by K H Lemoyne
He hissed but held her in place for a full minute, maybe two. Then he let her go. The suddenness of his release snapped her backward. Her butt landed gracelessly on the floor.
“Check your fingers,” he said through his teeth as he bent to check his abdomen.
She shook her head and cradled her hand to her chest. He really was crazy. That explained Xavier’s problem. They were all insane, masochistic cretins.
The initial injury had caused her hand to go rigid, quelling her movements. Oddly, now her fingers bent with no sensation. She lifted her hand and clenched her jaw, preparing the worst swear words she could remember, and shot a quick look at her hand.
Her skin, previously lacerated and raw, now sported tender new flesh—no scab, no bleeding.
“If you breathe, you live longer.”
With a scowl, she forced an exaggerated breath in through her nose.
“Come here. It will also heal faster if you just trust me.”
She glanced at her fingers and back at him, then contemplated his intense expression and outstretched hand. Being needed was one thing. Trust was a whole other issue. Still, she closed the fingers of her healed hand slowly, considering he might be right, and sidled next to his hip. His hand cupped her more wounded hand and moved it back to his stomach with a gentleness that had been absent the first time he’d grabbed her.
“I suspected my skin would have been enough, but your wounds were too severe.” His muscles tensed under her hand, the only indication she had of any reaction from him. Pain, most likely. He applied her healed hand to his flesh as well.
For minutes, they waited in silence, her hand on him, his fingers covering hers. The procedure aligned her close to him, her forehead inches from his chest, her elbows settled lax against his side. The pain faded within seconds of his touch. Euphoria replaced the searing heat.
Turen lifted one hand to check it and cursed.
She didn’t know the cause. She didn’t care.
Her eyes remained closed as her cheek sank to rest against his chest. The euphoria dissipated as lightness and buoyancy blossomed. If he released her, she would surely float to the ceiling and bob like a helium balloon.
Turen curled Mia’s hand and pressed it to a healthy section of his chest with a strangled sense of desperation. Damn it all, this wasn’t supposed to happen. “Mia?”
He counted beats for her pulse until he convinced himself she’d only passed out. With a quick glance at his own body, he inspected the healed flesh that had moments ago been a ragged open wound. Until Mia’s hands had covered him. His people healed more quickly than humans did, but it should have taken days for a wound of such size to heal with his manacles on. He was trying to heal her, not the other way around.
What the hell had happened?
He released an exasperated breath, shook his head, and leaned back against the cold stone. With his eyes closed, he fingered her hair and waited. They were lucky the process only sapped her energy. Too long and he could have caused her irreparable harm.
Nothing about her made sense. A human who managed to breach Xavier’s shields. One who could visit Turen night after night. The metal of his manacles caused her physical wounds. Yet none of the guards received injury the many times he’d been shackled and unshackled. He was immune to harm from the metal. And now she could heal him.
Was this the reason for her appearance? It damn well didn’t work for him.
The tingle inside him had started the moment he noticed the energy begin to drain from her. He couldn’t stop her in time. She didn’t have the power or strength of his people, and certainly not the stamina to heal someone this way. Could she even fold back home in this condition? A fold in her sleep was one thing, but he didn’t know if the healing had injured her, which was too risky.
He traced his fingers traced down the side of her face, careful not to let the metal of his restraints touch her skin and concentrated on the feathery touch of her breath on his skin. He needed the constant assurance she was alive.
Quick calculations ran through his mind as he assessed the length of time since the guards had dumped him here and when they might come again—perhaps a day, more at best, several hours at the very least. With Turen’s recent cell changes, Rasheer’s attentions were more erratic. Either his other duties kept the Captain of the Guards busier, or he didn’t know where Turen was.
Turen didn’t care as long as Rasheer offered no new surprises tonight and there was enough time to ensure Mia was healthy and gone. Then he would figure out a way to keep her gone for good, because at this rate, she created more problems than he could solve.
Unconscious or injured, she would become a weapon for Rasheer to use against him. Turen would acquiesce to anything to keep her safe and rightly so. She was human. She was innocent. She was also a weakness for him, as much as her presence lifted his spirits.
The rhythm of her breathing changed, and her lashes brushed against his chest. He used those last few seconds while she regained consciousness to memorize the softness of her skin and the silky texture of her hair. It’d been a long time since he’d sought the intimate company of a woman. Never one he felt so compelled to protect. Her continued visits were becoming a temptation.
“Turen.” She pushed against his chest to look at him. His hand dropped to rest on her waist, feeling the play of her curves under the layer of cotton beneath his palm.
She blinked, resting her forehead back on his chest for a second, but pushed back again as if the intimacy made her uncomfortable. He removed his hold to give her freedom.
“What happened?”
“You passed out on the job.”
She opened her mouth and then snapped it shut with a frown. He turned her hands over for her review. “They’re healed.”
Her frown morphed as she opened her mouth to deny the result, then she just sat there.
“And it sapped you enough you passed out.”
