Brooke’s eyes widened, but she nodded and took Jackson in her arms. As soon as she did, Emory set to work. And immediately, Jackson started fussing. She would have to hurry.
My god, he has so much blood on him.
And it was all over the table, dark and thick. She grabbed some gauze and pushed hard for a minute to see if she could to stop the bleeding.
The big Warrior didn’t seem to notice, didn’t seem to be bothered by the large gash or the blood dripping down his arm or the fact that she was putting her body weight against his wound.
Brooke hovered at Micah’s other shoulder, a crying Jackson in one arm. He wasn’t complaining, but Brooke was trying to soothe him. “It’s okay, Micah,” Brooke murmured. “This is Emory. She’s going to patch you up. You’ll be okay.”
She obviously cared a great deal for this Warrior, too, despite his fierce looks.
Brooke alternated between trying to comfort Micah, and trying to comfort Jackson who was still upset.
Her poor baby, he must be so tired. And hungry, and scared. Her mommy guilt pricked her, and she added her voice to Brooke’s while her hands moved over Micah’s wounds. “Jackson, Mommy’s here. It’s okay, calm down.”
Jackson was not calming down. In fact, the wind was starting to stir in the room, the tendrils of her hair waving in a breeze that should not be there. Brooke was doing her best to calm him, but Emory couldn’t take the time to help her with blood all over her hands.
She pulled back the gauze. The blood had slowed down, but not yet stopped. He needed stitches. She grabbed the needle and thread out of the medical kit, sanitized it, and held it next to his brown skin.
“I’m sorry about this, I don’t have any anesthetic. It will hurt.”
Micah looked at the wound and shrugged, so unconcerned that she wondered if he’d hit his head at some point as well. He just opened the food bar Brooke had passed him, blood welling with the motion, and bit into it.
Emory raised a brow in question at Brooke.
She shrugged. “The calories from the bars helps them recoup their powers. It may help quicken his healing too, until he can get outside.”
Any other man would be horizontal right now, not sitting up eating. But then again, he wasn’t an ordinary man, was he? None of them were. They were all Elementals.
Emory bit her lip and looked at Jackson while she dabbed the wound above his enormous bicep. The wind was getting stronger. All the empty packages from the gauze had blown off the table and across the room. Pretty soon the heavier stuff would start flying. “Shhh, baby, mommy’s right here. Five minutes. In five minutes, I can hold you.”
She pressed the needle into his skin, pinching the wound closed. A few seconds later, she snipped the first stitch.
The Warrior looked around the room at the disturbance, then to Jackson, then to her. “The little one, he’s an Air Erratic.”
She resumed her work as she answered. “Yes, he is.”
“He’s young. And strong.”
Her hair blew into her face just then, Jackson’s crying in the background, as if to accentuate his statement. “Yes.”
He responded with a grunt that could have been a hmmmm. Since he seemed to be asking without actually asking, she decided to answer him. He would know soon enough anyway.
“Yes, he is Ajax’s.” She snipped another stitch and then met his gaze.
Head tilted, he looked her over. Whatever he saw seemed to please him, because he smiled big enough to crinkle the edges of his dark brown eyes.
Micah sat down his empty food wrapper beside him. “May I?”
“May you what?”
He tilted his head to Jackson and held his arm open. Brooke stepped closer to him but looked to her for approval.
Brooke trusted him, and he knew what Jackson was. Micah was one of the good guys. And dammit, her hands were still busy and bloody and Jackson was still freaking out. She nodded.
Carefully, Brooke sat Jackson in the crook of his arm. Her baby looked incredibly tiny and fragile there. Emory held her breath, rushing through the last of Micah’s stitches as fast as she could without messing up or hurting him unnecessarily.
But then he started singing.
Emory’s needle froze. It was a sound she’d never heard. So deep and rich, she could feel it in her chest. If thunder could sing… For some reason her eyes instantly pricked with tears.
