He shrugged.
“I had a strong feeling I might need them just as we were leaving the ship and I never ignore my instincts. You never can tell when the Goddess is speaking to you. When I heard her voice urging me to go to you, I knew I had made the right call. There.” He sat back and surveyed his work. “That’s the best I can do here. We need to get him back to the Mother Ship where I can stabilize him and do a more thorough exam.”
“Will he live?” Imani was crying again—maybe she had never stopped. “Please tell me he’s going to live, Commander Sylvan. Please, he can’t…can’t d-die.” She stuttered out the last word, barely able to make it pass her lips.
“I’ll do everything I can for him.” Sylvan’s voice was grim. “But his pulse is very weak and it looks like he lost a lot of blood.” He nodded at the pool of crimson they were both kneeling in.
“He can’t die. Please don’t let him die!” Imani whispered. It was a prayer—a desperate plea. “Please, oh please don’t let him die!”
But if the Goddess heard her prayer, she was silent.
Imani knew there was nothing she could do but wait and see.
Forty-One
Leaving the courtroom was a blur.
As the Kindred warriors were loading J’are onto a floating stretcher, Judge Thoughtgood came out from under her judicial podium. Her purple tower of hair was completely wilted around her shoulders and she had a shocked look on her face.
“Councilor Williams, I have not released your client,” she said, frowning, as though she was trying to get back to normal despite the carnage all around them.
“That’s too damn bad,” Imani snapped. “My client is in need of medical care so we’re taking him.”
“Yes, well…all right, I suppose.” The judged nodded, still looking shocked. “But…what about those?” She nodded at the two remaining morphids which were standing silently over Lady Bittlebum’s headless body.
“Here.” Imani thrust the bloodstained blonde wig at her. “Wave this over their antennae and give them an order. I’m pretty sure that’s how Lady Bittlebum was controlling them—there’s some kind of scent or pheromone in the wig they respond to.”
“All right, well…” Judge Thoughtgood gingerly took the grimy wig, which was now more orange than yellow due to the blood it had soaked up, between her thumb and fingers and held it at an arms’ length.
“I have to go,” Imani told her. “And I’m never coming back to your horrible planet again!”
Turning, she followed the floating stretcher as the Kindred warriors steered it out of the courtroom.
Just let J’are live, she thought to herself as she walked. Please, just let him live!
Forty-Two
“Hey, doll, how are you doing?” Kat peeked into the room at the Med Center where Imani was sitting on an exam table. “I heard you were back here and I thought—”
Imani burst into tears.
“Oh, Kat!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “Everything is such a mess!”
“Oh no! What’s wrong? What happened?” Kat came over at once and put a comforting arm around Imani’s shoulders.
“J’are’s going to die,” Imani sobbed. “I just know he is! And it’s all my fault for getting so angry at him and wishing we hadn’t gotten bonded!”
“Wait a minute—start from the beginning!” Kat exclaimed. “Who’s J’are and how did you get bonded to him?”
“He…he’s my client. Or he was my client—now he’s my mate. Or he will be if he lives—but oh, Kat—I’m so afraid he’s going to die!”
Imani couldn’t help herself. She was full of guilt and self-recrimination. She felt certain that because she hadn’t wanted to be bonded to the big Nightwalker in the first place, she was going to be punished by losing him. How could she have only realized she loved J’are when it was too late? And how could she live the rest of her life without him?
“Imani, honey…” Kat sounded bewildered. “You’ve only been gone a few days and you’re telling me you’re already bonded?”
At that moment Liv, the doctor who had been taking care of Imani since she got back to the Mother Ship, entered the room. She was looking down at a chart and talking as she came in.
“Well, you’re right about one thing—you’re definitely pregnant,” she told Imani. “But I’m afraid it’s too early to tell if it’s a boy or a girl.”
“What? Pregnant?” Kat exclaimed.
