Warrior Reborn

by KH LeMoyne

  His watch reached the twenty-nine minute mark and he reached for the syringe Grimm had prepared. Holding Briet’s hand to his heart, he pushed the needle into her arm and pressed the plunger. The syringe still gripped in his fingers, he waited for any hopeful sign. The pressure on his shoulder made him jerk until he realized Ansgar held the wastebasket beside him for the syringe.

  Questions and theories ran through Jason’s mind. He kept his thoughts to himself, not letting his fear interrupt Grimm’s progress. He glanced from his watch to the side table for more of the coagulant. Grimm had brought out only one vial.

  Could he trust that the man would be done in time? Trust wasn’t the question here. It was about preparedness. He looked to Ansgar. “Find another bottle of that stuff in the closet and another syringe.”

  Ansgar pursed his lips. “Grimm will be done in time.”

  Jason nodded, “Get it anyway. I’m not going to risk her life by waiting until the last minute. I won’t give it to her unless he reaches the next mark.”

  At Ansgar’s hesitation, he lost his temper. “I have a fucking medical degree. I’m not going to hurt her.” He took a deep breath, tamped down the desperate anger raging with his command, and pressed her hand for calm before he looked back at Ansgar. “Please.”

  Ansgar glanced from Briet’s body back to Jason and moved to the closet. A new syringe with another dose of coagulant appeared quietly on the side table.

  Quan said nothing throughout the whole altercation. Evidently, Turen wasn’t the only person here with a stronghold on calm.

  Just a minute shy of the second thirty minutes, Jason held the syringe in hand, calculating how quickly he could load it and dose her when Grimm took a deep breath and opened his eyes. The healer moved backward to sit in another of the chairs, resting his head in his hands.

  It was only a moment. Jason gave him that much time. The man had spent an hour working over Briet. When Grimm’s head finally came back up and looked to Quan, relief filled Jason.

  “How much longer will she be under, Quan?”

  “Another hour or so. How much longer do you need?”

  “Six hours would be good for now. That way she won’t move and rupture anything. Then I suspect she will need several more days for rejuvenation.” Grimm’s eyes glanced at the side table, taking in the spare coagulant and nodded to Jason. “It was close. I should have left a second one.”

  Jason glanced to Ansgar. “We had it covered.”

  Quan opened her eyes. “She’ll stay in dream sleep. I’ll remain here at the Sanctum and be in to check on her.”

  “Thank you,” said Jason.

  She smiled, rose, and left the room.

  “So, what happened?” Jason had waited long enough.

  Ansgar spoke before Grimm could answer. “Is this what happened to Maitea?”

  Grimm looked pained. “Very similar. This drug had a time trigger, releasing a second strain, thinning the blood to attack the vital organs.”

  Jason forced himself to gently stroke Briet’s hand instead of grabbing her to him. He didn’t know these people. He didn’t know the tragedy they spoke of. The implication, however, was all too clear, but he had to focus on the here and now. “Is there any permanent damage?”

  “No injury to the heart. I cleared the lungs. The brain had not been touched. The kidney and liver, I’ve repaired, as well as minor tissue and organ function. I will check her again in an hour, just to make sure there are no secondary effects, but I believe I got everything.”

  Jason looked along Briet’s body and the bed. The blood everywhere was garish.

  “Was she—?” Ansgar stopped and looked at Jason, apparently uncomfortable to continue.

  Grimm hesitated but didn’t look at Ansgar. “She wasn’t pregnant. Which turns out to be fortunate. So much bleeding and damage would have been fatal. She’s lost too much blood to have survived such level of trauma.”

  Ansgar shifted uneasily by the bed, his arms still crossed over his chest, his hands fisted. “She loves children, Grimm.”

  The healer turned and gave Briet’s brother a compassionate look, but swung back to Jason before he responded. “She is in good shape. This hasn’t affected her ability to carry a child safely to term, but—”

  Jason looked away from all the blood and tried to shake the focus the healer had on Briet not being pregnant when the connection registered. He narrowed his eyes. “You think that was the purpose of the drug—of the attack? To kill them both?”

