“What if you can’t pull it into you, but you could transfer it directly from one to the other.”
“So if they were touching?”
“Sure, let’s try that. We haven’t tried it that way yet. We’ve always assumed you had to pull it into yourself first.” She knelt, took Harold’s unresisting hand and placed it on Collin’s shoulder.
I pulled the wave again and repeated the process. This time, instead of trying to pull the energy out of Harold, I pushed. It was barely a nudge but he frowned. I watched as his energy slowly trickled into Collin.
All of the healers gathered around smiled as they witnessed what I was seeing. The only sound in the courtyard was the blowing of the breeze through the tarps. It seemed as though even the wounded and dying were holding their breath.
I pushed a little harder, trying to judge just how much I should be taking out of Harold.
“How are you doing, Harold?”
He grunted. “Keep going.” His voice was slightly strained.
I watched as his energy changed colors as it entered Collin’s body, which was different than when I would give my own energy to a being.
Harold gave a strangled moan and twitched. I pulled the wave away while Fillian took his hand off of Collin’s shoulder. He was breathing hard and shaking. Alex and Kacey got off of him.
“I’m fine. Give him more.”
I shook my head and kissed his forehead. “He got plenty. How are you feeling?”
“Cold.” He sat up with a groan and grabbed his head. He kept his eyes closed. Marie appeared holding a blanket which he wrapped around himself.
I felt Collin jerk beside me as Marie and Danny started to heal him with his borrowed energy. When they were done, all three of them were breathing hard. Collin sat up and looked around. He swallowed hard at the sight of Harold.
“By the moons, Harold, I’m so sorry.”
Our tall friend shook his head and cracked open one eye to look to the other. “What in the world for, Collin?”
“I couldn’t stop them.” He closed his eyes and I could tell by the devastated look on his face that he was reliving the last few moments of the fight that had almost killed him. “I should have gone for the blond instead of the black haired one. I should have known I was having too easy a time getting closer to her. He was just standing there. I should have known it was a trap. If I had gone the other way she’d be here now.” He growled. “You’d have thought I had turned of age and just joined my first pack instead of having been the captain of my own for the past ten years.”
Harold reached over and pulled Collin into a hug. “Collin, man, you almost died trying to save her. I’ll forever be grateful for your efforts. By the moons, I know you tried. She’s alright.” He swallowed hard. “Well, she’s alive. Right now, that’s all that matters. She just needs to stay alive until we get there.” His voice cracked.
I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed him gently back to the ground. I pulled the second green wave, spread it over him and pushed a bit of my own energy into him. He took a deep breath and his shivering stopped.
“We’ll get her out,” promised Collin. Harold’s grey eyes met his hazel ones and the two of them nodded.
I moved on to the rest of the Majs that needed extra energy. I had so many volunteer donors that the only energy I needed to give out was the little bit of it I would give to the beings I had taken from.
“Hayden?”
I looked up from pushing energy into a Wedelven man I didn’t know. “Emelly.” I gave the man a pat on the shoulder, stood and stretched. I wiped the blood on my hands off onto my pant legs and brushed some of the hair out of my face with the back of my arm.
“Do you have any grebb berries left in your pack? I’m all out.” Grebb berries made a sticky waterproof mush that was great for putting on cuts.
I bent over to grab my pack which caused the stray hairs that had fallen out of my pony tail to fall into my face once again. I looked at my hands, shrugged, and redid my hair. I was pretty sure I had touched my face without thinking about it anyway. I handed her my jar of grebb berries.
She smiled. “Thanks.” It was already past supper time and the stress and work of the day was taking its toll on all of the healers present. Emelly’s face was streaked with dirt and blood and her clothes were just as dirty. Her green eyes showed the fatigue she was feeling. She turned and headed back to the patient she was working on. Matthew stopped her halfway there. He hugged her to his chest before kissing her forehead and saying something that I couldn’t hear. Whatever it was made her beam up at him and she returned to work with a bit more vigour than just moments prior.
