Taelon’s wounds continued to heal. Every burn, every raw patch of missing skin, every cut, every bruise, every scar faded as Seth’s hands glowed brighter.
Someone touched her back.
“Are you okay?” Melanie asked.
Lisa hadn’t even seen her approach. “Yes,” she managed to whisper as she struggled to breathe through the cramp.
Melanie pressed gloved fingers to Lisa’s wrist. “Are you in labor?”
“I don’t think so.” She breathed a sigh of relief when the pain eased.
Seth’s hands ceased glowing. When he withdrew them, Taelon’s body was free of wounds, the only reminder of his torture the dark stitches that now decorated healthy flesh. “It’s the baby.”
Melanie shot him a quick look. “What do you mean?”
“The baby feels Taelon’s pain and inadvertently transfers it to her mother.”
Lisa cupped her belly. “What?” The baby felt Taelon’s pain?
Amiriska frowned. “How is that possible? Is the baby an empath?”
“No.” Seth lowered his hands to his sides. “It’s Taelon’s baby.”
Chapter Thirteen
Amiriska gasped and focused wide eyes on Lisa. “You’re carrying Taelon’s baby?”
She nodded absently. Why was everyone standing around as if Seth hadn’t just performed a freaking miracle? He had laid hands on Taelon’s wounds, and now all of them were gone.
Amiriska’s face lit up with a wide smile. “Oh my goodness! Congratulations!” Releasing Lisa’s hand, she wrapped her arms around Lisa and gave her an exuberant hug.
Caught off guard, Lisa hugged her back.
“Ami,” Seth cautioned softly.
Backing away, Amiriska reclaimed Lisa’s hand, her face wreathed with a grin. “I’m going to be an aunt! I can’t believe it! How long have you two been together? How did you meet? Why didn’t he come to me as soon as he arrived? How did the assholes at the base get their hands on him?”
“Ami,” Seth said again.
She glanced up at him. “Yes?”
“It isn’t like that. It isn’t what you think.”
Her smile lost some of its brightness as she looked from Seth to Lisa and back again. “What do you mean?”
Seth kept his somber gaze on Amiriska. “They didn’t meet until the night we blitzed the military base that held them both.”
Amiriska’s smile vanished as she looked at Lisa’s large, protruding belly. “I don’t understand. She must be at least eight months along and—”
“The military captured your brother while you were pregnant with Adira and have held him ever since.”
Amiriska’s face paled. “They’ve had him for three years?”
“A little less than that, but yes,” Seth told her. “They didn’t capture Lisa until just under eight months ago.” He cast Lisa a look of sympathy. “When they did, they put her in a medically induced coma and artificially inseminated her with samples taken from your brother. I assume they wanted to see if they could create an alien-human hybrid.”
Marcus swore. “At Gershom’s bidding?”
Seth sighed. “I don’t know.”
Horror shone in the emerald eyes Amiriska turned upon Lisa. “You didn’t know they were… You had no say in it?”
Lisa could only swallow hard and shake her head.
Seth spoke for her. “She didn’t even know she was pregnant until they brought her out of the coma two days before she and Taelon escaped.”
New tears welled in Amiriska’s eyes. “Oh no,” she whispered. “No-no-no-no-no.” She wrapped her arms around Lisa once more. But this time her hug was almost desperate, as if she wanted to provide comfort and seek it for herself all at the same time. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. Taelon wouldn’t—” Her voice broke. Her hold tightened. “He would never have consented to do this to you. I swear he wouldn’t. He’s a good man and—”
Lisa returned the embrace, patting Amiriska’s back. “I know he is. I know Taelon would never hurt me. He has been nothing but kind to me since we escaped.” And he would be riddled with guilt, she knew, when he discovered that his pain had somehow become the source of hers and the baby’s.
Amiriska released her and stepped back, wiping her eyes. “Does he know?” She sniffed. “I mean… does he know the baby is his?”
“Yes.”
Marcus rounded the table and wrapped his arms around Amiriska. “That must have been a hell of a shock for him.”
