by Stacy Lee
I grab my skirt and frantically scrub at my face, hot tears stream down my cheeks only to be mixed with the crimson liquid. Sobs wrack my body as I try and fail to remove it. I only manage to smear it more. In a quick move Dare slides down beside me and pulls me into his arms holding me tight to his chest. I try to fight but his grip is too firm, yet he doesn’t hurt me. The comfort his embrace brings is both surprising and alarming. All the fight leaves me in a rush, the fear becomes nameless while wrapped in his arms, the harsh voice of Uncle quiets for the first time in decades, and to my utter disbelief I take the comfort this man is offering me. My head lands softly on his chest as emotions overcome me.
Chapter Three
I don’t know what set her off exactly, whether it was my words or what she perceived as a threat when I approached her or my hand rising too quickly as if to strike her, but watching her tear at her face trying to rid herself of the blood broke my heart. Without thinking of her reaction I grab her tightly to me and hold her arms pinned beside her before she hurt herself. When she finally calms enough to drop her head on my chest I take the moment to search where the blood came from. When I pulled her forward I had twisted her to sit on her left hip because the right side of her skirt is coated in blood. Releasing one hand from around her I reach for the material, she tenses in my arms as soon as my fingers touch her.
“I need to check on your leg, nothing more.” I softly try to placate her while I draw the material further up her thigh. Her body shutters harder the higher it goes. Scratches, cuts and bruises begin to become visible. Hand prints on her inner thighs as if someone had tried to pry her legs open makes my blood boil. What had she said when I asked her what happened to her? She had gotten into a fight but got away? This wasn’t a fight, it was an attack. Revealing the deep gash along her thigh I decide to let the questions drop long enough to take care of her wounds.
“Hey Jack, can you pass me the first aid kit?” He reaches up around Morgan in the co-pilots seat and grabs the tackle box full of supplies. “When did you do this, Marnie?” I ask as I open the box and remove a thick pad to wipe the wound.
“Bottom of the tree, about three branches up when you caught my wrist.” She grits out. Her tears have stopped and she seems to be calming back down. “I’m sorry I lost it. It has been a long three days.” She sniffs then flinches with the pressure I apply.
“No problem. We all reach a breaking point at some time or another.” She snorts.
“I bet you don’t.” A serious humor laces her voice.
“Not often, no.” Now that the blood was washed away I could see how badly her thigh was injured. She climbed a good fifteen feet with a three inch gash deep enough to require stitches, it must have been excruciating. “Jack, what do we have in there for pain?” I ask quietly, too quietly for her to hear knowing Jack’s ears were as fine-tuned as mine. He digs in the box then holds up a vial of bright blue liquid.
“The only thing we have is Morp. I don’t think humans can have this.” She might be human but she was also a mate.
“I need to stitch this up and I’m not doing it without something for pain. Pull out two cc’s.” He eyes me for a minute then obeys, handing me the needle full of blue meds. “This is going to sting.” I whisper in her ear when I insert the needle into her pale skin at the junction of her neck and shoulder. Her eyes fly open and she sucks in a deep breath as the Morp enters her system.
“Burns, not stings.” She grits out. “Oh, hell! What did you do to me?” She cries out, her back arches in pain. I wrap my arms around her and hold her close.
“It’ll stop in a minute. Don’t fight it, let it put you to sleep.” I try to console her, however I’m not sure she hears me through her sobs. Oh boy, I hope I didn’t just screw up. It takes almost five heart wrenching minutes before her body relaxes in my arms, her head lulls to the side and her breathing evens out. “Thread me a needle, Jack.” I lay her gently across two of the seats then sit on my knees beside her to sew up her wound.
“I see a clearing to my right, do you want me to sit it down and search for your brothers? I’m almost where you said they were.” Wren’s voice comes through the ear piece I had shoved in a few minutes ago.