  Grimm didn’t answer, but he rested his elbows on the bed and looked at Briet, his hands tented before his face, fingers on his lips in thought.

  Ansgar swung away. “Salvatore. The bastard targeted her because he thought she was mated? Hoping she was pregnant? Son of a bitch. How did he find her?”

  Jason waited, eager to learn everything about the man who could have orchestrated this horror as he stroked the hair from Briet’s face. Grimm gave no conjecture. At least she was still with him. “Can we move her enough to get her cleaned up? In case she wakes—I don’t want her to see this.”

  “I think we can manage that.” Grimm’s voice was steady in contrast to Ansgar’s previous outburst.

  The brother moved to stand at Briet’s head and brushed a hand over his sister’s face.

  Jason looked from Grimm to Ansgar in confusion. Confusion morphed to wonder. Tiny mists of water sprayed along Briet’s skin from her brother’s fingertips, cleansing away the blood and dissipating into nothing. Jason waited as Ansgar patiently cleaned Briet’s face, then cupped her hair in his hand, cleaning that as well.

  Jason looked away from the tight expression of pain on the man’s face and focused on toweling Briet’s skin. Whatever issues he might have with her brother, their mutual love for her wasn’t one of them.

  Ansgar looked toward the blood painting the lower sheets of the bed. Grimm laid a hand to his arm with a shake of his head. “We will see to the rest. Would you ask Mia to find something comfortable for Briet to wear?”

  With a glance between them, Ansgar nodded. Lines of worry cut creases around his eyes and mouth. Ansgar shook his head and let out a harsh breath. “You’re sure she’s going to be okay?”

  Grimm gave him a weary smile. “I wasn’t sugar coating the situation. She will heal and she will be able to have children, if she wants them.”

  Ansgar gave a stiff nod and left the room, hands in his pockets, his large shoulders hunched.

  Grimm gathered supplies and closed the door on his return. “With any luck we can do this before anyone else shows up.”

  He didn’t give Jason an option, moving to care for Briet’s lower body with the speed, efficiency, and detachment of a professional. In minutes, they had her cleaned and wrapped in a fresh sheet. Jason lifted her gently as Grimm removed the traces of the attack from the bed and then spread fresh linens.

  “The loss of the child would have affected you also.”

  “Of course.” Jason shook back the sick unease that thought generated.

  “Not in the way you might think.”

  Jason tensed and waited. It kept raining surprises.

  “Guardian fathers are linked to their children from conception. There is…a special form of communication.”

  Guardians. So, there was a name to go with the superpowers. The tension on Grimm’s face indicated more. “This has happened before?”

  Grimm tensed and nodded. “The loss of the mating link and the brutality of what his mate endured drove one of our leaders to the edge, even with Xavier’s remarkably strength and fortitude. This attack was meant to ruin lives. To rip a new hole in my people’s purpose. To plant seeds of doubt. It was meant to destroy you and your potential family.”

  “Salvatore?” Saying the man’s name made his blood boil. More than anything Jason wanted details.

  “One of our own. He plotted and murdered our people with forethought and cunning.” Grimm shook his head. “He knew full well the consequences and relished the p
ain he caused.”

  Jason struggled to swallow and speak. “Not the first person to enjoy the suffering of others.”

  “He is the only one in our history. Guardians do not harm other Guardians. Or their mates and innocent children. We are a people of a different purpose.”

  Jason felt the pressure heat in his chest. The Guardians were turning out to be more than super human. They seemed too good to be true—with the flaming exception of Salvatore. Perhaps he was the yin to the Guardian yang. “You took samples of her blood?”

  Grimm gave him a curious look, but tilted his head once in acknowledgement.

  “Does she have a lab here?”

  Grimm’s expression cleared. “Yes. It may not be what you expect.”

  “Whatever is here will be a start. I would like a shot at isolating the drug’s composition once she’s well enough to be alone for brief periods of time.”