It was the sound of mountains crumbling, of continents moving. It was the sound of the Earth turning.
The sound of loneliness.
Jackson quieted in seconds, eyes closing. The wind died down gently, the room becoming still and silent save for Micah’s low humming.
With a thick swallow, Emory went back to stitching him, her hands steady and fast now. When she was done, she snipped the final stitch and wrapped him in a bandage. A minute later after washing her hands in the kitchen sink, she held them out for Jackson. Micah set him in her arms gently, and he stayed asleep, his little body warm and motionless, his breaths easy.
She sighed and settled him closer to her. They’d been through a lot today. Looking up at Micah, she met his eyes. “Thank you.”
“Thank you.” Thin black braids fell over his shoulder as he tipped his head at her.
Emory pulled back to bounce Jackson gently in her arms as she walked, and Brooke brought Micah another energy bar. “How did you get that deep cut on your arm?” Brooke asked him.
“Knife,” he said with no elaboration.
Emory turned away, bringing Jackson to her nose to reassure herself with that warm baby smell. So, this would be their life now. Anything but normal.
Chaos and fights and danger and—
Ajax came back into the room, that sexy half-smirk on his lips as he walked towards her, and she took a deep breath, letting it all go.
This was their life now. They were safe, and surrounded by people who knew what Jackson was and would protect him, care for him. And they had Ajax. She smiled at him with damp eyes. He had to be a Warrior, always, but she could see now that that would never prevent him from giving them all of his love.
It wouldn’t take the form she thought it would, but they could have happiness.
He brought her lips to meet his with a gentle tug on her chin, and once again, she was drunk on him.
Emory pulled back from Ajax’s lips, smiled into his eyes. “I love you.” The words had probably been true since the morning at the hotel, but they were even more true now.
“I love you, too.”
“Is anyone hungry?”
Emory leaned back and peered at Brooke at her random question. She had a hand on her still-flat belly. “I was about to cook for Levi and I before…everything. I’m hungry.” She blushed a bit then, with a chagrined smile.
When was dinner? What time was it now? She had no idea, but her stomach said it was eating time. Which was odd, considering the crazy swing of emotions in the last few hours. Her stomach had dropped to the floor then crawled up in her throat and back again, and finally settled back under her ribcage, empty. “I could eat.”
“Great!” Brooke said, “I’ll make extra servings. Ajax? Micah?”
“Sure,” Ajax said. Micah shook his head.
“Would you like some help?”
Brooke waved her off. “You just sit at the table and hold that little baby. Let someone take care of you.”
Ajax led her over to the big table and pulled out a seat for her. Micah came over and sat at the other end, opening one of their energy bars. She sank down into the chair, grateful.
This had been the longest day of her life, and she was starting to feel it everywhere.
Ajax must’ve been able to tell. He offered to get her a drink and then returned with a cold soda. She sipped it with one hand, holding Jackson in the other arm. Ajax pulled up a chair and sat beside her, ripping open one of his bars.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Brooke was cooking for them both.
“Yeah,” he said, “But I
used a lot of power today. I still need a few of these.”
Emory looked closer. He looked a little paler, a little more raccoon-eyed than he normally did. He was tired too.
She sat down her drink and grabbed his hand. He smiled at her, an eye-crinkling smile that spoke volumes. He grabbed her hand in his again every time she sat down the can.
She leaned on his shoulder, and sighed.
A while later, Levi came in and kissed Brooke at the stove. Walker came in too, and joined them at the table, opening a bar of some kind. Then Levi brought her a big bowl of chili and sat it down in front of her.
“Careful. It’s three-alarm chili. I like it hot,” he said, winking at her with a smile.
She smiled back and then dug into the first meal she hadn’t had to make in a while. That fact alone made it the best chili she’d ever tasted. But Levi’s three-alarm rating was at least two alarms too low. Sweating, she went for another drink and found it empty.