“Who’s next?” I looked up at Jasper who had been finding my patients for me. I had just finished with the worst off but not dying group and was going to start on the severely injured but conscious group.
He looked at me and I knew he was assessing just how tired I was getting. His face and clothes were streaked with blood and dirt from holding the wounded down while I healed them.
“Hayden!” Danny yelled my name from across the courtyard. I ran and reached him just as he laid Marie on the ground.
“What happened?”
“We were walking over to have a go at our next guy. She just stopped and collapsed.” We knelt over her and I pulled a safe wave.
“Shit. She didn’t tell you she was getting low? There’s nothing left.” I pulled the next wave and pushed a bit of my energy into her to jump start her healing.
“Kacey!” Jasper called out to him and he made his way over to us.
“Where do you want her?” he asked.
“Bring her to the far corner. I’ll start making beds for the healers that need them.” Tara covered Marie with a blanket once he had picked her up.
Damian came to stand with us. “I’m on my way to check on Rainen. If she’s feeling better she could come give a hand with the energy situation. Even if all she can do is multiply the healers’ energy for now then at least you six won’t start dropping like flies trying to give aid to these people.” He gave my arm a squeeze and left.
I blinked my eyes and ran the back of my arm over my face to wipe the sweat away. Jasper pulled me to his chest.
“How are you doing?”
I took a deep breath. “I’m not going to lie; I’m tired. We’re all tired, Hun, even you.” I looked up at him and smiled. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
“What’s that?”
“This. This absolutely horrible situation; it’s mind boggling.”
“How so?”
“Well, you have to admit that never in you weirdest dreams would you ever have thought that one day there would be a courtyard full of Wedelves, Majs, humans and Namaels working together to heal fifty plus injured Majs.”
He yawned. “True enough.” He kissed my forehead softly.
“Alright. Back to work.” I moved away from him reluctantly. “Danny, you first.”
Danny looked up from the wolf he was working on. “What?”
“You heard me. I’ll be damned if we need any more healers dropping from exhaustion. Come here so I can check you.”
He finished what he was doing, gave the now black haired man a pat on the shoulder, and came to stand by me. A quick check up with my wave showed that though he was starting to run a bit low in energy, he was still strong enough to continue. Fillian happened to be walking by and I stopped her, repeating the procedure. She was running at about three quarters of her energy levels.
Twauny, a young Wedelven healer that had been training under Fillian the past few years was next.
“No, really, I’m fine, Hayden.”
“It will just take a minute for me to check. You won’t be of any use to anyone if you collapse like Marie did.”
Twauny frowned and let me pull the wave over her.
My eyes widened. “How are you even standing?” Her levels were not quite as low as Marie’s but close. “You don’t have to leave if you don’t want to, but you
need to go lay down.”
She looked at Fillian as if hoping our teacher would override my ruling.
“You heard her, dear. Get some rest. I’m sure we’ll still need your help when you wake up.”
Twauny glared at me as she marched toward one of the empty blankets on the ground. I noticed that she was asleep in a matter of seconds once she’d lain down.
“Cassandra?”
One of the injured Majs groaned as he rolled onto his side and ran a hand through his dark brown hair. “If she’s the pretty black haired one then she’s over here. She just passed out.”
“Shit.” We jogged over to him. I noticed he had a nasty cut along his bicep and another across his thigh. By the way he moved I was sure he had a few broken ribs. I knelt beside him, a bit alarmed at the shocked look in his dark green eyes. “Are you ok? I mean, besides the obvious?”
“I, umm…” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Hang on.” He reached over, brushed Cassandra’s curly hair out of her face then lay back down.
I ran a green wave over her and frowned. “She’s fine. I mean, she’s low, but nothing serious. She’s got more energy in her than Danny does.”
“Whose pack does she run with?” asked the injured man.
