by J. R. Ward
His body jerked up from the table. Fell back.
So much thrashing came next.
The human man raced over and threw his heavy weight across Murhder’s seizing muscular load, and straps, black and wide and linked around the table, were added before the doctor could remove himself.
A ring of fire.
Murhder was consumed in a ring of fire.
His last conscious thought was that he should focus on his Sarah. But it was too late for any kind of coordinated anything. He was riding a bucking bronco . . . and holding on for dear life.
Sarah wanted to get in there. Do something to ease Murhder’s pain. Give him chest compressions—even though he wasn’t in the kind of cardiac distress that would benefit from that kind of thing.
And that last impulse was why she needed to hang back. Scientists who studied the immune system were not medical doctors, even if they had an MD after their names courtesy of their joint degree program back at uni.
And as for the cardiac arrest, she feared it was a case of “not yet.” That heart monitor was practically tap dancing.
Sinking back against the wall, she covered her mouth in her hand and gripped his necklace with the other. Murhder was pulling against the arm restraints, great veins snaking down into his clenched hands and standing out in stark relief under his skin. His neck was the same as his head craned up off the pillow, the cords on either side like ropes pulled taut in the effort of securing a vessel against violent seas. Under the sheet she had pulled up over his legs, he was kicking and not getting far with it, the restraints down there keeping him on the table.
Jane shouted something. Ehlena rushed over with a syringe. Dr. Manello looked at Sarah.
“We need to stop. Right now. We can’t take him any further without risking damage.”
“I agree—”
“No!”
They all turned to the word that exploded out of their patient. Murhder’s eyes were wide open and locked on Sarah. Through gritted teeth, he let out a growl of pain.
And then he said, “You keep going. You keep going . . . you keep . . . going.”
The force of his will had a physical impact on her, sure as if he had stood up off the bed and rushed at her.
“You don’t stop this, Sarah . . .”
His face was beet red, sweat beading on his brow, his jaw so tight, it seemed like it was going to snap free the tethers of its joints.
“Last . . . thing . . . I do.”
Sarah looked deeply into his peach eyes, searching for the right thing to do. But then she knew that any calculation of hers was wrong. The choice had been, and was, his to make.
“Ehlena,” she said roughly. “What are the blood results showing?”
“His white count is rising.”
Are you sure, she asked Murhder in her head.
As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she could have sworn she heard his voice in her mind, clear as day.
Yes, I’m sure.
“Do the final dose,” she said. “Now.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Sarah stayed right by Murhder’s side. After the last push of the somatropin, he disappeared into the suffering, no longer able to meet her, or anybody else’s, stare or respond to anything. His heart rate was all over the place. His blood pressure was sky-high. The seizures were so bad, he snapped two of the restraints.
Eventually, the big blond warrior with the bright blue eyes had to bring chains.
It was shortly after those metal links got put on that Sarah felt herself crumble on the inside. A trembling overtook her, as if she were following his lead in that regard, and then she couldn’t breathe.
“Excuse me,” she mumbled as she lurched for the door.
Out in the corridor, she wobbled and started to fall.
Hands caught her. Strong hands.
She looked up into the face of the female commando.
“I’ve got you,” Xhex said.
Sarah wasn’t thinking right. Wasn’t thinking at all. She grabbed onto those shoulders, and felt herself get hugged in return.
John was standing behind his mate, his arms crossed over his chest as if he were hugging Sarah as well, just virtually. His eyes were dark with emotion, and she could understand why. With the chains rattling as they were, it was clear Murhder was suffering—and either the male in there was going to die or John was going to have to go through it.
Calling on her professionalism—because it gave her a job, something to focus on other than the nightmare in that operating room—Sarah pulled back and cleared her throat.
“The blood tests are showing what I was hoping to see. So don’t focus on how hard it is going to be for you—think about how the cure—”
John’s brows dropped low, and he started to sign, furiously.
A male voice spoke up behind her. “He says he doesn’t care about anything other than if Murhder is going to be okay—”
Sarah cut off whoever was translating. “I know what he said.”
She turned around and was shocked to find that . . . there were a dozen males standing around in the corridor. She hadn’t even noticed them, which was a surprise, given how big they all were.
In the back of her mind, she marveled at how so many different faces could show the exact same expression.
Grim terror.
“We’re not giving him any more,” she told the crowd. “So now we have to see how he rides it out. The white blood cell count is doing what . . . it’s what I thought.” She looked at John. “It’s what I believe you need.”
“Is he going to die?”
She glanced over at the male who had spoken. He was the one with the military haircut and the white streak in the middle of his cowlick. The one that, if she remembered correctly, she had called Sergeant Know-It-All.
“I don’t know.” Abruptly, she threw her shoulders back. “But I can promise you this. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure he lives through this.”
Amazing how being in service to others gave you strength you didn’t know you had. Repurposed and refocused, Sarah pushed open the door and went back to the bedside.
