Arik
Archai history shrouded the Aomai in whispered secrets and iron-clad rules. Kept separate from the clans, he was unknown, unconnected, unprejudiced. Tradition insisted that the isolated nature of our ultimate healer, the one who could restore not only our bodies but our minds, was necessary for the work he did.
Personally I didn’t trust anyone who never let you see his face.
Tension burned through the silence as the three of us made our journey from the Parthenon to the lair. Neither I nor Sun were willing to give the other an inch, and the healer—well, I guessed silence came naturally to him. The male didn’t speak until I wrangled open the locks on the door and led the two downstairs and into the room where the female lay bound.
She had twisted in her sleep—or what passed for sleep with a raging fever. Her face was turned away from us, but the way her red curls tangled around her head told me she’d been trying to move, maybe escape the heat of her own body as much as her bonds. Her arms lay at awkward angles, wrists coated in rings of fresh blood; she’d pulled on the cotton hard. The sight of that blood did something to me, something I didn’t want to acknowledge. Seemed to be a lot of that going around lately. I’d need to deal with that, I knew—an unacknowledged weakness was a deadly weakness—but later. For now…
The blanket that had covered her shoulders when I left was halfway down her back, revealing the rapid rise and fall of her breathing, the elegant curve of her shoulders, the bruises covering creamy skin. Those dark blotches allowed guilt to creep around the edges of my mind, but I refused it entrance. I’d only done what was necessary, not just to keep her, but to keep her safe.
The two shifters accompanying me didn’t try to control the impact of the scene like I did. Both males rushed the bed. “Release her,” the Aomai commanded in a tone that, despite its seeming calm, refused to be denied.
“You don’t want me to do that,” I assured him.
“Yes,” the healer ground out, “I do.”
I shrugged, an insolent it’s your funeral, and stepped to the opposite side of the bed, drawing my knife to slice through the strips around her wrists. I repeated the process at her ankles, throwing the bits of cloth onto the floor before sheathing my knife and taking care of the gag. I didn’t know why, but I reached for the blanket and pulled it up her body to tuck carefully beneath her arms, hiding the generous side view of the swells of her bare breasts. I grimaced as the heat of her skin seared my fingertips.
When I looked up, it was straight into Sun’s disbelieving eyes.
“A female? You triggered a female?” Disgust twisted through the words. “You know the laws of our clan. Why would you choose a female to feed from?”
“Be thankful she was chosen,” I pointed out, refusing to correct Sun’s assumption. “Maybe if we’d disregarded the law before now, we’d have known there was a latent psych hidden in the human population. Possibly more than one.”
“He didn’t trigger her,” the Aomai said. Holding the blanket in place, he turned the female onto her back, revealing sunken eyes, the rapid pulse at the base of her neck. Panting breaths. The savaged flesh at her throat, where the loosened bandage exposed deep gouges and torn flesh from Maddox’s bite, a mockery of the mark most females wore proudly after their talents were unleashed. “One of the Anigma did this to her.”
I didn’t know what brought the healer to that conclusion, but I didn’t argue it either. I had no need to defend what honor I possessed to them.
The Aomai leaned close, long fingers extending from the black sleeves of his cloak to stroke the area below the female’s wound. My gaze found those fingers, locked there. I tried to shake my head, step back, but the slow crawl of irritation up my spine immobilized me. My griffin rose, forcing me closer to the side of the bed instead of away. A glow spread on the blanket—light from my shining eyes. The frozen wasteland of emotion that made up my soul was breaking apart, cracking and crumbling around a growing shaft of pissed-off I didn’t understand. I wanted to rip the healer’s hands off my female, even knowing she needed him. I—
The Aomai bent closer, too close. To her lips, her skin, her body. My anger built to a roar in my chest. My griffin’s roar, clawing, clamoring, claiming. Mine!
I slammed my eyes shut, spinning the emotion back on my animal, pushing the griffin down, down, down until I could slam the door equally hard on that raging part of myself. She needs the healer, damn it!
The deep breath I took threatened to split my breastbone, but I held it as I opened my eyes.
The Aomai eased back. One hand went to Katherine’s hair to push the wild mass back from her face and neck. He peeled the bandage away completely.
I released the air in my lungs in a hard chuff.
And then Sun appeared at my elbow. All it took was the sight of Sun’s hand reaching toward Katherine’s bared arm and my limited control disappeared like mist. In a single move I slapped the male’s hand away and brought my knife high, point just below Sun’s chin. “Back. Off.”
The room itself seemed to hold its breath. I let it; I wouldn’t be the one giving in.
Anger burned like red flames in Sun’s glittering orbs. “Let us see her, Arik.”
