Hearts of Ishira (Hearts of Ishira Saga)

by Bethany Aan

  Besides, Hunter was about to take Amy into custody and quickly see to her punishment, loath though he was to take a life. Sean was already gone by the time Hunter’s man returned to report that Rian’s team, had been on their way to meet with him without Amy. Hunter’s brows gathered together and his gaze followed his brother’s form through the courtyard.

  Perhaps Sean knew something after all.

  “We’ll go to her, then,” he decided, signaling to Mors and Trey to accompany him. “I’ll meet Rian’s team now, and we will all go get Amy from there.”

  “Commander!” a strident voice called from the edge of the training field the as Hunter stepped into the courtyard. He looked up and, at the somber countenances of the men who’d hailed him, walked over to them. Rian and his team did not appear to be happy. He realized it had been unfair of him to ask them to keep the woman, when they had reported that she was not responding to Protocol.

  “Rian, I was just on my way to speak with you.” Hunter waited for them to meet him.

  “Commander,” Rian bowed respectfully. “You asked us to enact The Protocol with regard to the human, Amy. We have done so, and we now have reason to fear that she is more a danger than we thought.”

  “Yes,” Hunter said, nodding. “Sean just did an evaluation on her. Apparently, the human, Amy, is beyond even his abilities to help.”

  Rian’s eyes widened. As a Commander of warriors, Sean was formidable. As a Counselor, though, Sean was renowned for being able to bring people back from the brink of insanity, find the root of their problems, and help them to heal. Everyone knew that if Sean could not help someone, they were not able to be rehabilitated.

  “She has to be… dealt with,” Rian said quietly, his eyes pained. Hunter nodded, but Rian grasped his arm as the commander would have moved by. “Sir, she is pregnant. But, my team and I have discussed it and, we have decided that… much as we all were looking forward to the babe, if we must sacrifice it to prevent those genetics from passing to the next generation, we will.”

  Hunter paused, cursing inwardly. That changed things. He ran a hand over his face, then nodded.

  “Her cousin indicated that Amy has a past that accounts for her mental state, so I doubt genetics are at fault. However, we must save the baby.” He thought for a long moment. “There is no help for it. We’ll incarcerate Amy with heavy security, until the babe can safely be taken and then we will execute her.”

  The team looked hopeful at that, and nodded their agreement. Hunter sensed their intense desire and unconditional love for their child, the grief they were feeling at having to make such a decision. Hunter was humbled by their willingness to sacrifice the babe for the good of the colony. His heart broke for his men. He wasn’t sure he could have made the same decision.

  “Where is she now?” Hunter asked. “I want to get this over with.”

  “She was in our quarters a few minutes ago, resting.” Avan spat, his scowl going upwards, toward their balcony. “As if she ever does anything that she needs rest for or from.”

  “Should we accompany you, sir?” Rian asked.

  “Aye. I want her to be fully aware of why she is being cast away from her team, as well as why she is being put to death.”

  When the men reached the suite of rooms that Rian’s team shared, Amy was nowhere in sight. For a moment, the men looked confused, but alarm set in as they took a few moments to check every room to be sure of her absence before they set out to look for her in the common areas of the compound.

  “She is not here,” Lor said, his face draining of color.

  “Hunter!” Rian yelled from his bedroom. Hunter strode into the room, halted when he saw the red leaves in Rian’s hand. Both men stared at each other, then ran for the door.

  “What is it?” Avan asked, following at a run.

  “Arianna!” Hunter called back over his shoulder. Then he sent a surge of energy toward Ri and Sean, hoping that one of them heard him in time.

  Ri was already floating in her bath, enjoying the peace and quiet while the men were gone. She smiled, lapping the water over her body, enjoying the tiny bubbles that floated in the water and shone on her skin. The bubbles slid off the small mound of her belly. She smiled as she felt a tiny foot or hand move against her. She shouldn’t be feeling movement already, but if the Thorsani gestation period was four months, and humans were nine… perhaps six would be the magic number? She didn’t know, but she would enjoy every moment of this miraculous pregnancy, use every ounce of her energy to protect and nurture these babies.