The way Amiriska burrowed into his hold made it very clear the two shared a loving relationship.
Lisa found a smile. “It was. Especially since he had never seen a pregnant woman in person before and thought the butchers at the base had put some weird alien parasite inside me.”
Marcus’s mouth fell open.
Amiriska released an involuntary laugh, then grimaced. “Sheesh. I forgot about that.” She looked up at her husband. “There’s a parasite called the yaksaba on Harcos 4 that starves its host, then eats them from the inside out. The hosts actually do look pregnant shortly before the end.”
Everyone stared at her in horror.
Someone back in the living room blurted, “Holy shit.”
Lisa blinked. Had they all been listening in the whole time—everyone in the house?
Too weary to care, she turned to Seth. “Can I touch him now?”
He nodded.
She immediately reclaimed Taelon’s hand and studied him. He was still paler than she thought he should be, but his skin was cooler. Yet he didn’t regain consciousness. “Will he be okay?”
“He should be.” Seth glanced at Melanie. “You’ll have to remove his stitches. Healing him doesn’t force them out. It just seals the tissue around them.”
“Okay.” Melanie swiftly went to work doing so, leaving little dots of blood behind where she tugged each stitch out.
Seth frowned. “I want you to run some scans on him when you’re finished. I sensed the presence of a chemical that wasn’t natural to his body. It’s probably just what’s left of whatever they dosed him with at the base, but—”
Lisa shook her head. “Taelon said they dosed him twice a day. That should’ve worn off within a day or two of our escape.”
Amiriska frowned and studied her brother. “Where’s his ship? Did the military destroy it?”
“No. He said it’s still hidden somewhere in near-Earth space where humans can’t detect it.”
“It is?” Surprise lit Ami’s features. “He didn’t take you to it?”
“No. Because he didn’t want to risk humans getting their hands on any of your technology, he left whatever communication device he usually carries back on the ship and has to contact whoever is in charge up there telepathically.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.”
Lisa shrugged. “He said it normally wouldn’t be. But he can’t seem to use his telepathy with anyone but me.” She rubbed her belly. “He thinks the baby links us and makes it easier for him to talk to me telepathically.”
Alarm entered the green eyes Amiriska turned on Seth. “Something is definitely wrong then. Telepathy is easy for us. They must have used the same drug on him that they used on me.”
Marcus’s arms tightened. “The tranquilizer.”
“Yes,” Amiriska confirmed. “But that should’ve worn off by now.”
Seth motioned to Lisa. “Release him again. Let me make sure I didn’t miss anything.”
Lisa didn’t hesitate to let go this time.
Seth placed a hand on Taelon’s chest.
The little holes from the removed stitches closed almost instantly, leaving his form flawless.
A full minute ticked past.
Lisa shifted her weight from one foot to the other, rubbing her belly anxiously as she waited.
“It’s in his forearm,” Seth abruptly announced.
“What is?” Melanie, Lisa, and Amiriska all asked.
“I don’t know. It resembles sh
rapnel from an old wound, but…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what it is. You’ll have to cut him open and see.”
Melanie repositioned herself and stared at Taelon’s arm. “Where?” She held a hand out behind her. Bastien stepped up beside her and passed her a scalpel.
Seth removed his hand from Taelon’s chest and touched a place on Taelon’s forearm near the bend of his elbow. “Here.”
Lisa bit back nausea as she watched Melanie dip the blade into Taelon’s arm and slice it open. Blood spilled from the cut.
Melanie held out the red-stained scalpel. “Bastien.”
Bastien took the tool from her and set it on a tray beside several other instruments.
Melanie slid a finger into the wound and felt around. “There it is.” Keeping her finger in place, she extended her other hand to Bastien.
He placed a pair of forceps in it.
A moment later, Melanie burrowed into the wound with the forceps and withdrew an oval-shaped, bloodstained object about the same length as a multivitamin but as thin as a beverage stirring straw. She raised it to her nose and sniffed. “Yeah. This is definitely it.”