I tipped my head in the healer’s direction. “He can see her. You step back.”
The prince reached out again. My knife point dented the flesh of Sun’s throat, dim light glinting off the metal. My hand was there before his, covering Katherine’s skin. The bright light of anger shone from my eyes, flashing a warning of its own.
“Is she your mate?”
The healer’s question broke through the standoff, his confusion clear despite the hood covering his face.
I hoped my snort hid the matching confusion in my mind. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters,” Sun said. “She needs the safety of the clan. She needs our healer. You can’t keep her here.”
I glared at the prince—my enemy—and aimed my answer with the same deadly intent I used to aim my weapon at Sun’s throat. “She. Is. Mine. She won’t be going anywhere, with either of you. Clear?”
Sun dipped his eyelids, that curiously birdlike blink he’d developed when we were kids. When his eyes opened, they revealed a blaze of rainbow-colored fire. Slowly, deliberately he leaned into the knife. The sharp edge severed his skin like a scalpel, hitting the vein with a quick spurt of blood. His smile was a dare.
I had a dare of my own. “Keep going, brother. It won’t hurt as much as you think.”
The sound of the blanket lifting ripped through the tension more effectively than my knife. With a palm heel to Sun’s breastbone, I threw him backward into the brick wall. I was beside Katherine before Sun’s body hit the floor.
The healer didn’t even glance our way, his entire focus on the female. “Sun, step out.”
Sun picked himself up and walked to the end of the bed. “And him?” He jerked his head toward me.
“If you think you have the power to keep me from her, Prince, go ahead and try.”
“I will do what—”
“Like fucking hell you wil—”
A sharp whistle pierced the air. In the silence that followed, the Aomai seared us both with an unseen stare. “Stop the pissing contest. Sun, out.”
Sun opened his mouth, probably to argue. The Aomai cut him off before he could utter a single syllable. “Out. We’re wasting time. I need to inspect her.”
“No one should see this but you.” Anger vibrated through Sun’s words.
The healer gestured to Katherine’s bare shoulders. “He’s obviously already seen her. Go.” Without waiting to be obeyed, the healer shifted his attention to me. “Get something to clean her wrists with. And one of your shirts.”
Sun hadn’t moved, so neither did I. The healer’s barked, “Now!” got the action started.
I went for supplies, stowing away the need to fight—the healer, Sun, it didn’t matter. If I was fighting, I couldn’t feel the fear—and I could finally acknowledge that’s what it was, fear—that crept in every time I glimpsed Katherine’s waxy, pale skin and the shallowness of her breath. But hell, if the healer could restore her—and Sun wasn’t touching her—I would gladly be the Aomai’s damn errand boy.
“Take care of that hand,” the healer said as I approached. Katherine’s struggles had reopened the wounds on her wrists, and even now blood trickled sluggishly across her skin. I knelt, wet a cloth in cool water, and wrung it out before taking her hand in mine. Ignoring the healer’s unseen but definitely watchful gaze, I cleaned and bandaged, careful not to tighten my grip when the blanket was lifted to reveal a canvas of creamy skin, rounded curves, and ugly wounds.
The healer shook his hooded head, but he didn’t speak and I sensed no judgment aimed my way. After running cautious hands along Katherine’s body and grunting over the circle of bruises around her right arm, the Aomai switched sides with me. On his way, he threw the blanket to the end of the bed.
I blocked out the sight of full breasts and soft curls centered between creamy thighs—and my body’s reaction. It was harder to forget that another male was witnessing the same sight.
An equally thorough exam of that side of Katherine’s body followed. When he finished, the healer covered Katherine again, then sat on the bed opposite me, his hip at her side, facing her.
“Come in, Sun,” he called.
Sun entered the room, shooting me a look that dared me to protest, but I turned away dismissively, making clear what I thought of Sun’s threat. Instead I watched the Aomai.
He tilted Katherine’s chin, exposing the wound on her neck. “What is her name?”
I stayed silent, unwilling to give the healer the tiny bit of information I hadn’t realized I coveted until that moment.
Without comment, the male shifted his hand to Katherine’s head, sifting his fingers through her tangled hair as if searching for wounds. My grumble at the gesture was ignored. “All right, little nameless psych. Let’s see what we have here.”
“There aren’t any open wounds on her head, just the bite,” I told him. “Might want to watch o—”
The advice came too late. A brush of the healer’s hand directly over the swollen, reddened mess of her neck triggered Katherine’s defenses. She thrashed, cried out, the sound harsh but clear despite her unconscious state. The healer jerked back as a brutal slice appeared along his inner forearm. Much deeper and, if he’d been human, he’d be bleeding out.