  She lay there for a long time, listening to the sweet, soft music from her computer. Her eyes were still closed when she heard the front door open. Probably one of her new family members, returning from the meeting. She figured that Hunter would be busy for awhile, dealing with Amy.

  She lost a bit of her happy-floaty feeling at the thought of what was going to happen with Amy, and her part in the girl’s execution. But then she remembered Jace after the slider attack, lying so very still and pale in the med center. The tiny kernel of guilt that she had been hanging onto disappeared. This world didn’t need a psychopath running around amok, and Ri feared that Sean was right, that allowing Amy any access at all to other beings was just inviting trouble. Her execution was the only answer.

  Sighing, Ri forced herself to sit up and actually start washing herself, but sent out feelers to see who was in the apartment. It was Sean. He wasn’t heading her way, but seemed to be restlessly pacing. She figured her quiet time was over, but after their short talk in the courtyard earlier, Ri decided that perhaps it was time to let down her mental walls and get to know Sean a little better.

  She made quick work of shampooing her hair, combed oils through it as conditioner. She rinsed and then reached for the body soap that she had learned to make at Hunter’s side. The bottle slipped in her hand, coated with oil, though she was always careful to wipe the bottles clean after her baths.

  She wondered at that, but only as long as it took for her throat to start closing.

  The mental bursts hit him at the same time. One came from Hunter and was nothing but Arianna’s name exploding into Sean’s head. The other was from Ri herself, in the bathroom.

  Sean didn’t stop to think, didn’t wonder, but followed instinct. His hand knocked into a med kit as he swept past the kitchen island and on impulse, he grabbed it. He heard a crash in the bathroom and broke into a run, thinking Arianna had fallen. There was a frenzied knocking on the door, but he ignored it as he ran into the bathroom and slid to his knees at Ri’s side.

  Her face was already turning dark red, her lips blue, and though she was still conscious, her eyes were closing as she ran out of precious air. He opened the med kit, frantically connecting with Hunter and begging for advice. But it was Ri herself who responded, with a weak surge of mental energy, giving him the image of the correct syringe. Sean jammed the needle into her neck, injecting the contents quickly. She flinched but took it, her eyes locking with his as they both waited for the meds to take effect.

  She didn’t appear to respond right away and was losing consciousness, so he looked at the kit again. There was a tube that he might be able to get down her throat and keep her airway open until the nanos worked. He imagined what he needed to do and she mentally told him to hurry his ass up. Her eyes squeezed shut at the pain of the tube being unceremoniously worked down her closing throat, but her color almost immediately began returning as air whistled through the tube. She closed her eyes in relief when the nanos began their work, as well. But she was fighting for every tiny bit of oxygen she could get.

  Unable to do more than that with his limited medical knowledge of her species, Sean held her head above water, his hands cradling her skull. He poured every bit of his energy into her, staying with her, urging her to hold on. She gratefully accepted his power, using it to keep her breathing as even as possible, to keep panic at bay.

  The sheer will she was exerting to stay alive astounded him. He had know
n warriors with less determination, and those had been superior fighters. This human woman was tiny to him, but so full of life, will, and strength that it would have brought him to his knees, were he not already on them.

  While her defenses were down, he was able to catch more of a glimpse into her soul, and when he did, he saw with clear understanding exactly why his brothers were so fiercely in love with her. He feared that he had already followed their example, and he had known her less than a month, space-chat included.

  She stirred, sent him a mental image of the med center and Jace. He took just a moment to gather his strength. Shaking with reaction and emotion, Sean closed his eyes and leaned down over the lip of the tub until their foreheads were touching as he told her how brave and strong she was, that she’d held on long enough, and that he would get her to the med center immediately. Rising, he dragged her wet body from the tub and carried her to the bed long enough to wrap her in a blanket, before heading out of the bedroom with her in his arms.

  He came to a sudden stop just outside the bedroom.