“Mine,” I answered. “Why?”
He mumbled something, rolled toward her again, and gave her shoulder a shake. “Cassandra? Wake up.”
“I don’t suppose you’d like to explain what happened?” I asked.
He glanced back at me then turned back to Cassandra. “She didn’t pass out because she’s low on energy. She blacked out because she saw me.” He frowned. “You have dogs that run with you, right?”
I nodded and it started to become clear. “You guys are fated, aren’t you?”
“We are.”
“If I tell you she shifts into a panther will you pass out too?” I saw him lose a bit of color. He took a deep breath, blew it out of his nose, and leaned forward to kiss Cassandra softly on the cheek. Her eyes fluttered open.
“Hello,” he said softly. “I’m Peter.”
“Hello.” She sat up slowly and frowned. “I’m a cat.”
“So I’ve been told. I’m a dog, in case you didn’t know,” he smiled. “A wolf, more specifically.”
Cassandra blushed. “That’s kind of what I thought. By the moons, I feel like an idiot. I can’t believe I passed out.”
“No worries, I’m sure it was because of my good looks.”
She giggled then stopped abruptly. “You’re still hurt. Lay back.”
He did as she said and sucked in a breath as everything healed itself. “Thank you,” he said softly.
“I… well, I have to go.”
His eyes widened, the panic in them evident.
“No, no. Not like that. I mean, there are others who need healing. I have to finish helping.”
It was surreal to me that if a being had broken its bond to Melana or Damian then its level of self-control over the bonding phenomenon was amazing. Being a panther guaranteed Cassandra to be bond free from birth. Peter was obviously almost free of his bonds to Damian. He nodded. “Can I help?”
“Well, I suppose if you want to hold them down while I heal them…” The two of them made their way toward another of the wounded, chatting as if they’d known each other all their lives.
I squeezed Jasper’s hand. Nothing was more romantic than a bonding couple who had just found each other.
“Hayden! I need a hand over here!”
I jogged over to where Hailey, our sixth healer, was kneeling by a fox. By the looks of it, it had two broken legs and some internal injuries.
Hailey looked at me and shook her head before running a hand through her short blond hair. “I don’t think I can. I’m exhausted.” She closed her caramel coloured eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I ran a wave over her which confirmed what she had just told me. “Go lay down. I’ll wake you in a few hours if you want.” I watched her head to one of the blankets where she shifted into a lioness and curled herself into a ball.
“She’ll be fine, Cole. She just needs to sleep.” Jasper gave his friend a pat on the back. Cole nodded, shifted into a lion, and went to lay by his mate.
I did some math in my head. We were down to four healers, none of us in top shape, and still had a good twenty wounded to tend to who were in need of the waves. I took a deep breath and knelt beside the fox. “Hey, there, my name’s Hayden. I’ll have you fixed up in no time.”
*****
Jasper watched as Hayden stood, stretched, and wiped the stray hairs out of her face with her arm. She was covered in blood and dirt and yet he was sure she had never looked more beautiful. She gave him a tired smile.
“Next?”
He took her hand and led her toward a blond woman with a broken face and stab wounds.
“How are you doing?”
“Ok. You?”
He raised an eyebrow at her which earned him a grin.
“You look just as tired as I feel.” She gave his hand a squeeze.
“I’m fine, Shlova. I’m not the one using up my energy.”
They knelt beside the blond woman.
“Hi there. My name’s Hayden. Jasper here is going to hold you still while I fix you up, ok?”
The woman, whose jaw was too broken to talk, nodded slightly and closed her eyes. Jasper watched as Hayden pulled a wave that he couldn’t see out of the air and spread it over the woman. Her green eyes narrowed in concentration. He noticed how it was taking less and less time for her to break into a sweat as she started to heal.
The sun was starting to slip behind the trees and the moons were making their appearance in the darkening sky. Hayden rocked back on her heels and smiled at the blond woman who thanked her before going to look for her mate.