The chains were cutting into Murhder’s ankles and she grabbed two towels from a stack. Waiting until his legs went loose for a split second, she slipped them into place on both sides so the metal links wouldn’t chafe his skin.
Then she resumed her watchful pose up against the wall. As he continued to seize, the medical staff monitored everything—and even though she didn’t doubt their competency, nothing felt like it was enough.
“We’ve got to kill those motherfuckers.”
Out in the concrete corridor, John glanced across as Vishous spoke up. The Brother was lighting a hand-rolled, his teeth holding the cigarette in place, his glowing hand doing the duty of a Bic. His slashing brows were so low, they distorted the tattoos on his temple.
“Those fucking shadows need to be over,” he muttered.
John refocused on the closed door of the operating room. It was impossible for him not to feel responsible for what Murhder was going through. Even as John knew he hadn’t volunteered to get stung, his reaction to the wound . . . this shit with Murhder . . . he was never going to forgive himself if the male died on his account.
“John.” Xhex’s voice was low, barely above a whisper. “This is not your fault. You did not do this.”
Turning his back to the crowd, so no one could translate, he signed, They did the right thing.
“What are you talking about?”
The rattling of chains coming through the closed door made him close his eyes. It was all he could do to keep from screaming.
Refocusing, he signed, Not letting me into the Brotherhood. They did the right thing.
Xhex shook her head and said softly, “What are you talking about? Every one of them has gotten injured at one time or another.”
Not like this.
“Just stop,” she said with exhaustion. “You’re not making any se
nse.”
He turned back around and faced the door. The bumping and slamming, the rattling, the barked orders of the medical staff on the far side of the wood panel—it was the soundtrack to a nightmare. And as he listened to the different noises, separating each component of the suffering, he felt a shift in the center of his chest.
Xhex was right. He was being ridiculous. He had fought with courage and strength, and what he had happened to him could have happened to anyone. What did it matter whether or not he was a Brother?
Murhder wasn’t one any longer, and look at the male of worth he was, sacrificing himself for somebody he barely knew, putting his life on the very line.
I will fight in your honor, he vowed to the male on that operating table. I’m going to take this cure after they’re done with you, and if I live through it, I will evermore fight for you.
Xhex tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be harsh.”
I love you, he signed. With all my heart. Always.
His shellan gave him a strong hug. And then as she tucked herself against him, she trained those gunmetal-gray eyes on the door. As he studied her profile, he decided he’d been very lucky in his life. In spite of all the setbacks and the hard start, his female was his luck. She was his good fortune. She was his risen star that guided him to a safe harbor.
Looking around at the Brotherhood, at his friends, at the shellans who had showed up in support, he decided that, whatever higher power was up there after the Scribe Virgin’s disappearance, surely it would respond to all this collective worry over what was, without a doubt, a male of worth.
Surely it would help.
Surely the one overseeing them was a savior instead of a foe.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Murhder was totally unaware of the passage of time. The roaring heat inside of him stripped everything away, and yet, as he burned in the fire, he knew he would come through. He had been here before. He had lived through what the symphaths had done to him, had survived the torture of his mind turning against his body—and even though this was the reverse, his body turning against his mind, he knew he was going to make it.
Strength did not exist unless it was tested.
And he had been tested before.
There was no end in sight, no hint of an easing, no relent to any of the present suffering, but there had been none of that before. That was the nature of torture—it was not just the pain; it was the not knowing when, or even if, the end was coming. But he knew better than to believe in all that forevermore nonsense. There was going to be a terminal event: Either the agony stopped or he did.
And until either of those happened, it was just a miserable waiting game—that he could withstand.
Hell, the chaos in his brain caused by the symphaths had been much worse than all this. At least now, in the center of the firestorm, he was still himself. Even though he was blinded, unable to hear, lost in the sea of suffering, he still he knew who he was. He knew where he was. He knew why he was putting himself through this.
Most importantly, he knew who he loved.
When the symphaths had played with him, when they had filled his head full of terrible images and thoughts—triggers, triggers, everywhere—he had lost himself and his way. Anchorless, with nothing really significant to live for, he had floated off into an ether of madness. And afterward, when it was over, he had not been able to find his way back.
No matter how hard he had tried to ahvenge Xhex.
Now, however, this kiln of incredible heat, coupled with his bonding for Sarah, forged him like steel, the remaining scattered parts of him uniting and hardening . . . baking into an unassailable whole . . . sealing up, the cracks gone.
His foundation once again became solid and strong in this second transition of his.
The instant the conviction arrived unto him, he snapped free from his spasming body, his soul floating up over the table he was tied down on, his closed eyes nonetheless seeing his arms and legs strain and jerk, his ribs pump from hard breath, his head thrash.
He watched himself.
And the medical staff. And especially his Sarah. She was right by him, standing next to him, hand on his shoulder no matter how much his torso twisted and pulled. She was his angel, making sure he came through.