  Grimm pocketed the sample he’d taken of Briet’s blood before the coagulant injection. “I’ll leave these refrigerated in her lab. I’ll help you with them once she’s stabilized.”

  “I would like one taken now as well.”

  Grimm nodded and handed Jason a fresh syringe from the drawer of the bedside table. Jason performed the extraction, handed the sample to Grimm, and turned back to slide his fingers along Briet’s face. “If this was Salvatore’s plan, it failed.” He looked up to meet Grimm’s stare. “When she thrives, he fails.”

  Grimm smiled. “I would support that as an excellent plan. I know Ansgar would as well.”

  A knock on the door sounded before it opened. A tiny woman with straight shoulder length brown hair and bright blue eyes poked in her head. “I come bearing soft, comfy sleepwear.”

  “Ah, Mia. I will leave you both to make Briet comfortable. Jason, you should go ahead and rest with her. Keep physical contact with her.” He waved to the bed. “I’ll be back in several hours. If you need anything just call. One of us will be close.”

  “Thank you—for saving her.”

  “My ability only works if used. Still, it would have been worth little without you at her side.” With that, Grimm left.

  CHAPTER 23

  Jason leaned against the headboard with Briet cradled to his chest and closed his eyes. The need for rest beat in a dull throb of pain at the base of his skull. Instead of sleep, he replayed the events of the last few weeks, tormenting himself with the myriad ways in which he could have altered the current circumstances. So many choices. So many avenues to avoid Briet’s suffering.

  No options presented to change the past. Apparently, that wasn’t a Guardian skill.

  He opened his eyes. Ansgar sat a tense vigil in the chair beside the bed, his gaze riveted to his sister’s face.

  “Grimm says she’ll be okay.”

  Ansgar said nothing, didn’t even blink.

  Jason stroked his thumb over Briet’s arm, reluctant for small talk, yet needing to fill the silence. “He guaranteed me that she would be unconscious only three more days.”

  After a low grumble and a concerned look for Briet, Ansgar’s gaze swung his way. “So, we feel what, lucky? It’s not as if there’s some righteous reason for her not being pregnant.”

  “I’m grateful. Otherwise we would have lost her.” However, Jason had no answer for Ansgar’s real train of thought. Briet was alive now because he hadn’t wanted to risk having children. Evidence of a surprise pregnancy distressed most families. Standard reason and judgment didn’t seem to apply to Briet’s people.

  Over the last several hours, twists of logic had spun around in his thoughts. Time for doubt to spawn, finally winding down for Jason to an unsettling conclusion. If he’d allowed his relationship with Briet to evolve into a commitment sooner, she might have retreated to her tribe before becoming vulnerable to exposure. But she wouldn’t have left her patients. Given he wasn’t ready to believe her sooner, he would have risked losing her anyway.

  No help there. Second-guessing was killing him, a sensation he hadn’t experienced for years. He felt vibes of a similar unsteadiness and disorientation from Ansgar

  A stronger issue than progeny ran beneath the man’s anger. Some deeper concern Jason still didn’t grasp, so he pushed.

  “There are perfectly happy couples living fulfilled lives without children.”

  Ansgar paused in his glare long enough to blink. “You’re what, thirty-five?”

  “Thirty-six.”

  “How old do you think I am?”

  Jason shrugged. “About my age, give or take.”

  “I’m two hundred and eight years old.”

  Jason pressed his lips together tight and clamped down any expression of shock. Briet had casually mentioned once that her family lived for a long time, but Ansgar’s numbers were science fiction.

  “Xavier brought me here with Briet after our parents died of the virus. All the children found under the age of eighteen were brought to the Sanctum. I was twelve and she was six, when we were forced to survive here as children.” Ansgar appeared to wait for the numbers to sink in. “When you die of old age, my sister will look as she does now. She’ll bury you, continuing to live, alone, for eternity.”

  “Immortal.” Jason swallowed hard as Ansgar gave a terse shake of his head. He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or horrified.