I sucked in a breath as bloody tears trickled from beneath Katherine’s closed eyelids.
“What the he—” Sun leaned close to examine her. “What is happening?”
The healer turned his hooded face toward Sun. “She’s protecting herself—and it’s costing her.” He left the neck wound alone, instead reaching out a hand to me. I passed him the cloth I’d used on her wrists. The healer cleaned the blood from Katherine’s face before holding the cloth to the wound on his arm.
“She’s dying.”
Panic shot down my spine to ignite in my gut. I narrowed my eyes at the black void where his face should be. “I don’t understand how a bite could do this to her. Shouldn’t her Archai genes have kicked in by now? Why isn’t she healing?” Archai needed medicine as much as humans in severe cases, but cuts and bruises and basic breaks healed on their own within a couple of days. And yet streaks of blood had appeared at her nostrils, more at her eyes, just as it had the last time she’d used her power. I watched warily for the least sign of convulsions.
The hooded head shook back and forth. “Her body is overwhelmed. The blood loss, shock to her system, the triggering. She shows signs of long-term malnutrition and dehydration, most likely from poverty.” He ran a hand lightly over Katherine’s forehead. “Then there’s the constant, uncontrolled sparking of her psych power—very strong power. All of the above combined…”
Archai males had basic telepathic skills, some more powerful than others, but actual psychic gifts were the purview of Archai females. The only Archai males with similar gifts were the Aomai. Every Archai of that line, male or female, had the ability to psychically heal, to use their skill to restore the body and mind from the inside as well as out. That’s what made them the perfect guides for females transitioning into their power.
Females didn’t shift, but in a sense, their brains did. Their extra genetics allowed them to form unique neural pathways in areas of the brain humans had no access to, areas that gifted them with stronger, more powerful abilities. “Like a male’s shifting,” the healer explained, “a female should be able to turn her power off. This female is draining her battery by constantly being full-on, like a shifter who can’t stop transforming and can’t drink blood to refuel.” He wiped the red trickle from around her nose again. “When she uses that power, the surge does even more damage.”
Which explained the convulsions earlier. I hadn’t realized my thumb was stroking back and forth along the rapid flutter of Katherine’s pulse until my surprise stilled it. “Why can’t she control it?”
“Blown connections. The trauma of the attack combined with her age, maybe.” His voice faded to a whisper. The hand resting on her forehead gripped her skull gently, completely encompassing the front. “Without help, she’ll simply fry her brain.”
Without help. “So she’s not too far gone?”
“No.” The healer’s words were distant, distracted, as if he wasn’t really concentrating on what he was saying. “Not too far. The question is, does she want to return?”
I found myself shifting closer, my body and my animal crowding forward to protect my…to protect Katherine. “What do you mean?”
The healer’s snort was a direct contrast to the solemnity his cloak gave him. “You’re an Archai, no matter how long you’ve been away from your people. Living is as much a matter of the will as it is of the body. The longer a female remains untriggered, the closer she walks to madness.” He waved a hand over Katherine’s still body. “She’s into her twenties, definitely, the far end of her time. That combined with the trauma she’s endured may ensure she has no desire to return to this plane of existence.”
Since the few clan females I’d been in contact with had either been babies or already triggered, I hadn’t absorbed that bit of knowledge. I rubbed at the headache forming behind my eyes. Chalk it up to me to choose a female who’d rather off herself than stick around when I needed her.
“Of course she would. But she won’t get the chance.”
The healer’s message hit my mind like an electric charge. I jerked my head up. Beneath the cloak, I swore I saw a silver glow flashed my way.
“You both should find somewhere comfortable to be. Somewhere else,” the healer warned as I opened my mouth to protest. “We need absolute calm. Besides, the healing will take a while.”
Sun headed for the kitchen. I stood and leaned over the bed, giving the female one last, long look of inspection. The blood leaking from her nose and eyes was now a constant trickle. Whatever the healer could do, it needed to be done fast.
“Make sure she lives.”
The healer tilted his head, searing me with that unseen gaze. “Don’t threaten me, griffin. She’ll live, but you I’d have no problem killing. Watch your step.”
My animal gave an angry cry, but I just blinked. Well, hell, aren’t healers supposed to be pacifists? Not that any Archai I’d known was a pacifist, but why did I have to come across a badass Aomai instead of a malleable one? I couldn’t kill the male and still use him.
A suicidal female and a warrior healer. Yeah, just my luck.
Choosing to end the standoff rather than risk everything, I gave the hood a single nod and followed Sun into the kitchen.