“Do you see any sign of them?” I ask when I finish the last stitch. Tossing the needle in the box I tape a pad over the wound before turning my attention to the window. Pulling my phone from my pocket I pull up the GPS app and search for my brothers signals. All five of them were less than a quarter mile away and moving this way fast. “Sit it down. They’re coming to us.” He nods then maneuvers the chopper into position.
At the same time we touch the ground my brothers break through the trees. Cash has Bane thrown over his shoulder, Archer was holding up Fin and Emmitt was bringing up the rear with a slight limp he didn’t have last night. They pile into the chopper and motion for Wren to go. He follows instructions immediately, lifting out of the clearing just as it’s swarmed with Stroli and Vampires alike.
“Damn. Who started the war?” I ask sarcastically. I sit Marnie up tenderly then slide in beside her to let her body rest against mine.
“Not sure. They just kept coming. Just as we would kill them all another wave would roll in. By the time we lost all the men with us we decided fleeing was our best option. There was just too many. We could hear you coming and ran towards the sound.” Archer shrugs. Turned away from us he’s intently watching the scenery pass by. “Can I ask a question?” He turns his head to stare at Marnie. I nod. “Why is your mate unconscious with blood all over her face?” He lifts a brow at me with a hard glint in his eyes.
“We had to climb a tree and she cut her leg. She didn’t realize she had blood on her hand when she touched her face. I stitched her up after I drugged her, which is why she is unconscious.” Jack cuts his eyes at me. Yeah, that wasn’t the whole story but for some reason I didn’t want them knowing she broke down. She tried so hard to be strong, and I didn’t think she would appreciate them knowing she wasn’t. The woman was strong, she had followed me through the forest barefoot not knowing where I would lead her. She kept up an even jog for five hours without compliant, not many women, hell not many men, could do that.
“I haven’t restocked the first aid kit for humans in a while. Was there something in there for her?” He asks curiously, his knowing glare says he doesn’t need the answer.
“I gave her 2 cc’s of Morp.”
“You did what?!” Four brother’s voices rise in outrage. Only Bane, who is still unconscious on the floor, doesn’t yell at that.
“Morp is not meant for humans, Dare!” Emmitt spits out. “Wren, speed us up. We need to get her to Angie, ASAP.” He nods and the chopper speeds up exponentially. Emmitt was an electronic genius, Fin was a mechanical miracle worker, together they had modified this baby to perfection. Speed wasn’t an obstacle in her, not any more.
“She is a mate. She should be fine.” I try to defend myself but the worried looks of everyone in the cab add to my building nervousness.
“She is a potential mate. She hasn’t been through The Change yet therefore she is still very much human. Keep track of her pulse and respirations till we get there.” Emmitt is the smartest of us all. He has degrees in both electronics and medicine that I know of. I’m sure he has several we don’t know about shoved in a box in the back of his closet. He seems to always be studying something.
The flight from Yellowstone to the coastline of Texas didn’t take near as long as it would have if we’d been in any normal helicopter. Wren easily lands on the tip of Galveston Island at my beachfront home. Well, compound would probably be a better word for it. Several buildings stretch out around the large main housing unit that was built to hold over five hundred Patronus families if necessary. Right now only about two hundred families and another two hundred soldiers and single civilians resided in these walls.
Each of us brothers had an area like this spread out around the world. Mine however seemed to be where you could find them mos
t of the time. They only traveled to the other compounds if something was in need of attention. We were stronger together and preferred to stay close at hand when necessary. Our locations changed ever few decades to keep the enemies guessing. This one had been here longer than most, going on thirty years. We would have to move it soon but I kept putting it off because I loved the area so much.
“Angie’s waiting in her office for you.” Jack, Angie’s mate, motions me to follow him. He has been on the phone most of the flight relaying Marnie’s stats. I jump from the chopper with Marnie in my arms and follow him through the twists and turns of the housing complex. Angie’s ‘office’ was a medical bay in the middle of the compound comprising of four beds and a clean room for surgeries. She was rarely anywhere else unless Jack was home, then you would have to knock at their room next door to get her attention.