Liv looked up.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Imani—I didn’t know anyone else was in here with you. Kat, you’re supposed to ask before you go in to see a patient!” she admonished her friend.
“Sorry, doll—I just heard Imani was here and I wanted to check on her since I’m the one who got her ready to go to Yonnie Six in the first place,” Kat said. She squeezed Imani’s shoulders. “It sounds like things happened pretty fast over there, huh?”
“Extremely fast,” Imani agreed, swiping at her swollen eyes with a sleeve of the large medical gown she was wearing. She was grateful for it—it certainly covered more than her Yonnie Six court clothes.
“Want to talk about it?” Liv asked, coming to sit on the other side of Imani on the exam table.
“First can you tell me if J’are is all right?” Imani looked at her hopefully.
“The last I heard Sylvan was still working on him. He lost a lot of blood and I think there was some nerve damage from the pain collar,” Liv said gently. “But please don’t worry, hon—Sylvan is a very good surgeon and he’s being assisted by our Tolleg surgeon, Yipper. You couldn’t ask for a better team to work on your guy.”
“She’s right about that,” Kat agreed. “So why don’t you tell us what’s going on—what happened on Yonnie Six—to keep your mind off things?”
Imani took a deep breath, trying to gather herself.
“It…it all started when I Claimed J’are by accident,” she said, looking at Kat. “You see, with the Nightstalker Kindred, the females Claim the males and not the other way around…”
She told about dealing with J’are in his feral state and how different he was in his thinking mind…told about the morphids and the mystery of who had really killed Lady Zangelo…told about the growing attraction between herself and the big Nightwalker.
“I knew it was wrong,” she told Kat and Liv. “I mean, he was my client—it wasn’t ethical to have any kind of relationship with him!”
“Well…not to toss ethics aside, but sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants, doll,” Kat said sympathetically.
“Yes, but things just kept going farther and farther,” Imani exclaimed. “Until we ended up in the simulation room in his old house and Mistress Bittlebum locked us in and simulated the Nightwalker Bonding night.”
“What?” Liv frowned. “They have a special night for Bonding?”
Imani explained about the three moons converging and the way J’are had literally lost his mind when his feral side came out.
“He…he hunted me down,” she said in a low voice. “And bonded me.”
“Oh, no!” Kat put a hand to her mouth. “Imani, hon, that doesn’t sound exactly…consensual.”
“It wasn’t…and yet in a way, it was.” Imani had been struggling with this herself. “Rape is never okay,” she said firmly. “Never. But, well…this wasn’t rape—not really. I was as hot as J’are was. I mean, I was scared out of my mind but somehow that only made me hotter.” She shook her head. “Does that even make any sense?”
“I think so,” Liv said thoughtfully. “I think it means that deep down you trusted him not to hurt you.”
“He didn’t,” Imani said. “And, honestly, it wasn’t the sex itself that upset me so much—it was the consequences of the sex.” She put a hand to her lower belly as she spoke, where she could occasionally feel the flutter of new life growing inside her. The baby—J’are’s baby.
“You mean getting permanently bonded or getting pregnant?” Kat asked.
“Both, I guess.” Imani
sighed. “It’s just that I knew that J’are would have to go back to his home planet because the Kindred of the Mother Ship don’t trust the Nightwalkers and think they’re dangerous. And I knew if I got pregnant with his baby, it would almost certainly be a son, which would mean I would have to be exiled to the Nightwalker home world too. And I didn’t…I don’t…” She felt a sob rising in her throat again and tried to choke it down. “I didn’t want to leave Earth and my mom and dad and my career,” she whispered. “Only now I feel like I’d give all that up gladly, if only J’are could be okay!”
She lost the battle with her emotions and the sob she’d swallowed came out as her tears started afresh.
“Oh, hon…” Kat gave her a comforting squeeze.
“I just…just felt drawn to him,” Imani sobbed. “I tried to fight it but somehow, the minute I saw those pale green eyes of his and they were so much like the eyes I dreamed of before I met him—”
“Wait—you dreamed of him?” Liv interrupted.