“Water?”
Ajax pushed back from the table and went to get her a drink. A welcome breeze filled the space, cooling her down.
“Thank you, Ajax. That breeze helped.”
He looked back from the sink, a strange look on his face. His gaze shifted to Walker, saying something without moving his mouth.
“Seriously?” muttered Walker under his breath.
“What? What is it?”
Ajax brought her the water and sat it in front of her. She took a big sip as she looked between the two of them.
Ajax sighed and sat down, hands clasped and forearms on the table.
“When Brooke first met Levi, she didn’t have very strong powers. Through the bond that they developed, her powers got stronger, and also changed a little bit.”
Emory looked at Brooke, and she and Levi put down their spoons.
“I gained a little bit of his power, and he gained a little bit of mine,” Brooke said. “Which meant my power could no longer be drained the way they do for other Erratics.”
“Okay.” She looked at Ajax, waiting for him to explain more.
Walker stepped in. “Your baby has Ajax’s powers. We can’t drain them until he’s older because we don’t know how it will affect him. If he and Ajax bond, which may have already happened, they’ll be sharing power indefinitely.”
“What does this mean?”
Walker looked pointedly at Ajax, and she followed his gaze.
“It means Jackson can’t be drained,” Ajax said, his voice was heavy with something she couldn’t identify.
Emory couldn’t help the thickening in her throat, the disappointment that made it hard to swallow. Everything was still new, still uncertain. She’d been still kind of hoping they’d find a solution for Jackson once they got here—
“And neither can you.”
She looked at Ajax, her eyes widening. “Me? But I don’t have any powers.”
Everyone else in the room looked back and forth between her and Ajax.
“Yes, you do. I didn’t want to tell you then because of—everything—but once I calmed Jackson down in the bathroom, there was still wind coming from somewhere. Coming from you. And just now, it was you that made the breeze, not me.”
Emory scoffed, not believing it.
“Somehow through your bond with Jackson, you’ve gained a small fraction of his power.”
“Just through Jackson?” Levi gave Ajax a pointed look, and then tipped his head at her. “Now I don’t have Air powers, but from what I can see, you two are bonded pretty tightly too.”
Ajax’s eyebrows hit his hairline, and he pushed his fingers over his head and gave her a look like this was the first time he’d considered that.
Brooke flashed a beaming smile to her and Ajax.
“So you think this bond thing gave me powers?”
“Of the Air, yes. Because of Jackson and I.”
She looked at her hands, evaluated her body mentally. She didn’t feel any different. There wasn’t anything inside that screamed You have powers!
“They’re weak. You have a little too much human blood to get much benefit. But I promise you, it’s there. You likely won’t see any evidence of them until your emotions are as strong as they were after the Chaolt attack, after everything that happened today.”
“Which will hopefully be never.” She looked up at him again, her heart pounding, her skin prickling from alarm. She was instantly short of breath.
Brooke reached out and grabbed one of her hands.
“It can happen from strong good emotions too.” Brooke’s smile was reassuring, understanding. “And you can learn to control it.”
Emory squeezed her hand back. Thank goodness there was at least one other non-Elemental in the room. Brooke had already earned her undying friendship for eternity by being willing to put herself in danger for Jackson, but this sealed it.
“It’s going to be okay. I will help you anyway I can. Both of you.” Ajax scooted his chair closer to her until their sides touched, and put his arm over her shoulders. When she looked at him, he captured her with his eyes.
She got lost in the teal depths for a second, but it was enough for her to catch her breath. Ajax’s eyes dimmed slightly, and she realized it had been him, helping her. This time.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and took another deep breath.
She trusted him, but this was just another way her life had changed from meeting Ajax, and it was scary, too. There was still so much she didn’t know about him and his world.
Not only did her son gain powers, but she did too. She looked down at the top of Jackson’s head, and then rubbed her cheek against him.
