“Did you kill him?” Teean was looking around nervously.
“No. Ternach can’t be killed. Not by one of us anyway. I think maybe with the full power of Braw’s staff I might be able to, but not with the little bit of its energy I have in me right now. I imagine he just sent himself back to the Northern Regions so he can hash out his next plan.” I took a deep breath and hugged Jasper tightly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he waits until we attack Paradin and tries while I’m busy going after Braw.” I felt drained and closed my eyes. “Of course this would happen right before Rainen gets here. I wish Dodge was here.”
Jasper stood with me cradled in his arms. “I may not be a winged horse, Shlova, but I can still carry you. I might as well be good for something.” He turned to Luke. “Why don’t you guys go ahead and inform everyone of what just happened. We’ll be along shortly.”
I heard the three of them lope off toward Sageden. Jasper was quiet for a while and I relaxed against him, enjoying the feel of his arms around me. I breathed in his smell. I always loved how he smelled after a fight; all of the sweat, dirt, and yes, even the blood.
“Oh! You were hurt! Let me see.” I opened my eyes and was surprised to see him frowning.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded and I closed my eyes. I looked up again. “He got you on the back.” I reached an arm around and I struggled to get my feet on the ground. “Jasper, put me down!”
He tightened his hold on me and my temper flared. “You stubborn, hard headed…”
He grunted.
“Put me down! Now!” I elbowed him in the chest and his hold loosened enough that I wiggled to the ground. “Jesus! What the hell is the matter with you?” I looked at my hand which was covered in blood.
Without a word, Jasper turned away from me, sat cross legged on the ground, and lifted his blood soaked tunic over his head. A sob caught in my throat and I had to swallow a few times before I could even think to breathe. The claw marks on his back started up at his left shoulder blade and angled down to his right hip. The skin was ragged along the edges of the scratches and the blood was flowing freely.
“Oh, god, Jasper.” It was just a whisper. I knelt behind him and pulled a safe green from the air. I pressed my hands to his back, cringing at the way he jumped away from the touch. He sucked in a breath as the marks healed. Ignoring the blood, I wrapped my arms around him from behind and lay my cheek against his back. He tensed.
“Are you hurt elsewhere?”
He shook his head and reached an arm back so that I wouldn’t move. “I’d almost managed to forget.” His voice was so quiet I could barely hear him. “Would you have gone with him had you killed me by accident?”
I frowned. “No. But it would never have come to that. There’s no way he could ever make a perfect image of you. I never would have picked him.”
“But supposing it had happened; when a man can make you feel like that…” He let the comment hang in the air.
“But he’s not a man. And he didn’t make me feel like that, magic did.” I kissed the back of his neck softly. “Jasper, there is not enough magic in the world to replace how you make me feel.”
I felt him take a deep breath.
“You felt it the first time, when it happened in the Northern Regions, didn’t you?”
He nodded.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
He shrugged.
“And what was that little comment about you might as well be good for something?”
He shrugged again. I pushed past his arm and made my way so that we were facing each other. I sat cross legged so that our knees touched and looked up at him. My chest tightened at the sadness in his eyes.
“Jasper, talk to me.”
“It’s just… by the moons, Hayden, you may as well have gone with him. At least he’d be able to keep you safe. What in the world have I ever done right? It doesn’t matter who makes up their mind to do it, they all manage to take you from right in front of me. When I finally do get you back you’re bruised and battered. It’s a bloody miracle you haven’t been raped yet…” He took a deep breath. “Though I suppose what just happened to you might qualify…” He growled low in this throat. “You should never have been fated to me. You need someone like Damian, or Teean. Someone who can shield you, or displace you, or…” He shook his head. “Someone who might actually be able to help when we get close enough to Braw to do something about the staff.”
I put my hand up to his face and he closed his eyes.
“Are you almost done?”
His eyes flew opened and he frowned at my smile. “I wasn’t joking, Hayden.”