Jasper reached out and pulled her to his chest. “You should rest.” She shivered as a breeze blew over them. He wrapped her in his arms.
“I can’t. Not yet.” She took a deep breath. “How many are left?”
“It looks like there’s maybe seven who would need wave healing in order to be part of the minor injury group.” He held her face in his hands and kissed her softly. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you look right now?”
She laughed out loud. “You’re cracked.”
He smiled. “I’m serious; beautiful and amazing.”
She stood on her tip toes and kissed him again. “I’m glad you think so.”
“I was thinking, do you know what would be very nice right about now?” He grinned as she frowned, trying to think of what it might be. She shook her head.
“What?”
“A shower.”
She started to laugh. “I agree.”
Danny walked by on his way to his next patient and Hayden reached out to touch his arm. He looked horrible.
“Danny, I don’t even need to run a wave over you. Go lay down. We’re almost done.” She gave his arm a squeeze.
He frowned and looked like he was about to object then changed his mind. He gave a nod, found a blanket a few feet away and seemed to collapse onto it as he shifted into his fox.
“How are you doing, dear?” Fillian paused between patients and came to stand with them.
“Tired, but alright. You?”
“About the same.” She pulled a wave and ran it over Hayden. “You’re at about half.”
Hayden returned the favour and frowned. “Just over a quarter. You should go lay down.”
Fillian shook her head. “I’ll do two more.” She moved off to find her next patient. Brinnan followed after her with a shake of his head.
“Where’s Cassandra?” Hayden looked around.
“She’s over in the far corner.” Jasper took her hand and they made their way over to her.
“Hayden!” Everyone turned to the entrance of the courtyard.
“Rainen! I told you to stay in bed!” Hayden frowned and he followed her back in the direction they had just come.
Rainen raised an eyebrow at his mate. “What? And let you have all the fun?” She smiled, muttered something under her breath and put a hand on Hayden’s shoulder. Hayden twitched and a small cry escaped her lips. She glared at the Maj sorceress.
“Warn a person next time! Geez!”
Rainen started to laugh and Hayden joined in. He could tell immediately that her energy levels had been given a boost.
“Cassandra! Fillian!” Hayden called the other healers over. Once they had been helped, Rainen moved on to the ones that had run too low to stay awake. The six of them stood looking over the courtyard that still held twenty-eight beings that were not fully healed. Jasper watched proudly as Hayden gave Danny a pat on the back and they made their way back to work with a new, more relaxed attitude.
Rainen smiled up at him. “If they need me, I’ll be laying down over there.” She pointed to the blankets Damian was laying out for her. He nodded and followed after Hayden.
*****
I watched as the last of the healed Majs made their way out of the courtyard. The only ones left were Fillian and Brinnan, Rainen and Damien, Matthew and Emelly, Danny, Marie, Cassandra and Peter, Twauny, Hailey and Cole, and Jasper and I. I leaned back against Jasper and he wrapped his arms around me, his chin resting on my head.
“Good job, Shlova.”
I smiled. “God, I think I could drop to the ground and fall asleep on the spot.”
Everyone nodded and agreed though no one could keep the smiles off of their faces. It had been one hell of a day and part of the night, but we had done good. We all looked back toward the entrance of the courtyard as voices carried over to us.
“We thought you’d be too tired to join the party, so we brought the party to you!” Ben laughed as the group behind him cheered. Among them were Parker, Kendall, Lantoc, Cholta, most of our original pack, and a few of the newcomers from the second shift and Damian’s packs. They carried cases filled with bottles of jeckden and sloan and food. The smell of roast deer made its way to me and my stomach growled.
A few beings dropped armloads of wood in the middle of the courtyard and Teean threw a red wave at the pile to get the fire going. I looked back at Jasper and smiled.
Destiny (The Chosen One Trilogy:Book Three) Page 21