Reede

by Veronica Scott

  Sorren waited below the lip of the overhang and as soon as he saw Reede, he continued his descent.

  Slinging his pulse rifle across his back, Reede breathed another prayer for strength and started down the tricky escarpment, digging in with his talons and acutely conscious how close he was to disaster. His leg felt like a tree trunk attached to his body, hardly responsive at all.

  Halfway down, conscious he wasn’t moving anywhere fast enough, he realized the boulder where he had a precarious hold was twisting under his grip. The side of the cliff began to give way and other boulders fell past him. Rock slide! He hoped his two comrades were out of the direct path. Reede fell, tumbling out of control, his body taking hits from other rocks large and small.

  Fallyn finished cleaning the entire rack of pulse rifles, which she’d volunteered to do today in order to stay busy while other people took care of her job, which was slagging the Stinger. Cleaning rag on her lap, she sat on the stool and stared off into space. And she hadn’t even gotten a meeting with Reede—Darik and MARL20 had been sent to talk to her about the procedure. I won’t see him again before I leave, at this rate. The idea made her sad and a little angry. If only she’d realized he was going to be so unreasonable about all of this, she would have gotten in his face, confronted him and tried to break the thick wall of reserve he’d built up.

  Ok, so maybe they wouldn’t be mates since she was leaving, but they could have at least been friends. Couldn’t they?

  She rubbed her thigh, where the usual dull ache had flared up again. Throwing the rag aside with a curse, she stood up. “All right I’ve had enough of this.” Fallyn left the arms locker, making sure to seal it tight, and then headed toward the Badari admin building. She ran into Jadrian on the way and when he would have gone on after a quick greeting, she stopped him. “Where can I find Timtur?”

  He blinked in surprise. “He doesn’t heal humans. Are you in need of the doctor? I can escort you—”

  Annoyed, she shook her head emphatically. “I need to talk to Timtur and the reason is really no one else’s business. So where would he be at this hour?”

  Jadrian studied her face, his eyes glowing even in the sunlight. “I’ve asked him to meet us at a secluded spot near the lake. Allow me to take you there and then I promise, I’ll leave you to your conversation.”

  “Thanks.” She fell into step with the soldier, in no mood to even try to make polite conversation, even though she spent a great deal of time with Jadrian and his mate Taura. She regarded them as her friends but didn’t think she should mention her concern about Reede to anyone except the healer. Or maybe the Alpha, but just considering talking to him made her gut clench. Yeah, work my way up to the top. Aydarr was intense and Reede wouldn’t like her going to his boss.

  Timtur was waiting when she arrived, standing beside the rustic bench, watching fish jump from the lake, catching insects. He turned as they walked up and regarded Fallyn a bit warily. “You need to consult me?”

  Fallyn thanked Jadrian and watched him walk away, toward the residence area. Of course the healer could tell him what she said via telepathy if he wanted to but at least she could do this much to ensure Reede’s privacy. Rubbing her neck, Fallyn sat on the bench and Timtur sat as well, probably so he wouldn’t tower over her. He was as big and muscular as the other Badari besides the Alpha and the two enforcers and she knew he was a hardened soldier as well as a medic.

  “Your neck bothers you? Do you have a headache?”

  “Do you ever get a tingling on the back of your neck? All the hairs rising maybe? Or in your spine? When bad things are about to happen?” she asked.

  “Precognition isn’t my strongest gift but on occasion, yes. You fear a disaster about to hit us? Why talk to me about it?”

  Rubbing her thigh, Fallyn said, “Something’s wrong with Reede. I know you won’t tell me whether he’s talked to you if I ask you, but you remember when I got this pain in my thigh? When we were marching? It was because the damn Khagrish had tortured him. There’s a link between us I don’t understand, but the gist I got was, there was nothing physically wrong with me.”

  “Right.” Timtur looked as if he wanted to say more but refrained.