If he had to learn to live with it, so could she. She was all in. With Ajax, too.
She raised her head and leaned her forehead against Ajax’s cheek, breathing in his fresh scent. There was a tiny kernel of happiness that she could share this thing with him, as unbelievable as it was. Well, as long as she didn’t hurt anything if she lost control. But Ajax had said she was pretty weak, so it sounded like she didn’t have to worry about that, with herself. But Jackson…?
“If Jackson can’t be drained, what do I do about his powers?” she asked Walker, “About him losing control?”
Ajax gave her a little squeeze. “I’ll handle it.”
“What if you’re gone when it happens?” She looked up at him without judgment. He had an important job, an important mission. She couldn’t let everything be all about her and Jackson anymore.
“I’ll help.”
She looked to Micah, silent up until then, as he tipped his head at Jackson.
“Any time you need.”
Micah’s singing had been very effective. But that was not the entire reason she agreed.
He had an aura of sadness around him. He walked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, but seemed to have a sweet and caring heart. He just seemed very much apart from the rest of them here. It was clear they all had some kind of bond with each other, but with the exception of Brooke, no one really seemed to notice Micah. Which was amazing, considering his was the most physically imposing body she’d ever seen. But his quietness, his stillness, made him blend into the background.
He was one massive wallflower.
And she couldn’t shake this feeling that he might need to help with Jackson.
So she said thank you, and looked at Ajax. He was staring at Micah. What was he seeing? She wanted to know.
But the food was settling into her belly, and Jackson’s warm, sleepy form against her was making her eyes heavy. She’d had enough of today, and would have to ask him some other time.
As conversation returned to normal around her, she leaned her head against Ajax. “Ajax, can we go to bed? I’m tired.”
She yawned at that moment, her jaw aching from the force of it.
“Sure,” Ajax said, squeezing her close. “We’re out, guys. See you tomorrow.”
“Ajax,” Walker called as he and Emory walked out the kitchen.
“I’ll take your shift tomorrow. Help get Emory and Jackson settled. But I expect you back on duty and your head on the mission day after.”
“Yes, sir,” Ajax said, saluting. “Thank you.”
A nod between them, and Ajax was leading her to the elevator, down a hall with brick archways to one of several identical doors. Her feet were as heavy as her eyes by the time they got there.
He opened the door and held it for her, and she walked through, seeing Ajax’s space for the first time. It was sparse, clean, industrial, with two exceptions.
One, the numerous hair products lined up on the counter through the open bathroom door, and two, the enormous picture of a bird hanging over his bed.
He saw her looking at it, and grinned the cocky grin she’d missed in the last few days of insanity.
“Ajax means eagle, remember?” He came close and speared his fingers through the hair on the side of her head. “And I wasn’t kidding about flying sometimes.”
His eyes sparkled with mischief and her jaw dropped. The night they’d met, he’d meant he literally flew.
She laughed and he gave her a hard, fast kiss and then led her over to a darkened alcove on the other side of the room. Where Jackson’s playpen was, with all his bedding inside.
They hadn’t had the room or the time to grab his crib, but the playpen still worked since he was small. But— “How?” She’d never seen him bring it in from his truck.
“Walker and Micah brought it in and set it up.”
It must have been her exhaustion and emotional turmoil of the day, but suddenly she found her eyes welling up with tears before she could even fight them off.
She hid her eyes against Jackson until she could breathe, until she could speak.
She’d been alone since she left home, her parents too uninterested in her or her life to make any effort at a relationship. She’d felt alone long before that.
And Micah and Walker’s gesture had made her feel more welcomed here than she ever felt in her childhood home.
Ajax held her as she gulped and breathed, trying to comfort her but not understanding.
“Hey, it’s okay. We’ll go get his crib tomorrow. We’ll get all your stuff. We’ll get a bigger suite if we have to, to fit it all in. This is just for tonight.”
Rise (Elemental Hearts Book 2) Page 19