“Neither am I. First of all, Damian is too old. Second, Teean is too young. Third, well, Ternach isn’t even remotely close to human and I’d hate to wake up next to a dragon or whatever little rock man he fancied at the time. Fourth, Damian or Teean and I don’t even think Ternach will be able to do much to help if Braw’s staff gets too close to me. You saw how he reacted today, and that was just the little bit of the energy I have in me. And fifth…” I brought up my other hand and held his face gently. “I don’t want to be fated to anyone else. I love you, Jasper. I knew I would love you the moment I looked into those perfect blue eyes when you were at the top of the hill crossing. I went home that day and all I could think about was you. When I saw you again the next day it took all of the will power I had to leave.” I ran my thumb over the line of his cheek bone. I could barely see the scar he had gotten defending me from Dave when we’d crossed over. “By the third day, well, I think I already loved you. Why else would I have followed you here? Any sane person would have run away screaming when you shifted the first time. And when you told me you could talk to Dodge…” I smiled at the memory. “So you see, Jasper, it doesn’t matter if we were fated or not; I knew I loved you before I kissed you and I will keep loving you. You are my mate.” I knelt in front of him so that we were eye to eye. “You are my husband.” My hands found his and I ran my thumb over the gold band on his finger. I dropped my shield and let him feel exactly how much I loved him. “You will forever be the one I want to hold at night; the only one I want to wake up with.” I leaned forward and kissed him softly. “You are the only one I would ever want to try having children with again.”
He blinked. “Really?”
I nodded. “Of course, you’ll probably have to endure feeling like you’re dying for another year so you can knock me up.” I grinned. I wrapped my arms around his neck, suddenly sure that this was definitely something I wanted to try for again.
“I can definitely handle that.” His lips brushed over mine lightly and both of us shivered. “And afterwards?” His breath whispered against my neck as his strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me to his chest.
“Afterwards, we’ll come back here to our new cabin in our perfect meadow and we’ll live quietly and boringly together.” I kissed him and pulled back to look at him. “Don’t ever doubt yourself, Hun. You’re the reason I’m still here, in more ways than one. Everything will be alright. Sa laug sa nos ist emsan.”
He smiled and returned the kiss. “As long as we’re together,” he agreed. Jasper hugged me close, stood, and picked me up again before starting off toward Sageden. “A shlova yan,” he whispered as he tightened his arms around me.
“A shlova yan jer,” I managed to mumble before I fell asleep.
*****
“Hayden, we have to quit meeting like this.”
I smiled and pushed through the last of the healing sleep I was in. Jasper put a glass of water to my lips and kissed my forehead. I took a few swallows and turned to look at the voice that had woken me up.
“Rainen. How are you feeling?”
“Exhausted. I think we were lucky we had so many magic wielders in our packs. We lost six but with his nudge spread out over such a large area, he wasn’t able to take us all out.” She smiled. “I hear you had your own little encounter with h
im. I hope you threw something extra hard at him for me.”
I nodded. “I think I sent him right back to the Northern Regions.”
She laughed and her midnight blue eyes squinted with her smile. “Jasper told me what happened. Pity you didn’t have more of that energy in you.”
I grunted. “Thanks but no thanks. I’ve been lucky so far and have been able to dispense it in a way that didn’t harm anyone that I loved, but who knows what will happen next time.” I sat up and looked around our room at Tara’s. I rubbed my hands over my face. “How long was I out?” I asked Jasper.
“About four hours.”
“Shit. Let’s get down to the courtyard. How many healers were we able to round up?”
“Fifteen. Six who can use the waves; that includes Danny, Fillian, and yourself.”
“Wow! That’s great!” I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and ran a green wave over Rainen who was lying on a cot. “Get some more sleep. We’ll go handle this. You should be fine by tomorrow morning.”
The elder sorceress placed a hand over mine. “Before you go down…” She looked at me with a shrug. “I was just wondering if William made the crossing unharmed.”