  “No. We’re meant to find our mates. Our one, our only mate. When we join, and begin creation of the only two children we will ever produce, a switch triggers in our bodies. The switch allows us to age and grow old with our mates, passing from this life with them, in the natural order of the world.”

  A cold chill snapped into Jason’s bones with teeth. He got it.

  Ansgar’s anger, the reticence he was feeling from Briet’s brother, the soft, perplexed look he’d received from Quan. He was Briet’s mate. By not choosing commitment with children, her people would assume he didn’t care for her. His choices relegated her to an eternity, not just a lifetime, of loneliness.

  His reluctance, a condemnation, no different from the hell his father inflicted upon his mother. A different method of torture, and never intended, but the result of pain and loneliness, was the same.

  And she’d known. Briet hadn’t pressured him, manipulated him or coaxed him to her way of thinking. She had accepted his reasons and his choices, giving up on her own dreams. Dreams he’d borne witness to as he had observed her with her patients. Her concern for Brian Paulson and Davis Randall’s happiness, not only their health, was obvious. Her despair over Annie Bremar’s death, palpable. Anguish, not just from a good doctor, but from a woman who gave parts of herself to the children in her care. Her desire to nurture, an integrated part of the woman she was.

  The energy and love she offered, injected with determination for children who would benefit from her vitality and profit from her extraordinary skills.

  Yes, her people were glad she had lived. Yet, it was obvious to all of them that her mate had basically rejected her at the most fundamental level and disregarded her needs and happiness.

  The biggest irony—in avoiding his worst nightmare, Jason had turned himself into the person he despised the most—his father. Spending years shielding the baser nature of his background behind rules and walls, only to find the consequences had swung full circle. Would knowing the cost of his actions make the difference? Jason considered this new truth as he waited for Ansgar to finish.

  “We raised each other, pieced together the lost bits of our history.” Ansgar looked at his hands and then at Briet again, as if Jason had become an insignificant reason for the tale. “We didn’t even understand our mates resided within the human populace until recently. Each Guardian carries a singular, specific trait, replicated only once in a generation to benefit the growth and evolution of mankind.” The last word he spit out as if infected with an unpleasant after taste.

  “When we lose one of our own, we lose those gifts and fail in our covenant to pass on hope for humanity through the birth of our children.” Ansg
ar huffed, his eyes closed, evidently done with his speech.

  Jason gave the man time to decompress before asking the question he dreaded. “Your children carry a legacy aside from the superpowers?”

  Ansgar shrugged, impassive. “We were cherished as children. Our own will receive no less. My sister has given much for our people, for yours. She deserves to have her happiness realized. If you can’t do that, you should leave before she wakes. It would be kinder. She will love you all of your lifetime. Even that is too long to make her suffer.”

  The man hadn’t really answered his question, but Jason wasn’t about to let the final challenge stand. “It’s not your choice to make.”

  “No. It’s not.” Ansgar left without another word.

  Jason sat there, his arms around Briet, her soft skin moving beneath his hands with each breath.

  He wouldn’t leave. He couldn’t let go. He waited for the stifling pressure in his chest, the claustrophobic sense of dread, the voices, and the cold, clammy fear following the mere thought of commitment. The horror at the image of a tiny, helpless child subjected to potential rages.

  Nothing. For the first time in years, he wanted—with desperation instead of dread. An emotion he was determined to fight to keep.

  He slipped the small box from his pants pocket and spun the black velvet cube in his fingers. The impetus to buy the ring had taken him by surprise. He now accepted the compulsion, growing every hour, to slide the ring on her finger. The need for her to feel the cool metal on her flesh and still be linked with him ripped the air from his lungs.

  Sparkles glittered from the tiny diamonds circling both edges in the twist of the platinum double-helix ring. With a gentle push, he slid it onto her finger, relief replacing doubt.

  “I found this in a specialty store downtown. They show some of Manuel Sanchez’ work there.” He stroked over the graceful twists and edges twinkling on her finger. “The minute I saw this, I thought of you. It reminded me of your tattoo, your mark. I was going to give you this the night of the benefit, but—we got a little screwed up.”