I’ll be back soon, my love, he said from his lofty observation. I’m here with you now—
Sarah looked up abruptly, sure as if she heard him.
I’m coming back. I promise . . .
The next thing Murhder was aware of was silence. Stillness.
He came awake, but it was inside the cage of his body. His eyes were closed—either that or the blindness he’d experienced was permanent—and he couldn’t really feel the bed under him. He did even know if he was having seizures anymore or not.
Beep. Beep. Beep—
His lids lifted slowly. All he saw was white, and for a moment, he thought, Goddamn it, I’ve died. This white landscape is the Fade. After all his “I’m going to make it through this,” he’d ended up dying—
Sarah’s face appeared above his own, and blocked out the brilliant light. “Hi,” she said softly. “You’re back.”
Murhder started to smile. He wasn’t sure exactly how well he managed it. His mouth felt loose as yarn.
“Back . . .” His voice was like sandpaper. “Back to you.”
She was gentle as she brushed his newly shorn hair at his temples. “You were so brave.”
“What . . . happened? Results?”
“It looks good. It looks really promising. We’ve ordered a second set of the drug. Havers said he should have it by nightfall. If I’m right, it’s John’s best shot at a cure.”
“You’re . . . going to be . . . right.”
As Murhder’s eyelids became heavy as garage doors, he fought to keep them open.
“It’s okay,” he heard her say. “You rest.”
“Stay . . . with me?”
“You bet your life I will.”
Second time was the charm. This time, when awareness returned to him, his sensory functions were much more normalized: He knew he wasn’t having seizures, he could feel the bed underneath his body, and his hearing was back.
His eyes popped open. He took a deep breath. And he sat up, rising off the thin pillow, the hard mattress.
“Sarah?”
He glanced around—ah. There she was. On the floor, curled on her side against the wall, hands tucked up under her neck, a security blanket of her own making. Her hair had fuzzed out from her ponytail, wisps touching her face, and her features were tense as if, even in her repose, she was waiting for bad news. Worried about him. Worried about John.
Murhder looked down at his legs and wondered whether they were going to hold his weight. There was a sheet covering him, and he lifted it aside—only to stop. There were terrible marks on the front of his calves, the twin lines of bruises standing out bright purple and deep red.
It made him remember the fire. The kiln.
He smiled. After two decades of floating, he was now firmly on the earth, thank you very much. Granted, he wasn’t sure he could stand up, but that was only one measure of being grounded.
His thoughts were clear as they had been before everything had happened up at the symphath colony. The artificially stimulated change had been the last part of the cure he needed, the final piece to making him whole, the unexpected blessing that had finished the job.
Now, let’s try for some footwork, he thought as he moved his legs off the table one by one. His joints felt like they’d been over-oiled. And he had wires still attached to his chest. Glancing over his shoulder, he checked out the front of the monitor and located the off button. The machine went silent and dark when he pushed the thing, and he removed all the sensors that had been clipped on his chest via pads that had been stuck on him.
They’d already removed the IVs. Good.
The tile floor was cool under his bare soles, and he was relieved when his legs held him u
p. Baby steps. Little, shuffling baby steps. And as he lowered himself down next to Sarah, he used the wall like it was crutches, buttressing himself on the way to the tiled floor.
Sarah woke up just as his butt hit proverbial pay dirt, and she sat up like an alarm was going off.
“Hi,” he said. “That’s the first word you spoke to me afterward, by the way. Or at least, the first one I heard.”
“How are you feeling? Do you need me to get the—”
“Just you. That’s all I need.”
He lay down with her, spooning her body so that he was her wall to lie against. Sure, they could have moved to that room they’d been in before, or gotten up on the bed under the bright lights. But all that was too much like work. He was bone-tired.
As she settled in against his chest, using his arm as a pillow, she said, “They’re administering the drugs to John as we speak.”
“God, I hope it works.”
“Me, too.”
“Murhder?”
“Hmm?”
“You were very brave.”
“I’m going to will the lights off, ’kay?”
At his command, the big eight-light chandelier in the center—the one that had made him think he was in the Fade—extinguished. And then the ones along the ceiling followed. He kept the line under the cupboards as it was, the glow making everything seem a little less medical.
“You were so brave,” she murmured.
“So were you.”
Murhder closed his eyes and let out a long exhale. He only had some vague memory of his first transition; it had been centuries ago, after all. But he did recall this loose, logy feeling after it had been over, like post-feeding satiation times a thousand. What he hadn’t had back then, though, was a female like Sarah to cozy in against, to hold, to love—
Woman, he meant.
Not female.
The reality of their situation, eclipsed by all the medical drama, returned in a rush, as if it were pissed at him for having been distracted. And as Sarah let out a yawn, and pressed a kiss to the inside of his elbow, his eyes popped open again.