  Amy was there, standing in the way, an impish grin on her face, her breasts thrust forward, her hands behind her back as she swung side to side coyly. When he looked into her eyes, Sean went cold with fear. This woman had dropped over the edge into complete insanity.

  “There you are, Sean!” she said brightly, as though they were passing in a hallway or the courtyard, not in his family’s quarters, with him holding her dying commander in his arms. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Yes,” he said, carefully backing up and placing Ri on the bed. Then he went back, shut the door and faced Amy. “I bet you have.”

  “Is our little Commander sleeping?” Amy asked curiously, her lovely little face twisted with nasty glee. Sean dug ruthlessly into her brain, hoping to find some shred of sanity, but there was none. Not even the little bit he had sensed only an hour ago. Worse, she sensed him in there and threw up a mental shield made of pure hatred. Sean staggered from the powerful blow.

  “Aww… she’s had such a tough time here. Maybe she’d be better off somewhere else, hmm?” Amy asked, tsking as though she actually cared about Arianna.

  “Like where,” Sean asked softly. He could sense Hunter on his way, could even hear boots on the stairs. He just needed to keep Amy away from Ri for a few moments longer.

  “Like in Hell,” Amy said in an eerily childlike voice. She sobered and leaned forward, admitted in a conspiratorial whisper, “That’s where bad little girls go, you know, when they tell on their daddies for loving their little girls too much.”

  Sean swallowed bile, sickened and saddened by the reason that Amy truly was too far gone, could no longer be helped. His sympathy vanished, though, when she smiled brightly at him, then pulled a laser pistol from behind her back, aiming it at the door.

  “To Hell. I’m gonna make sure she gets there. I want to have a friend waiting for me.” Her face fell, leaving her looking like a spoiled, petulant child. “But she’s not really my friend, is she? She took my boyfriend. Hunter liked me best, you know. So did Jace. So did you, didn’t you? You all loved me, but she stole you from me. She used her witchy mind powers and made you all fall in love with her, instead. You like her now. Why do you like her better than me? I’m prettier and I’m not fat.” Her head cocked to the side as she pondered that. She shrugged. “Nope. A friend wouldn’t do something like that. But I’m gonna send her to Hell anyway. I think you lovely men will be happier with her not here, won’t you? You deserve someone pretty, like me.”

  Sean sent a mental command for Hunter to hurry once more, staring at the barrel of the gun. This woman was absolutely lost to her delusions.

  “But you’re in my way, aren’t you, pretty kitty?” Amy purred, moving closer.

  Her words confused him for a moment, since he didn’t know what a ‘kitty’ was, or why she would call him that. But Sean wasn’t going to leave the door. He would not take the chance of letting Amy get near enough to Arianna to cause more damage. He was distracted for just a moment as he felt Ri’s suddenly renewed distress, felt her pain and her helplessness as she fought for air. She needed another shot. Even around the tube, her throat was closing and her airways were swelling too much. She was lucid enough to let him know that. But she was too weak to get to the kit, when he visualized where it had landed.

  His distraction cost him. Amy was closer now, singing an eerie little made-up song about pretty kitties. But he felt Hunter coming, very close now, and knew that Arianna would be safe.

  When Hunter and Jace burst through the door, distracting Amy for a second, Sean lunged forward, gripping the hand with the gun and twisting it sharply. Amy, in that split second, realized that her plans were about to be spoiled. With the strength born of insanity and vindictiveness, she wrenched her arm from his grasp and pulled the trigger with a fierce shout of triumph.

  Many blaster shots sounded at the same time. Two from Trey and his team, at least one each from Rian’s team, and one from Amy’s gun. Her forehead exploded outward, spattering Sean with blood and flesh, bone and gore. But he had been thrown back against the wall and was slumped there now, clutching his middle, the pain incredible. He slid slowly towards the floor.

  Hunter stopped for a moment, his tortured eyes showing the conflict in his soul. He had to choose between the brother he’d only just got back and his mate, the mother of his children.

  “Go!” Sean managed to grit out as he slumped to the floor. Jace followed Hunter, as Trey and his team fell to Sean’s side, immediately going to work on his wound.