  Annoyance flashed over her like a fast flame. She was tired of people not wanting to talk to her about Reede. “Well it still hurts. Worse sometimes than at others but today is really bad.” She held up one hand as Timtur finally opened his mouth to speak. “I know, I’ve heard the story over and over about how you Badari do this magical healing. I don’t think it’s working in this case. I think whatever the Khagrish did to him is causing him ongoing problems and if he hasn’t talked to you about it, I think he’s trying to go it alone, hoping it’ll get better. But I’m here to tell you it’s not.”

  “A man at Reede’s level in the pack would never show weakness willingly,” Timtur said. “In the labs, to show any diminished performance would have brought death—it’s how we were raised. And he is stubborn enough to try to work out a physical problem on his own. What you’re suggesting would be unprecedented though, I must tell you. We were created to heal rapidly.”

  “Listen, the older Khagrish lab tech hated Reede. I mean truly despised him. Could she have put poison inside his leg to cause ongoing damage?” Fallyn was out of her depth now. “Screwed up his bone marrow? Because if what I’m suffering today as reflected pain is anything to go by, the man has to be in agony.”

  “What you’re telling me is concerning. I’ll insist on meeting with him as soon as he returns from the trip to the mountains and I’ll get to the bottom of the situation, I promise.” Timtur frowned. “I won’t be able to tell you much but we can converse about your pain again.”

  She rested her hand on his arm. “Don’t tell him I said anything, all right? I don’t know why but he’s touchy about anything to do with me and I don’t want to make matters worse.”

  “I’ll keep your name out of it.”

  “Thanks, that’s all I wanted.” She rose, figuring she’d head for the communal dining cave next. Fallyn took two steps and the world tilted. She fell to her knees and then crumpled completely, clutching her leg as the agony escalated.

  Timtur knelt by her side. “What happened?”

  She heard herself babbling, disassociated from her body, caught between her own physical location and wherever Reede was. “Falling. I’m falling, he’s falling and the pain in my leg—I can’t—I can’t breathe.”

  “The healer gathered her into his arms, rose easily and ran full speed toward the hospital. “Take it slow, remember this is Reede’s pain, not truly yours. Try to distance yourself.”

  “Easier said than done.” She clenched her jaw and worked on convincing herself.

  “I’ve alerted the Alpha. We haven’t heard from the team yet but when we do, I’ll be ready.”

  “Keep me posted, please?” She stared up at his face as they covered the last few steps to the hospital. “I know Reede doesn’t want to be involved with me because I’m leaving so soon and I can respect his wishes but I care about him.” She motioned toward her leg. “And obviously we’re linked to some extent.”

  “I’ll do what I can, I promise.”

  Timtur exchanged quick words with Rik the nurse and followed him to an exam room, where Dr. Madarian waited for them. He placed Fallyn gently on the table. “I think this is more my problem to fix than yours,” he said to the doctor. “If she’s truly enduring pain reflected from Reede.”

  “I’d like to do a quick exam anyway,” she said.

  “Whatever you need to do is fine,” Fallyn said. “But you need to be ready to take care of Reede when he gets here. Something’s desperately wrong with him.” She gestured at her leg. “He’d block me from feeling all this if he could, wouldn’t he?”

  The healer and the doctor exchanged glances.

  Dr. Megan Garrison, mate to Mateer, knocked and entered. “We heard from Gabe a minute ago. Reede was caught in a rockslide on the way to the exfil poi
nt, pretty banged up but alive. His femur was broken in the fall, according to Darik.”

  Fallyn could picture the place on the descent where it was most likely the rockfall had occurred and knew Reede was lucky to have survived. A bit lightheaded, she said, “No, the damn Khagrish lab tech did something to him when she took the bone marrow sample, I know it. Whatever she did has kept him from doing the smooth regeneration you guys boast about. If he truly broke his thigh bone, whatever she did plays a part in the injury today, but I’m also telling you the pain has never gone away. He never healed properly.”

  “And we’ll deal with the issue, I give you my word.” Aydarr stood in the doorway now. “My enforcer is a stubborn warrior but fortunately for him, I’m his Alpha and I can be much more stubborn.” He advanced toward Fallyn and the others moved aside. “It seems you’ve done us another favor, by revealing the true situation.”