She glanced at his chest and followed her gaze with her fingers. They briefly drifted across the smooth, scarred skin of his abdomen, and he couldn’t withhold the flinch. “And…”
“It would seem the process had reciprocal consequences,” he continued.
Her hand jerked back and then her brows knitted together but she remained silent. Turen fought back the desire to touch her lips as she continued to stare at him. Did she expect to find answers there in his eyes? He hoped not.
“Maybe I’m here to heal you?”
“No.” He shook his head. Grasping her fingers, he drew them close and pressed her knuckles to his lips. “We will avoid that at all costs.”
Her mouth pursed, stubbornness replacing confusion, and he spoke quickly to quell the dangerous logic he knew she would pursue next.
“If these two wounds depleted your energy enough to knock you unconscious, then any more could be fatal.” He released her hand. “I think you should try to rest, sleep, and let it carry you back home. I don’t want anyone to find you incapacitated.”
***
Mia shook her head, rejecting the idea. She needed more answers, and playing the sleeping damsel wouldn’t offer resolutions. With a glance to her backpack, she grabbed a shoulder strap and scooted back beside Turen. “I’m not tired yet. Tell me about Xavier.”
He drew a deep breath, but didn’t object and guided her head to his shoulder. The implication that he hoped she would fall asleep was obvious. She ignored the gesture and relaxed against him, even as his hand dropped to her knee. He kept his manacles away from her skin as his thumb brushed slowly against her.
“Xavier was born a leader. He organized, motivated, bullied, and manipulated all of us at the Sanctum. He alternated father, brother, and tormentor.”
Such a long way to fall from respected leader to drug czar.
“We didn’t risk venturing from the Sanctum for fear of bringing back the virus. Once we reached maturity, several with the necessary skill tried to develop tests and procedures to check for the virus. It took years
to gain the knowledge. We had no assurances, but we grew bored. Only Xavier would forage for months at a time and return to stay in isolation for days until the procedures deemed him ‘clean.’ He brought new technologies, news of the human cities. He took the risks and determined where we could head safely, if only for short durations.
“At one point, he left and returned with Maitea, his mate, a lost descendent of one of our people. The two of them were like night and day. He was strategy and calculations. She was art and laughter. She could draw, paint, and sing, but more importantly—she made him laugh. I’d never seen Xavier happy until Maitea.” Turen paused.
Mia let him sit with his thoughts. His tone had changed to softer, sadder with the mention of Xavier’s mate. Mia tried to give him space while he struggled with his demons.
“Xavier was a hard man, but with Maitea, he was different. He worshiped her.”
Turen shook his head at some memory, the softness of his voice now tinged with grief. “It had been so long since a mating in our society. Most of us had forgotten, and some were too young to know the evidence of a true bond. Xavier and Maitea brought hope, renewed energy. With them came the belief that our people would not fade away. When Maitea became pregnant there was a great deal of celebration.”
His hand lay unmoving on Mia’s knee and a chill started in her bones. The story was about to take a downturn, and any stall to keep him in the good old days for a few moments longer was worth her time. “You and Xavier were good friends?”
“Once I came of age, I pledged my allegiance to Xavier. I would have given my life for him…and his family.”
“Were there many of you?”
“When we retreated to the Sanctum after the virus, there were about sixty of us. Many more never made it to safety. Xavier and several others were seventeen, a few eighteen. They were the oldest to survive. Many were only babies and toddlers—it took a long time for them to give up on parents who never came for them.”
Mia waited for the tightness to let go of her chest. Raw grief clung to his words, making it hard for her to hold back her sorrow. Faced with the extinction of their race, his people had pulled together as children to survive. No wonder he was reluctant to let Xavier go. Whatever had gone wrong between them had torn apart the two men who’d survived as brothers.
“I wasn’t there when the trouble began.” He gave an odd laugh. “I hadn’t been there in too long.”
A strange hesitation laced his words and Mia puzzled at the change. He tensed beside her and his muscles shifted.
“Their baby had problems. He died in the womb. And then Maitea killed herself.” He stared at the cell wall, his thoughts somewhere else in his darker past, and she very much regretted her questions about Xavier.
“Our people are very connected to our children, to our mates. I don’t mean we love them more than humans do. But we mate only once and we feel each other’s emotions, so…” He paused and shrugged. “Perhaps it is more. Fathers have an early physical tie to our children, communication from conception. When her child died, Maitea and Xavier both would have felt the severing of that connection, a physical and emotional loss.”
Was it pain in Turen’s voice? His fingers tightened on her knee. No, the harshness sounded more like guilt. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder in a gentle tug to bring him back to the present.
“Evidently Maitea became a different person after the death their child—disconnected, unstable…” He removed his hand. “It’s hard to imagine her as anything but full of life.”
Mia held her breath. His voice had changed yet again, the inflections soft and gentle. Adoration? She wondered if he was aware how much he sounded as if he was in love with Maitea. Maybe the guilt grew from those feelings. With only one mate and several dozen unattached men, Mia imagined every Guardian male had been in love with Maitea.