  Sean lost consciousness, satisfied that he had kept their woman alive just long enough.

  “She’s still awake,” Hunter said, stroking Arianna’s wet hair from her face and holding her bleary, pain-filled gaze with his. As Sean had done, he fed his own energy into her, lending her the strength she needed to hang on through the poison’s rampage through her body. “I’m keeping her with us. Jace, hurry!”

  “Sean’s been shot,” Jace said as he thrust a syringe into her neck and a booster into her upper arm. Hunter nodded.

  “He’s still alive,” Hunter said after a moment of mentally searching the outer room. “The medics are with him. Dammit, Shouldn’t she be responding by now?”

  “Yes,” Jace said, then his eyes widened and he frantically emptied the other three syringes from the pack into her body. When Hunter stared at him in question at the high dosage, Jace said weakly, “The babies. The nanos might be trying to save them first. I didn’t allow for that. Hell, knowing Ri, she’s probably sending all her energy to them first, too.”

  Another minute passed with Hunter murmuring to Arianna to hold on and Jace wrapping her more securely in the blanket. Finally, her breathing leveled out a bit. Hunter breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief and thankfulness, and rose with her pain-wracked body in his trembling arms.

  “Ri,” Jace spoke quickly, softly, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “We can’t take the tube out yet. I don’t know if you’re going to have another reaction before we get you to the med center. But I’ll get it out as soon as we have you there, okay?”

  She nodded weakly, her eyes still closed, and let the men do what they needed to do.

  “I’m beginning to hate this place,” Hunter growled, sitting in the chair he’d dragged between his brother’s and his mate’s beds. Jace scowled wearily at the machines hooked up to Ri’s body. Sean was asleep in the next bed. He needed to stay here at least overnight, until Jace was certain the burns were healing from the laser blast. Sean would be rather sore for awhile, but he was going to be fine. The men were here mostly to monitor Arianna, to make sure that she didn’t lose the babes.

  “Right now, I don’t blame you,” Jace yawned. He threw a scowl at Hunter. “I would like to put in a formal request that our little Ri does not spend another moment in the med center for the rest of her days, unless it is to check on a future pregnancy. I don’t care if we have to take double-shifts so that one of us i
s with her every moment of every day.”

  “Request granted,” Hunter sighed. He stared at the hands he was holding in each of his… Sean’s in his left, so that he could send energy to his brother if he needed it, and Arianna’s in his right, for the same reason. He was also adding as much energy as he could to her, sending it toward the babies she carried, who were farther along than they should be, for either of their species, but still too young to survive for very long outside the womb. Hunter’’s heart caught at the thought of losing either of the children, but more importantly, he could not lose his little warrior.

  “Hunter,” Jace said softly. “She will be fine.”

  “The babes?” he asked. Jace shook his head.

  “I do not know, but if it is a choice between them…”

  “Save Ri.”

  “Good. We’re in agreement.”

  “Gotta save Ri,” Sean mumbled drunkenly. Hunter and Jace started then chuckled as their brother stirred a little. He was awake and staring at Arianna’s pale face, his eyes dark and worried. “She okay?”

  “She will be,” Jace said, squeezing his brother’s foot through the blanket. “Thanks to you. We wouldn’t have been there in time.”

  “Had to save her,” Sean said, his eyes closing. “She lights my world.”

  He fell asleep again, leaving his brothers staring at him in baffled silence. Hunter dove shamelessly into his brother’s brain, discovered what had passed between Sean and Ri in the bathroom.

  Groaning, Hunter let out a heartfelt, “Ah hell.”

  Sean awoke several hours later to find the med center dark and quiet. Hunter was fast asleep in a chair between his bed and Arianna’s, still holding each of their hands in his, and Jace was sprawled on a bed he had pushed close to Ri’s. He was also deeply sleeping, but had a hand lying protectively over Arianna’s swollen belly. Sean watched as Ri’s fingers tenderly stroked Jace’s hand where it lay, and darted his eyes up to hers. Sensing his gaze, she looked up at him and smiled wearily.