“He did.”
She nodded. “Was he happy?”
“I think so. He was nervous and excited. He’d been here about ten years, you know. I’m sure it will be a bit of a shock going back to living the style of life they are used to in that world. He was a bit concerned about trying to explain where he’d been these past years. I think he decided to go with amnesia due to a head injury.”
She smiled. “Alright. That’s all I needed to know.” She gave a wave as we left.
“How many are in the courtyard?” I asked Jasper.
“Fifty seven. All of the magic wielders have been housed by whoever had room so they could sleep and restore their energy. There were twenty of them when they left Howel but six weren’t strong enough to fight Ternach. The humans also took out almost every healer they could get their hands on. The ones that weren’t killed are in horrible shape from trying to deal with all of the wounded.” He glanced down at me and I knew there was something he didn’t want to tell me.
“What’s wrong?”
We walked along the path to the courtyard. He took my hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Once all of the magic wielders had dropped the human packs attacked. It’s no big surprise that Rainen was one of their main targets. Gina and Harold managed to keep her safe.”
By the way he frowned I knew there was a big ‘but’ coming. I looked up as the six and a half foot tall Harold walked around a corner a bit farther ahead of us. His blond hair was shaggy and sticking out at wild angles, his dark grey eyes were barely focused on the ground as he kicked at a stone in his path. It took me a few seconds to realize what Jasper’s ‘but’ was going to be. Gina was never more than a few feet away from her mate. Today, she was nowhere in sight.
“Oh, god, please tell me she’s just hurt in the courtyard.”
The wind carried my voice over to Harold and he looked up. His eyes were rimmed with red and had a devastated, hopeless look to them. He nodded to us and managed a pitiful attempt at a smile. I let go of Jasper’s hand and ran to give our friend a hug.
“What happened? Where’s Gina?”
Harold started to speak but stopped abruptly. He hugged me tightly and I felt him shake his head.
“They took prisoners,” Jasper said quietly from behind me.
My heart dropped. I couldn’t decide if I should be scared, sad, or pissed right off. All three feelings settled in the pit of my stomach.
“Is she still alive? Can you tell?”
“She is. It’s not like with you and Jasper. I can’t tell what she’s feeling. I can just tell that she’s still there.”
I stepped back and waited for him to look at me. The sadness and misery I saw in his eyes when he did caused my throat to tighten. I swallowed and cleared my throat.
“We’ll get her out. I promise you. We’ll bring her home.”
He nodded and wiped his arm across his face as a tear streaked over his cheek. He cleared his own throat. “I just need a few minutes. I’ll meet you back at the courtyard.” He shifted into his bear and shuffled down the path.
I looked up at Jasper. “How many did they get?”
He growled. “Seven.” He stopped looking after Harold and closed his eyes. “Gina was the only one we knew. By the moons, Hayden, what’s he doing?”
I tried to get away from the mentality of Quelondain, where battles were fought and everyone took their wounded home. Prisoners were only taken if a shifter from the opposite side was found deep in your own territory. No one went out looking to take prisoners, well, unless it was me. “He’s taking hostages.”
He frowned.
“He’s going to use them to get me to do what he wants. He’ll promise to give us the hostages if I give myself up to him.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. Whether he does it or you do it, they’ll be dead anyway.”
“Jasper, he doesn’t think like that. He thinks he’s saving you. To him, it’s a fair trade; me for them and if they are pure enough then they’ll survive being liberated.”
“Oh, good! Hayden!” Danny was jogging toward us from in the direction of the courtyard. “We need you in there. There are a few who aren’t responding to the safe green.” He waited for us to catch up to him and we all jogged back to the courtyard.
Nothing could have prepared me for scene that awaited me. I stopped short and gawked. Tarps had been hung to cover the injured should it rain. The ground was covered with bloodied blankets and wounded Majs, some of them shifted and some of them in human form.
