by Berinn Rae
“Out? Oh, you mean in Med. Four days.”
Four days?
“You were in and out of consciousness. The first two days were the roughest. They didn’t think you would pull through. But I told them you would. You don’t know how to give up.”
She tried to pull herself, using Legian’s arm at a buoy. “What happened? Is everyone okay?”
“Calm down, my tahren. You lost too much blood.” He bent down and gently kissed her forehead, the touch so light it felt more like a butterfly kiss. “Nalea brought you to Med after the attack. She saved your life. We suffered minimal casualties on the base. All thanks to you, from what I’ve heard. But, gods, Sienna. When I learned you faced the Draeken, on your own no less …”
As his words trailed off, Sienna closed her eyes when she remembered the Draeken nightmare. “All I did was cause a distraction until Nalea could bring in the cavalry.”
“Distraction? You took out an entire Draeken squad on your own. And — why am I not surprised — you even managed to piss off Roden in the process. He’s second in command of the Draeken forces, in case you didn’t know.”
“That asshole?” Her words came out slurred, her tongue so dry it felt twice its normal size.
Legian arched a brow. His signature move. “It seems that my tahren is the Sephians’ greatest warrior, the beloved of all the Sephians on this planet. And she’s not even Sephian. But Sienna, you aren’t Sephian. Just one blood-charge and you wouldn’t be breathing right now. You wouldn’t live to wear the scars I wear. Humans are too frail.”
“Hmph,” she muttered, but right then she felt more than a little frail.
“Don’t mind me.” The demeanor of the petite Sephian female at the foot of her bed spoke the opposite of her sarcasm. “Time to check your bandage,” she replied in a sing-song voice. The woman looked like she started every day with a happy little jig and karaoke. Like all med-tecs, she wore colorful clothes that reminded Sienna of what the sixties must have been like. These med-tecs were so different than human medical professionals. But on Sephia everything was tied to energy. Med-tecs were more about donating energy to those who needed it than actual patch-ups. It was a glossy example of how, in some ways, Sephians and humans really were from two different worlds.
“Do you mind?” the med-tec asked, shielding her eyes from her lamp.
Legian clicked off the lamp.
Sienna felt the med-tec fidget with the bandage that covered most of her left thigh. Her teeth clenched, and she sucked in a breath. “Sonofa — ”
“You’re lucky to still have your leg, let alone your life,” the med-tec said. “If Jax hadn’t been here to transfuse blood in time, you might not be here. We were very lucky his blood worked. It’s too bad you don’t have our ability to heal. It would save you a lot of time and pain.”
She winced. “So I’ve heard.”
The med-tec continued. “But you’re human. Do what humans do. Embrace the pain. It means you’re on the road to recovery.”
“You’re sick,” Sienna muttered only to gasp as the med-tec touched the wrong spot. Which she suspected the Sephian had done on purpose.
“No, I’m Risa. And it’s nice to meet you,” the med-tec snapped back without looking up.
Little Miss Dominatrix had spunk. She’d give her that.
Sienna glanced at Legian who looked like he was in pain, like it was his leg under the care of Dom Risa. Through the bond, the sympathy pain he’d gone through the past few days couldn’t have been a picnic.
“You okay?” she asked, rubbing his arm.
He glanced down at Sienna and guffawed. “You’re lying on a bed with a serious injury and asking if I’m okay?”
“You’ll be lucky to walk again,” Risa said.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Who’s wearing the medical uniform?” she replied curtly.
“I hate you.”
Risa acknowledged her declaration with a smile. Sienna could almost grow to like the bold woman. That was, if she’d quit the whole sadistic torture routine.
“But seriously. Doc thinks I will be able to walk again, right?” Sienna asked, before shushing Risa and waiting for Legian to answer.
He stilled and then spoke. “Fayel believes that with physical therapy, you may be able to walk again — with a full leg brace for support of course. Sienna, there was considerable muscle damage. You will never regain full mobility.”