  “Everyone’s helper, that’s me.” She gritted her teeth. “You were going to do an exam, doc? Because then I’d appreciate whatever Timtur was going to do to relieve the pain.”

  “Of course. If we can clear the room, please,” Gemma said.

  Aydarr ignored her, walking to the table and touching Fallyn’s hand. “I wish the situation between the two of you was simpler, but we’ll take care of you both, I give you my word.”

  She nodded and allowed the Alpha to curl his fingers around hers in a comforting gesture. “I wish he’d talk to me,” she said, “But he’s too damn good at shutting people out.”

  The Alpha didn’t answer, merely squeezed her hand and walked out of the room.

  Reede had no memory of the fall, or of being caught in midair by Darik and saved from plunging all the way to bottom of the ravine. His memories of the trip to the flyer and the flight home were equally muddled and shot through with pain. Eventually he snapped into full consciousness to find himself lying in a hospital bed, Timtur and Dr. Garrison by his side. His first instinctive reaction, as always now, was to think of the human woman who could have been his mate under other circumstances.

  Fallyn! Has she suffered all this pain with me? Ignoring the healer and the doctor, he closed his eyes and checked his mental links, finding to his horror the one leading against his will to Fallyn was indeed open, which meant she’d shared the agony he’d felt when his leg snapped. As he hastily blocked the connection again, much more emphatically, Reede remembered his last conscious thought during the plunge from the cliff face had been of Fallyn. “Must have reopened the channel,” he said to himself.

  “What?” Timtur leaned closer, his face set in concerned lines.

  He shook his head. “Why the hells am I here? No offense, Megan, but you don’t work on Badari. Let me get back to my residence and I’ll be fine in a day or two.”

  She rested her hand on his shoulder and pushed him flat. “I work on Badari when they’re as banged up as you are. You can’t put any weight on that leg right now.”

  “I will be fine.” Never mind the pain from his leg was off the charts. He couldn’t linger in this bed. “You can’t hold me against my will, neither of you.” Gathering his strength, Reede prepared to make the effort to try to rise.

  “They can’t but I can.” Aydarr stepped forward. “I order you to stand down, enforcer. You’re right where you need to be for now.”

  Reede could feel the Alpha’s power washing over him and he sagged, afraid to admit it was a relief to stop fighting.

  “We believe the Khagrish caused lingering damage to your leg when they did the marrow extraction,” Megan said crisply. “Whether intentionally or accidentally. We don’t believe it’s ever completely healed, which is probably why your femur—which is an amazingly strong bone, especially in a Badari—snapped during your fall. Before there’s more damage or impaired healing, I want to go in and clean the internal area, make sure the bone is aligned perfectly before it knits itself back together.”

  “It’s a question of possibly losing your leg,” Timtur said, hand on Reede’s shoulder. “We did various scans and there’s visible damage besides the trauma of the fracture.” And you appear to me to be bordering on an overdose of zinxzanna berries, he added telepathically, so only Reede would hear. Dangerous, misguided, stubborn fool of an enforcer. I wish you’d trusted me and allowed me to help.

  “How could the Khagrish have done this to me?” Reede asked, ignoring Timtur’s well deserved reprimand, grateful the healer’d sent it privately. Aydarr would be even more upset if he knew about Reede’s self-medicating and going on a mission in such a state. “They created us to heal from anything.”

  “Fallyn told us in her debriefing the lab tech who performed the procedure had a particular hatred for you,” Aydarr said. “Megan believes she may have smeared a poison or an acid onto the marrow probe, intending it to spread and cause constant damage. Such a compound might be able to stay ahead of our inborn healing abilities.”

  Reede decided not to ask why Fallyn had been talking about him in her debrief. He wished with all his heart he could ask for her to be brought to his bedside, so he could spend a few moments in her soothing presence. They might not have become mates but the mere thought of her made his heart beat faster. She might not even be willing to come—I’ve been resolute about pushing her away. “So what’s the next step?”