“Of his eyes, anyway.” Imani sniffed. “Why?”
Liv and Kat exchanged a glance.
“They were Dream Sharing,” Kat murmured.
“Dream Sharing? What’s that?” Imani asked.
“It’s a sign the Goddess means for you to be together,” Liv said gently. “When you dream of a Kindred warrior and he dreams of you before you even meet—that’s Dream Sharing.”
“So all along we were meant to be together?” Imani felt a fresh sob rising in her throat. “And I was so angry with him!”
Kat squeezed her again. “Oh, hon—I don’t know what to say.”
“I do,” Liv said. “It sounds to me like you’re taking on a lot of guilt that doesn’t belong to you.”
“What…what do you mean?” Imani looked up at her, swiping a hand over her streaming eyes.
“I mean, of course you were upset about getting bonded against your will—any woman would be!” Liv exclaimed. “And of course you didn’t want to give up everything you know and the career you’ve worked so hard for and the parents you love at the drop of a hat—that’s completely understandable.”
“But so is falling for J’are—especially if the Goddess put you two together,” Kat said gently. “You’ve got to forgive yourself too, Imani—not just J’are.”
“I just want him to live,” Imani said fervently. “And I swear, if he does, I won’t complain about having to move to his home planet. I just want him to be okay. He’s part of me. I can feel him here.” She put a hand to her heart. “And I don’t know how I’ll live if he dies.”
“Well, if you can still feel him—feel your connection with him—that’s a pretty good sign he’s still alive,” Liv said comfortingly. “Would you like me to check and see how the surgery is going?”
“No need.”
They all looked up as Sylvan came through the door. Beside him was a little creature that looked like a cross between a chimpanzee and a hound dog, Imani thought. He had big, soulful eyes and long, floppy ears.
But she was much more worried about J’are than the strange alien creature beside Commander Sylvan.
“What do you mean, ‘no need?’” she demanded. “Please tell me he’s okay!”
“He’s okay,” Sylvan echoed and gave her a tired smile. “It was touch and go for a while, but luckily my colleague, Yipper here, is excellent at repairing nerve and vascular damage.”
“He also lost a lot of blood, yes he did, yes he did,” the little creature named Yipper said gravely. “But we were able to give him a transfusion.”
“It’s also helpful that Nightwalkers heal with incredible rapidity—that’s probably what saved his life in the first place,” Sylvan said. “That and the fact that you got to him and stopped the flow with your hand.”
“When can I see him?” Imani asked.
“He’s resting now,” Sylvan told her. “But I think you could go sit by the side of his bed and wait for him to wake up, if you want.”
“Maybe you could get cleaned up first, though,” Kat said to her. “I don’t want to be rude, but you are kind of covered in blood, doll.”
Imani looked down at herself and saw that it was true. Her hands and arms were coated in dried crimson and under the Med Center gown, her Yonnie Six clothes were stiff with dried blood.
“You’re right.” She nodded. “I’m going to get a shower and then go sit with him. But…could you keep checking in on him just in case?” She looked at Liv. “I’m still just so worried about him.”
“Of course we will. But you know, you can check in on him yourself, hon,” Liv said gently. “Through your bond, remember?”
“Oh…right.” Imani shook her head. “I guess I’m just not used to being bonded.”
“It takes a little getting used to.” Kat smiled at her. “But you’ll get the hang of it.”
“I know I will.” Imani lifted her chin. “Because I want to stay bonded to J’are—no matter what the consequences are.”
She was going to stick by her new mate, stick by the man she loved, she promised herself.
And she was never going to regret her decision—no matter what.
Forty-Three
J’are woke from a dream that he was drifting in space. There was blackness all around him but when he looked up, he saw light. Pink and blue and purple light from the three converging moons.