“We’ll see about that.” Her sweaty hand clenched Legian’s.
“You’re not a Sephian. You’re a fragile human. You can’t just will yourself to heal,” Dom Risa said.
Legian stroked his thumb over her hand as he held it in his much larger palm. “If anyone can beat an injury, Sienna can.” He bent down and kissed her forehead.
“How’d the mission go?” Sienna asked, trying to take her mind off what the med-tec was doing to her leg.
Instantly, Legian’s face darkened.
“What did I miss?” Sienna looked at Risa and back to Legian. “What happened?”
“Your leg is looking better. I’ll be back to check on you a little later.” Risa grabbed her gear and left the room in a rush.
It was then that Sienna remembered Roden saying there was no camp. If the Draeken was telling the truth, she hoped and prayed their mission was a dull hop around the patch. Her gut told her that her prayers weren’t answered. “Legian?”
He didn’t say anything for the longest time as he continued to run a hand through her hair. When she thought he would never speak, the words finally came.
“It was a trap. And like blind children, we walked right into it.” His thumb ran over her cheek as he found the strength to continue. “The intel showed the Draeken camp to be in a deep valley. We thought it was perfect for an attack. We didn’t realize until it was too late that there was only one way in and out of the valley. It was a bottleneck. A perfect ambush. They came at us from above and below. We didn’t stand a chance. Suvaste, Sienna.” He leaned back and looked upward.
“Oh Legian, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. She wanted to hold him, but he had distanced himself. Instead, she grabbed his hand and held it tightly against her.
“Over half our ships were destroyed in the first minutes. Only four ships escaped the valley.”
Four? There had been five times that many that had taken off for the mission. “Oh, God.”
He pulled away and paced but continued to speak, as if saying it would grant him absolution from some unknown sin. “We lost nearly two hundred troops. Nearly all of our military personnel. I escaped because I was with Apolo, and another full ship allowed themselves be slaughtered so we could escape.”
Her heart tightened. “Jax and Bente?”
“Survived. Apolo’s team made it through with no injuries.”
Sienna let out a breath she’d been holding. Thank God.
His hands covered his face. “We ran while our people were slaughtered.”
“Don’t,” she whispered, frowning. “Don’t tarnish their sacrifice. They gave all so you could survive to defeat the Draeken.”
He paused at her words and then continued. “In one brilliant strike, the Draeken crippled us. We were overconfident after pushing them off Sephia. We don’t stand a chance against them now.” He stopped, turned to her, and then turned the other way. Like he was trying to escape the demons in his mind.
“It will be okay. Because you survived, it will be okay,” she said, not knowing what else to say. “Without Apolo, without you, the Sephians would be lost. They need you. Their leaders survived so the fight can continue.”
He swung back to her. “No, Sienna. Don’t you understand? We have failed. I have failed you, your world, and your people. I should’ve seen the trap. Instead, I let myself become proud. Too proud to think the Draeken may be one step ahead. Too proud to think we can stop them. We’ve never been able to stop them. Only run them off. And now it’s too late for your world.”
“You’re wron
g. You haven’t failed. We will stop them. We’ll reach out to my people. We outnumber them by billions. Our military is strong — ”
“Do you really think your people stand a chance against the Draeken if they want this world?”
She looked him directly in the eye. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
He shook his head. “You don’t know the Draeken. Not like I do. They’re not like any opponent your world has ever faced. Their technology is too advanced. Almost everything we have, we’ve taken from them. I had a sister. Did I ever tell you that?”
Sienna blinked. “No, you didn’t. What’s her name?”
“Her name was Cepa. She was beautiful, some even compared her to Krysea. Cepa was five years younger than me and had more spirit than a pack of wild fregee. The messes she got us in.” He chuckled, then sobered. “That doesn’t matter. A Draeken wanted her for himself. It was the master’s son. It didn’t matter that she’d already found her tahren.”
Sienna sucked in a breath, but Legian continued as if he were talking to himself.