Lisa stared. “What is that?”
“The reason he couldn’t heal and his telepathy wouldn’t work right,” Melanie replied. “It’s a drug-releasing implant. I don’t know when they put it in there, but it’s been steadily dosing him with the tranquilizer.”
It had? “But Taelon said he saw them inject the drug into his IV. Why would they do that if he was already being dosed by the implant?”
Melanie set the object on a nearby tray. “The implant was probably a fail-safe measure put in place so if—for some reason—someone forgot to dose him, he would still be too weak to get away.” She glanced at Amiriska. “Or Gershom could’ve had them to put it in shortly before he captured us to ensure Taelon wouldn’t be able to sense you—and vice versa—even if they ran a little late dosing his IV.”
Marcus dipped his chin to study his wife. “Did you sense him?”
Amiriska shook her head. “Not at all.”
“I did,” Seth murmured.
Everyone looked at him in surprise.
“You did?” Amiriska asked.
“Yes.” Seth rested a hand on Taelon’s biceps. The cut on his forearm swiftly closed and healed. “I sensed the baby, too. I just didn’t know it at the time.” Straightening, he reached over and took the hand of the tall woman who lingered nearby. “Right before I entered the room you were being held in,” he told Leah, “I thought I sensed Ami and Adira standing behind me. When I turned around, I saw Taelon and Lisa walking past the end of the hallway. But he looked like a network soldier, and she was garbed like one of the doctors, so I didn’t think anything of it.”
Leah leaned into his side. “You were also distracted, eager to find me and the others.”
He nodded and met Lisa’s gaze. “Had I known who you both were, I would’ve had our team escort you to safety.”
Amiriska reached out and brushed her brother’s hair back from his face again. “How did he even find me if he couldn’t feel our connection?”
“He, um…” Lisa questioned the wisdom of confessing and shifted, uncomfortable beneath their regard.
“It’s all right,” Seth said. “You’re safe here.”
She drew in a bracing breath. “Long story short—he tricked your human… soldiers or Renfields or whatever… into thinking he was one of you the night we escaped. We stole a Humvee and—”
“Oh shit,” Marcus blurted. “You’re the couple from the motel.”
She nodded.
“You’d just showered when Roland and I were there, so the scent of soap and shampoo was pretty overpowering and masked much of your scent. I didn’t recognize it when you arrived.”
Seth frowned at him. “What motel?”
“One of the network’s Humvees went missing the night you and the others rescued us. Reordon and Henderson both thought it was destroyed in the explosion, but you know how paranoid Chris is. He told Henderson to try to track it. Henderson did and ended up finding it at a motel not far from the base. So he called Roland in to check it out, and Roland took me with him.”
Seth’s scowl deepened. “I thought all loose ends were tied up except for Lisa’s disappearance.”
They really had been looking for her? Who were these people?
“They were. Except for the Humvee. All network special-ops soldiers were accounted for. But one walked out in his underwear and said he’d given his clothes to one of our own. Henderson wasn’t sure if Gershom fucked with the guy’s mind or what and wanted to know if someone from the base had managed to sneak away.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Marcus shifted his weight and grimaced a little. “We, ah…” He sighed. “Ah hell. We didn’t want to bother you. The night Roland and I checked out the motel, rumor had it you were going to take Leah to see Tomasso and Cassandra, then propose to her.”
Seth released Leah’s hand and curled an arm around her. “Why didn’t you tell me afterward?”
Marcus grinned. “Because you spent the next several hours—as Leah would say—getting your kink on and we didn’t want to spoil the moment.”
Lisa’s eyebrows flew up.
Leah’s lips twitched.
Marcus shrugged. “Nothing more came from the motel thing other than what amounted to a prank call from the bored, not very bright motel clerk. And that happened the day before your wedding, so we were all distracted, getting everything ready.” He turned to Lisa. “How did you keep us from seeing you that night? We heard three heartbeats but couldn’t find you. Where were you hiding?”