Blood over water, he thought, staring up at the three moons coming together. Bonding night…
The thought made him sad, but he didn’t know why. Didn’t understand why it should upset him so much to think of bonding…
“J’are? J’are, can you hear me? Are you okay?”
The voice was familiar—it was the voice of the woman he loved.
The woman he had betrayed.
Instinctively, J’are turned away, turned inward. He shouldn’t still be here—he ought to be gone by now. He ought to be dead so she could be free of him…
“I don’t want to be free of you, damn it! J’are, come back to me right now!”
Imani’s mental voice was so insistent that he opened his eyes at once and saw her looking down at him. He was lying flat on his back on something soft but firm and she was leaning over him.
“Where…where am I?” His voice was a husky croak.
“You’re in the Med Center recovering from surgery. Don’t try to talk—just speak to me through our bond,” Imani told him. “We ought to practice mental communication anyway—we need to get used to being bonded.”
“But…I thought you didn’t want to be bonded to me?” He frowned up at her uncertainly. “Thought you didn’t want to leave your home and your family?”
“Wherever you are is my home now,” Imani told him. “And the three of us will be a family.”
Taking his hand, she placed it gently on her belly.
J’are felt a hesitant sense of joy but then he came crashing back down to earth when he remembered how the baby had gotten in her belly in the first place.
“I hurt you, Imani,” he sent through their link, not bothering to try and hide his shame and guilt. “I don’t deserve you—or the happiness you’re offering me.”
“We got off to a rough start,” she admitted. “But I forgive you for that, J’are—I forgive myself, too. We both went much further than we should have. But, well…” She shrugged. “Here we are. We’re together and I love you and want to be with you.” She looked at him shyly. “Do you feel the same way about me?”
“Imani…” Her name broke from his lips and he was reaching for her, dragging her down to the bed with him so that he could hold her close in his arms.
“Be careful!” she exclaimed breathlessly, as she snuggled beside him. “You just got out of surgery a few hours ago!”
“I feel good—I feel strong,” he promised, kissing her forehead. “And I love you so much! I knew you were the one the Goddess meant to Claim me—at least my feral side knew. I tried not to listen, not to hope too hard, but all the time I wanted you so desp
erately.”
“Well, you’ve got me now.” Imani sighed contentedly and put her arms around him, squeezing gently. “We’ve got each other.”
“Where will we live, though?” J’are asked uncertainly. “I know you don’t want to go back to my home world.”
“We will if we have to,” Imani told him firmly. “Wherever we end up, the main thing is that we’re together.”
“Together,” J’are echoed. “I love you,” he added aloud.
“I love you too.” Tilting her chin up, she kissed his cheek. “Now get some rest and we’ll talk about the future more later. For now, knowing that you’re going to be okay is enough for me.”
J’are relaxed in her embrace, feeling like the luckiest male in the universe. But a part of him still worried about their bonding night—still felt shame for how it had gone. It was well and good that Imani had forgiven him, but he hadn’t forgiven himself.
He didn’t know if he ever would.
Forty-Four
Imani gave her new mate a worried look as the clock above the fireplace chimed nine in soft, measured tones.
One of the things she liked about the suites aboard the Mother Ship was that all of them had a fireplace and a bathing pool. They weren’t as luxurious as the vast mansions and expensive hotels she’d visited on Yonnie Six but they were really nice. They also didn’t have sadistic Mistresses everywhere, so she was fine with being on the ship.
Not that they could stay on the Mother Ship—not for much longer anyway, she thought, her mind running over the worry that had been dogging her morning and evening.
The Kindred High Council still didn’t believe that Nightwalker Kindred were safe enough to live in close proximity to other people. J’are was only allowed to stay a short time, until he was declared fully recovered. After that, they would have to find someplace else to live.
But where?
Imani didn’t know. She only knew that as long as she and J’are were together, they would be okay.
Unleashed by the Defender: A Kindred Tales Novel Page 21