“When the Draeken came to take her, Cepa’s tahren managed to fight them off, killing the Draeken but getting himself killed as well. Cepa was devastated. She tried to end her life, but the master claimed her for himself as punishment. She was never allowed to die. Not until the final battle when I found her. The Cepa I knew had long since been destroyed. Only a shell remained. Cepa’s spirit had fled with her tahren’s. I did the only thing left a brother could do. I helped her body join her spirit.”
“Oh, God. Legian. I’m so sorry.”
His head lifted as though it weighed a hundred pounds, his dark eyes haunted. “That’s what the Draeken do. They claim everything, and they won’t grant you peace of death, not until they’ve taken everything worth taking. How can you beat that?”
Sienna swallowed. “Your people beat them once. Now it’s my people’s turn. We’ll succeed. Through you. With Sephian knowledge and guidance, we can beat them. Together, we will beat them.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “And you believe that?”
She nodded. “I have to believe that.”
He gave her the saddest look, and then began his pacing again. He continued, from one side of the room, to the next, and then back again. She watched him move like a feral animal caged, impossible to tame.
Willing her body to obey, she sat up and tried to move her legs. She was still too weak. Damn her weakness. She leaned back into the comfort of the bed and held out a hand to her tahren. “Legian, come to me.”
He looked up as if she had pulled him from a daze. He was an unmoving statue for a moment. Then he abruptly walked over to her like he was on a mission. He pulled her to him and embraced her harder than he’d ever done, and she held on. Because that was all she could do.
“I love you, Legian,” Sienna whispered into his ear. And with those words, she let out a breath and sobbed. She cried for Legian. For the friends he lost. For the bitter loneliness of leadership. For the home he left behind and may never see again. For the battles he waged — both internal and external. For the things he had done so no one else would have to.
She cried because he couldn’t.
After she had no more tears, they held each other. For endless minutes they held each other in a silent united stand against everything unjust in the world. Only after they knew they must return to the world at some point, he inched back far enough to wipe away the salty tears drying in trails on her cheeks.
Between sniffles, she spoke. “Guessing I’m quite the sight right now.”
She expected Legian to smile. She did not expect what happened.
He frowned. Then he grabbed her hand and held it against his heart. “Being my tahren, our souls have entwined. Even if you wanted to, you can’t hide from me. Not what matters. And, what I see is more beautiful than anything I have ever seen in my life. More than anything I’ve ever dreamed. You are beautiful, inside and out. You are a far better person than me, and you will always be. But I give you my pledge. I will work until the end of my days to be the tahren you deserve. You are all that is precious to me. The bond may have claimed our souls, but you have claimed me heart. I love you, Sienna. Gods, I love you.”
When she thought she had no more tears, more came. And the drippy little bastards kept coming. And he pulled her into another embrace. It was softer, sweeter, different from the one earlier. The other was for the past. This was for the future. Their future.
“Now you’ve gone and done it,” she muttered, wiping her tears away on his shoulder.
His hand ran through her hair. “Did I say something wrong, my sweet?”
“Wrong?” She pulled back and rubbed her cheeks and chuckled. “No. You said it all perfect. You are perfect.” She reached out but then her hand dropped lamely to the bed. Exhaustion was a cold rain against her body.
“Sleep, Sienna. You’ll feel better when you wake.”
She smiled weakly at her lover’s sweet words as her world faded to black.
When she woke up, things would be better.
Yeah, right.
• • •
Two Weeks Later
“Die, sucker.”
Jax ignored Sienna’s comment. He was too busy getting slaughtered by her kick-ass dark elf. Music blared in the background, and she half expected Doc to show up any minute to turn it off. Not that he needed to. She was the only patient in Med. All the other Sephians she’d shared the large room with had checked out — one way or another — over a week ago.
“Jax goes down in three, two, one.” Her hands shot into the air. “Sienna kicks ass!”
Her opponent flung the Xbox controller, and it bounced off the floor. “This game sucks.”