“On the bed.”
He arched a brow. “We checked the bed. It was empty.”
Amiriska patted his chest. “Taelon can make people see what he wants them to see.”
Marcus’s black brows drew down in a puzzled frown. “I thought the drug was fucking with his gifts.”
Lisa shrugged. “It was. But he said projecting an image into the part of the brain that interprets visual signals is easier than delving into the part of the brain that stores memories, then combing through past and present thoughts. The whole time Roland was there,” she told Marcus, “Taelon struggled to read his thoughts. He barely managed to access them and see Amiriska before Roland left. We kept hoping you’d both return. But you didn’t. So Taelon made the motel clerk see something that tricked your human soldiers into returning. Then we rode back to their headquarters without them seeing us and Taelon read the mind of an immortal woman there.”
“Eliana,” Seth murmured.
“Yes.” Lisa began to nervously pleat and unpleat the hem of her maternity tunic. “It scared the hell out of me. The soldiers mentioned tying up loose ends and not leaving anyone alive to carry tales. And they all seemed to be afraid of Roland, so we thought he was a bad guy.”
“Damn his antisocial ass,” Seth muttered.
“Sorry,” Roland called from the living room.
Marcus laughed.
“But we didn’t know what else to do,” Lisa continued. “And when Taelon read Eliana’s mind, his nose bled. A lot.”
Ami bit her lip. “I’ve never seen that happen before. Telepathy is easy for our kind.”
“That’s what Taelon said. He ended up passing out after I took over driving. His chest wound got worse afterward, too. But he saw this place in Eliana’s mind, so…” She shrugged helplessly. “Here we are.”
Silence fell.
Lisa didn’t think she had ever felt so awkward and uncertain in her life.
Seth offered her a kind smile. “You’ve had a rough go of it and probably need time to process all of this. We’ve a spare bedroom down the hallway you can use.”
“I don’t want to leave Taelon,” she blurted.
Seth inclined his head. “You are welcome to remain with him here in the infirmary. We can transfer him to a bed in the recovery room, and you can take any of the others
for yourself.”
She hesitated.
“Or,” Seth continued, “if you prefer it, we can move him to the spare bedroom down the hallway and the two of you may share it.”
Amiriska glanced from Lisa to Taelon. Her face turned pink.
Lisa felt heat creep into her own cheeks and cleared her throat. “We’ll take the spare bedroom.”
Melanie frowned. “I’d like to keep Taelon here in the infirmary where I can monitor him.”
“He should be fine once the tranquilizer wears off,” Seth said, and Lisa found the confidence in his voice reassuring. “If Lisa notices anything that concerns her, she can summon you to their room.” He returned his attention to Lisa. “Or me, if Melanie is gone. David and Roland are both powerful healers as well.”
Lisa thought it best to keep her distance from Roland.
Leah smiled. “This house is chock-full of powerful immortal healers, every one of whom would be more than happy to help if either you or Taelon should need them. Basically, all you have to do is poke your head out of your room and say help.”
Seth held up a finger. “If you go into labor, however, and I’m not here, have someone summon me.”
A little trickle of dread curled through her. “Why?”
“Ami had a very difficult pregnancy,” Seth replied, surprising her with his candor. “Her people were infected with a virus that left almost all of the females infertile and made it extremely difficult for the few women who managed to conceive to carry their babies to term. So she required daily healing sessions to keep her from losing the baby.” Releasing Leah, he strode around the foot of the surgical bed and stopped before Lisa.
He was so freaking tall Lisa had to tilt her head way back to look up at him.
“May I?” he asked and looked pointedly at her belly.
Nerves jangling, she nodded.
Seth rested both large hands on her belly and acquired a look of concentration.
Lisa’s heart began to pound as she waited. Since he could heal wounds with a touch, it seemed quite plausible that if combining Earthling DNA and alien DNA had caused any problems with the baby, he would be able to detect it.
The Lasaran (Aldebarian Alliance Book 1) Page 21
