin smiled weakly. The older man had a courtly way about him that she’d grown fond of. His daily visits had been a welcome fixture in her topsy-turvy world.
Eirik sat on bench set against the far wall. “I’m sorry we don’t have more comfortable accommodations. As you now realize, your safety hinges on keeping your, uh, whereabouts a secret.” He shook his head and frowned. “That little odyssey of yours stirred up a hornet’s nest. We had to deactivate a potentially valuable Portal. And our little secret, the one we’ve guarded from time immemorial? You understand how important it is to safeguard indigenous species from exploitation.”
Caitlin nodded. The older man had explained, candidly and without apparent reservation, the function of the Portals and why oversight was so critical to the stability of all the dimensions.
“So far we seem to have containment.” He bowed his head so she couldn’t fathom his concern.