“You picked it out,” Legian mumbled from the foot of her bed. He sat there, massaging her calf. Her leg now looked like it came off Frankenstein with its jagged stitches. It still hurt like a bitch. The Sephians had no concept of human medicine. But that wasn’t going to stop her. Like Doc said, the pain meant she was healing.
“Who’s ready to get decimated?” Sienna asked the room.
“Not me,” Legian replied all too quickly. He wasn’t much for video games, but he put up with her obsession like a trooper. Unfortunately for him, they were only two hours into the latest RPG marathon.
“My turn, but I’ll be doing the decimating,” Nalea said on her way through the door, carrying a tray full of food. “Don’t think you’re going to get off easy because you’re an invalid.”
Without looking, Sienna knew her friend brought her favorite. The aroma instantly had her stomach growling. She grinned. “You’re numero uno in my book.”
Legian gave her a pitiful puppy dog look. With those big black Sephian eyes, he had the look nailed. “You told me I was.”
Sienna kissed him. “You are. I was just boosting Lea’s self-esteem.”
“Hey. I heard that,” Nalea muttered as she set the tray down on the table next to Sienna’s bed.
Sienna rifled through the food and pulled out a bacon cheeseburger. Giving Jax a wink, she tossed it to him.
He looked relieved when he saw it. “Real food. Kudos, Lea. Whatever that crap was last time made me shit bricks for days. I thought I was going to have to start eating locusts to stay alive down here.”
Legian eyed one burger suspiciously. “It’s called mulhean, and it’s a classic Sephian dish and my personal favorite. Much better than these bland meat cakes.” With a grimace, he dropped it back onto the tray.
“They would be better with some ketchup,” she admitted.
“Nah. Who needs ketchup?” The last word was mumbled as Jax chomped off half a burger in two bites. He paused, then peeled back the bun back from the partially eaten burger up and examined it. “Is this even real? Tastes more like Boca than beef.”
Sienna shrugged. “Knowing Cookie, it probably is. After all, Sephians are vegetarians. But you got to admit,” she held out her partially eaten veggie burger “this is a lot better than
the alternative.” Despite the cardboard flavor and dry texture of the sandwich, she had to give the Sephians credit for trying to fit in. They were trying to Americanize themselves. Before long, the whole lot of them would be video game junkies and hopeless Facebook addicts.
“Yeah. It’s all fun and games until someone brings out the moldy hinds,” Jax said with a visible shudder.
“Mulhean,” Legian replied irritably. “And at least we still have food. Our supplies are getting dismally low. Soon, all we’ll have are these meat cakes.”
It didn’t seem to bother Jax one bit, but Legian’s comment worried her. They’d been living on borrowed time for too long. Being stuck in a bed in Med gave her plenty of time to think. Their current situation was like a beetle that randomly reared its ugly head, biting her back to the reality. The United States was onto them. The Draeken had already painfully proven the fact that they knew the location of the base. They needed to reach out to the military soon, before something happened.
“Make way. Some of us have to work around here,” Risa said as she walked in front of the screen.
Sienna frowned. “Party pooper.”
“Well, I guess you don’t want this then,” she replied, popping the cork off a bottle of wine and then turning away with a fake sad face.
Sienna motioned for the bottle. “Whoa. Get that over here.”
Risa giggled before handing over the wine. “I figured you all needed a little celebration. Fayel says Sienna is ready to try standing tomorrow.”
Sienna gave a whoop before taking a swig right out of the bottle.
Legian eyed the bottle warily. “I don’t think that bottle is going to last long.”
“Oh. Hold on a sec.” Risa stepped out of the room, returning seconds later with a case of beer.
Nalea grabbed the case. “Now we have a celebration.”
“Sephian roulette?” she asked hopefully.
“What’s Sephian roulette?” Risa asked.
“It’s a drinking game Lea taught me. An awesome drinking game.”
A grumble sounded to her left. “The last time we played that game, Doc kicked all of us out of Med for a day. You really want to take that chance?”