  “I put you under general anesthesia, open the leg up and see what I can do.” Megan was matter of fact, which he appreciated. “Timtur and Dr. Madarian will assist. Normally I wouldn’t operate on a patient without his permission but the Alpha spoke for you.”

  “I’m not losing you, old friend.” Aydarr’s eyes glowed golden. We’re not in the labs any more, you don’t have to tough this out on your own. His private, telepathic message rang in Reede’s head. Nor will you lose your place in the pack.

  A man can’t be an enforcer missing one leg. Reede couldn’t stop the despairing fact from darkening his mood further.

  These are issues for later and may not even arise. Let the doctors proceed.

  “All right,” Reede said, nauseous from the pain. “Let’s get this over with.” I closed the link to her, he told Aydarr on a tight beam, confident the Alpha would know who he meant. No need to worry she’ll sense any of this now.

  Fallyn was in her room at the women’s dorm cave, trying to study a document on her handheld which MARL had sent over. Actually she couldn’t stop thinking and worrying about Reede. The pain in her leg had abruptly lessened about two hours after she left the hospital. While she’d been there Timtur had given her another treatment of the green healing energy, to little effect, but she’d lied and claimed to be better so they’d let her go. Although tempted to linger in hopes of seeing Reede when he was brought in, she was familiar enough with Badari procedures by now to know no human would be allowed to see him in his wounded state. Probably very few Badari either.

  She panicked when the pain decreased but since the dull ache was still there, she knew he was alive. I hope the Alpha does as he promised and doesn’t let Reede get out of the hospital without a thorough checkup.

  At dinner time she’d eyed the Badari table. It had been made clear to her she was welcome to sit there at any meal but Fallyn decided to eat with Bettira and her friends instead. Their light hearted chatter was all about the upcoming social event the Alpha had planned, which all residents of the valley who were off duty were required to attend. Fallyn was noncommittal about whether she’d go, figuring if she could tag along with the couples she’d made friends with, like Darik and Nicolle or Jadrian and Taura, the evening might be all right.

  If not, she could get herself assigned to guard duty at the landing field and skip the entire thing.

  She’d been back in her room now for a brief time when there was a knock on her door and the woman who had the front desk admin duty stuck her head in. “You have a guest.”

  Fallyn wondered why the Badari hadn’t installed a coms system, which would be more efficient, then took herself to task for criticizing their effor
ts when they’d accomplished so much from scavenged materials. Maybe the concept didn’t occur to them since they were telepathic.

  She was distracting herself from the forlorn hope it might be Reede who’d come to see her.

  “One of the Alphas,” the other human said, awe in her voice. “You shouldn’t keep her waiting.”

  “I’ll be right out.” Sliding her boots on, Fallyn hastened to follow in the receptionist’s wake and found a tall, drop dead gorgeous Badari woman waiting patiently in the entry area of the cave. She recognized Gabe’s mate, Keshara, who she’d met in passing but not conversed with at any length.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” Fallyn said, curiosity raging in her mind. “How can I help?”

  “I need to talk with you.”

  “Did you want to move to the reception area?” Fallyn couldn’t imagine trying to hold a conversation with Keshara in her small personal space.

  “The topic is highly discreet.” The Alpha didn’t even glance at the couches and rugs set invitingly in the nearby public ‘living room’ of the dorm. “Could we take a walk?”

  “Of course.” Fallyn fell in beside the Badari and they left the cave, taking a path which wound toward the lake. This was one of Fallyn’s favorite times of the day in the valley, just before sunset and she savored the balmy evening air. As they strolled, she asked hesitantly, “Is Gabe okay? I know he flew the mission today.”

  “He’s fine. It’s Reede I want to discuss with you.” Keshara raised her eyebrows and had the air of a person anticipating a visible reaction to her choice of topic.

  “All right.” Fallyn was wary, unable to imagine why this Badari woman who was a claimed mate would want to talk to her about Reede.

  Keshara laughed. “Relax, I’m a healer, like Timtur. Our discussion is purely about the Enforcer’s health, nothing interpersonal.” She gestured to one of the many benches set into inviting spots along the lake. “Shall we sit?”