Then again, Turen carried the burdens of others the way some people carried spare change. She hoped he didn’t actually fault himself for what happened to Xavier and his family. The silence brought her out of her own musing, and she realized he had stopped speaking.
“So what happened?”
The tension returned to his muscles. “Xavier spiraled down with her. He was unable to pull her out of her depression, and he was unwilling to step away himself.” He angled his head toward her. Though they couldn’t see each other, she felt his scrutiny anyway.
“This probably sounds too normal to you. I know human parents love and mourn their children, and humans commit suicide.”
“But your people are different.” She wanted to inject humor, but he had sounded so sad, and she had to admit that waiting two hundred years for a partner might result in a different outlook on life.
“We’d never had these issues.”
“How can you be so certain? You said you have no access to information from your past.”
He shook his head. “We don’t catch human diseases. We can heal most wounds ourselves, all because of our tie to life for a purpose greater than just survival. We are painfully aware of that purpose—the ramifications of failure are too great.”
The weight of thousands of souls would be heavy. Unable to bring up how she knew the truth, she remained silent.
“After Maitea and the baby died?” Mia asked, dreading the answer.
“Xavier insisted Maitea had been drugged, that their deaths were murders. It was impossible to reason with him. The implication that one of our own intended the result was unacceptable. One of our scientists tested Maitea’s remains and found nothing.
“When Xavier’s accusations remained unproven, he became desperate, angry. He removed himself from the Sanctum, having violent altercations when approached by any of our brethren. For a while, he released hybrid creatures against the Sanctum in attack. Over the decades, he’s established this…” Turen waved a hand to indicate the walls and gave a bitter laugh. “A testament to his total abandonment of our life’s purpose. He rivals any human drug trafficker.”
A long, hard fall, indeed. “What did your people do?”
“We organized. We fought to keep him from destroying us. Those of us with the most experience tried to confront him. No one succeeded in contact. The hybrids kept us at bay. We’d hoped with his isolation the rage would burn out, but he hasn’t changed.”
Not all of this made sense. She needed another turn with the shimmering screen to pick the details apart more carefully.
“So everyone assumed Xavier was just blowing smoke? That there was no drug and he wanted justification for the loss of his wife and child, a way to condone his own rage?”
“That is what the evidence indicated.”
“You don’t buy that?”
“I find it hard to reconcile the outcome with the man I knew and the reality of who our people are. There are too many questions unanswered.”
She agreed, yet Xavier held Turen here. “You think there’s a possibility she was drugged?”
“I am willing to concede what happened was not normal. I don’t have proof.”
“What would someone have to gain by concocting such a scheme?”
“It created incredible chaos within our structure. Began a civil war with Xavier and unleashed the creatures he created in retaliation. His change posed a threat we needed to arm and train against. The schism diverted us from our collective purpose to return to existence in the human world. Our women are hidden against the threats and our men train and fester without hope.”
“So someone interested in a total shake-up would benefit.”
“It has worked to that end.” Turen picked up a blanket by his side, draped it over her, and tucked it in around her feet. A signal that sharing was done for the night. Couldn’t say she blamed him. “Perhaps you’ve learned enough of my history for now. Try to get some rest. And Mia…”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“You are not here to save me.”
Mia tilted her head to look at him. Perhaps they would save each other.
CHAPTER 10
Mia closed the refrigerator door, slid energy drinks and food into the backpack, and headed to the wingback chair by the fireplace in the living room.
The last several nights she had fought any attempt to let herself “fold” to Turen, as he had termed it, with bad side effects. The sleeping pills altered her body rhythms and left her nervous and out of sorts. The attempts at white noise to distract her mind kept her awake all night and left her exhausted and irritable the following day.
No more fighting the fold.
Whether Turen wanted it or not, her determination for solutions outweighed his dictate for avoidance. She’d given his way a fair shot. Staying home resolved nothing, with the exception of the response she’d received from her email.
A few years back she’d done several articles, recounting her interviews of true-crime author, J.T. Mason. The articles followed Mason’s research of a several decades’ old mob hit. Even with time to dampen the facts, the details proved more raw and gritty than Mia had anticipated, but she learned a great deal. Mason’s reputation stemmed from his ability to get to facts not even the police could uncover.
Over the course of the interviews, they’d formed a friendship and now kept in contact when their professional objectives intersected. They both understood the need for discretion and diligence. Mason’s strata of information intersected with the Tucson Police department—the location of Isabella’s last meeting for Turen. Mason had confirmed the discovery of a female body and that of the undercover cop found dead with her within the timeframe of Turen’s meeting.
Mia deliberated whether this breached her promise to Turen of silence. Yet logic dictated she could get information he couldn’t. She would just have to deal with the fallout of her decision later.
Her email to Mason left the request for help with information on Isa’s death open-ended. Whatever Mason could provide would be useful. Mia stated her role as an intermediary for a possible relative of a missing woman living in Tucson. Her contact was overseas in the service and wanted more details on his missing cousin. Mason wouldn’t pry. Instead, he would expect exclusive rights if she found something to break the case open.