“We’ve been doing a bit at a time. The ones who aren’t too seriously hurt are being mended by the herbal healers. The rest of us have been doing our best to heal the worst cases but with just the five of us, well, six now that you’re here, we can’t completely heal all of them or we’ll all be useless by the time we get a quarter of them fixed up.” He looked at me and frowned. “There are ten of them who need the darker green wave.”
I nodded. “Take me to those ones first.”
“Hayden…”
I shook my head to stop Jasper from saying what I knew he was thinking. I had never given more than one being my own energy.
“All I need to do is give them enough to save them.”
“Ten is a lot, Shlova.”
“What do you suggest I do? Let them die?”
“No, of course not.” He was quiet as we approached the first man. I knelt beside him and brushed the dark brown hair out of his face.
“Oh, god, it’s Collin.” My chest tightened at the sight of our friend lying on the ground near death.
“Harold was busy with three of the humans when about five of them went after Gina. Collin tried to stop them.”
I looked up at the speaker. “Marie.” I nodded to the Maj healer. She had turned of age and been assigned to Collin’s pack a few days before we had left Howel. She had her long auburn hair tied in a ponytail to keep it out of the way. Her dark brown eyes showed the stress and fatigue she was feeling.
Harold came to join us.
I lifted the blanket that covered Collin and took a deep breath. Jasper knelt beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. Not only was Collin black and blue from the hits he had taken, he had also been slit open from one hip to the other. Someone had wrapped him in bandages to keep everything inside. The bandage was soaked in blood as was the blanket he was lying on. I put my hand gently on his chest and he groaned.
“Hey, Collin, it’s Hayden. I’m going to fix you up. Just hang in there a few more minutes.”
Jasper looked at me. “Take from me.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Look at him, Shlova. If the other nine are just as bad as he is it will take you weeks to recover. Take the energy from me and give it to him.”
“Jasper, you know I can’t do it
. I’ve tried.”
“So try harder. I know you can do it. Find a way.” His sky blue eyes gazed into mine. He was right, of course. If I gave energy to all ten of these beings I’d be near death myself, not to mention useless to heal any of the other wounded.
I took a deep breath. “Alright. I’ll try.” I frowned, trying to think of the best way to do this.
“Wait.” Harold knelt beside us. “Use me. This happened while he was trying to save Gina. I owe him this much at least. Where do you want me?”
“Umm, why don’t you lie down, that way if you start to feel weak you won’t fall.” I repositioned myself so that I was kneeling between them at their hips and facing their heads. “Harold, I’ve never been able to do this. I’m not sure I can control it if I manage to figure it out. If at any point you want me to stop, say so. Jasper, Danny? If I say ‘enough’ you knock me away from them, understood?”
“Just remember to stay calm, Hayden.”
I looked up, smiled at Fillian who had come over to see what was happening and nodded. “Uncle Brinnan, Luke and Matthew, can you hold down Collin?” I looked around the courtyard. “Alex! Come over here!”
He made his way over to us. “What’s up?”
“Can you help Kacey hold down Harold? I’m not sure what he’ll be feeling.” By this time a whole crowd was gathering. Geez, no pressure, Hayden, I thought to myself. I bit my lip in concentration. “Here goes nothing.”
I pulled the darkest green wave from the air in front of me and spread it between the two of them, placing a hand on each of their chests. Harold had so much energy it seemed to jump out at me. Collin, on the other hand, barely had a faint glow to him. I focused on Harold, trying to pull his energy into me so that I could transfer it to Collin.
“I can’t get it to leave Harold.” I looked up at Fillian questioningly. My aunt and teacher frowned. As far as she knew, there were only two other healers in Quelondain that could use the medium green wave without being sucked dry and none that could use the darkest, yet she was positive I should be able to do it. Her eyes widened.
Destiny (The Chosen One Trilogy:Book Three) Page 20