Jack has been my second in command for close to three hundred years. Only my brothers and I ranked higher than him in this compound. He was a good man, a good fighter and a wonderful mate, or so Angie said. They had been together close to a hundred years now and to see one was to see the other. It made me nauseous most of the time but to each their own. If he wanted to be a lovey-dovey man then it was his business. He could still behead any other race faster than most and that’s all I cared about.
“Put her on the bed closest to my computer.” Angie instructs in a no nonsense manner. Her little glare before turning to grab wires says she’s just as pissed at me as the others are. And by the way she didn’t greet Jack says she’s probably mad at him for letting me inject her in the first place.
Her hazel eyes scan over Marnie before she reaches in the lime green coat she’s wearing and pulls out a syringe to take blood. “Grab a rag and wash her face. Can’t have her looking like she’s been beat up now can we?” I flinch with the words, her bruises will suggest otherwise once the blood is gone.
Angie moves between her computer that’s placed on a metal rolling cart and Marnie, placing wires and sticky pads on her body. Her five foot eight petite frame gracefully moves around the room. Her strawberry blonde hair is piled on her head out of the way, a tight t-shirt and jeans are visible under her coat. Jack had bought her the jacket as a joke a few Christmas’s ago but she loved it. She used to have a white one but she kept staining it with chemicals and fluids while she worked and always complained that white was the wrong color for doctors to wear. Why not red or black or lime green? Her favorite color was lime green and according to Angie everything should be that color.
“Tell me about how she reacted when you gave it to her and on the ride. Anything unusual?” Her voice is clipped and to the point as she adjusts the monitors now relaying Marnie’s heartbeat and oxygen levels.
“She said it burned after I gave it to her. She was in pain for about five minutes before it knocked her out. Four times her breathing sped up and so did her heart after I was done with the stitches. I’m not sure of during, I wasn’t paying attention then.” She grabs a set of new wires and attaches them to Marnie’s head with stickies. The other end is a USB connection which she plugs into her computer before returning to Marnie’s side.
“Dreams. How long was each episode?” She shines a light in Marnie’s eyes then looks up to me.
“No more than three minutes each time. What do you mean dreams?” I mutter.
“Morp makes us loopy, it controls pain and usually knocks us out for roughly thirty minutes. Just long enough to do what’s needed depended on the amount given, like stitches to keep you from bleeding out while you heal. In a human it affects a part of the brain that generates fear. Those moments you felt her heart race is because she was dreaming of what scares her the most. Three minutes is good because she found a way to get out of the fear induced hallucination. Whether she faced it or found a way around it, she managed to beat it enough to escape. They were probably small fears, ones she already has a handle on. It’s when she comes to a big one that we need to worry. If she can’t pull out of the dream fast enough it could cause a stroke or cardiac arrest. That’s what the risk is with humans, they aren’t immortal and can die from literally being scared to death.” She pulls her chair out and sits before her computer, her hands flying rapidly over the keys.
“Emmitt has developed new software I’m testing for him that might help us with this. If we can see what is going on in her head you might be able to control her fear enough to slow her heart rate down and wake her up. Jack said The Choosing had been completed but The Claiming hadn’t?” She asks while furiously typing away. I cut my eyes to Jack who shrugs.
“No, it hasn’t.” I growl out.
“Then I suggest you wait till the Morp has left her system to do so. Any excitement will bring her heart rate up and you take a chance of her stroking out.” That doctor’s tone of hers can really get annoying.
“Did Jack also tell you there is a forty-eight hour time limit on The Claiming? If it isn’t completed she dies.” I bite out. She pauses in her typing and looks over her shoulder at me.
“Really? I didn’t know that.” Jack shuffles his feet in the corner, neither did he. “What time was The Choosing and what time did you give her the Morp?”
“I heard the decision at 12:05 a.m. and we gave her the Morp eleven hours later.” She nods and returns to her computer.
“Then you have till eleven tomorrow before the Morp is clear. That gives you till 12:05 tomorrow night to finish the necessities. You should be fine.” Fine? I should be fine? My body was screaming for me to take the woman now, hard and fast, but I should be fine? This mating shit was surely going to kill me.
Just then the monitors attached to Marnie begin to go haywire. Shrill alarms sound, her pulse jumps to dangerous levels and her breathing begins to pant out. The monitor above Angie’s head flickers from blank to colors to blank again before a picture comes into view.
Marnie stands in the grass between two dirt roads. In front of her about a hundred yards in each road is a figure shrouded in deep shadows.
“That’s what she’s seeing?” I ask in a hushed voice. Angie nods slowly never taking her eyes from the screen.
The blue cloudless sky above Marnie darkens to a stormy grey, the grass on either sides of the roads turn to fields of wildflowers and a breeze begins to blow her long blonde hair off her neck. “You must choose one.” I recognize the female voice from last night’s Choosing and cringe.
“What am I choosing this time?” Marnie hollers into the storm.
“What are you most afraid of? Death?” The figure on the left lightens to reveal a Stroli who lets out a monstrous roar in response. “Or men?” The other figure still shrouded in darkness grows in height, his hands are clinched tightly by his sides, his posture rigid, a bright light shines behind him casting him in even darker shades, two green eyes was the only color emanating from him. Then he opens his mouth and speaks.
“What did you say to me?” My heart sinks when I realize this imposing figure is how she saw me on the chopper. What have I done? My gaze stays riveted to the screen praying she picked death.
****
I look between the two imposing figures. My two biggest fears.
Death and men.
But what scared me more? I stare at the Stroli --isn’t that what Dare called it?-- and my heart leaps in my throat. It could kill me in an instant with those claws. This creature definitely represented death.
My view swivels back to Dare then back to the Stroli. How many times had I faced death in the form of my uncle? How many times had I been lying on the floor begging for death to take me after he’d beaten me senseless? And Dirk, he made me face death in the form of a hole in the ground.
I look to the figure of Dare. Yes, he is a man like the voice said, but men were also death. In that one gender both my fears resided. There really is no choice because men and death are the same.
“The choice has been made.” The woman’s voice sounds out. I recoil.
“I didn’t say anything!” I ye
ll. “Again.” I add as a mutter under my breath. The Stroli in the road disappears completely and Dare begins to stalk forward. The shadows around him dissolve leaving his face in hard lines, his body rigid and his green eyes narrowed to slits. I steel myself to stand my ground and ignore the shaking in my body.
“What did you say to me?” He repeats in that hard voice of his before his hand flies up just as it had on the chopper. I yelp, turn and run.
So much for standing my ground.
I run as fast as I can down the dirt road, his hard footsteps following close behind me. I know he can catch me, he ran so fast in the forest that he could be on me in an instant, but he wasn’t. He was playing with me. I pump my arms harder, forcing my legs faster.
The scenery around me begins to change. A clearing takes shape, green and peaceful. I look back over my shoulder to see Dirk lying crumpled on the ground moaning in pain. Dare is gone.
My brain acknowledges I have my clothes grasped tightly to my chest, a gun in my hand. I keep running naked through the clearing. I had to reach the woods.
“Naveen! When I catch you, you will pay for that!” I hit the forest and dodge the trees trying to pick up the pace. Crashing sounds behind me as Dirk enters the tree line searching for me. I keep running.
Once again the scene changes around me, the tall trees turn into corn stalks, my body shrinks down to that of a ten year olds, my breathing is hard, my face burns from a backhand, Uncle’s bellow sounds behind me, but still I run.
“Naveen! Get your ass back here! You know what happens when you make me run!” A squeak leaves me unbidden. I skirt through the corn trying not to touch it and give away my position. The end is almost in site, if I can reach the edge of the stalks then I can make it through the field to the neighbor’s house. She will hide me.