Chapter 11 Annani
ANNANI
The elevator opened onto the clinic level, and the wide corridor stretched ahead like a tunnel. The floors were simple polished concrete, the walls were a soft shade of white, and the air smelled artificially fresh.
Inside the clinic, Bridget was waiting despite the late hour.
"Good evening," she greeted them with an easy smile. "It is not every night that I get visited by two gods."
"Thank you for staying, Bridget," Annani said. "I know it is late."
"It's my pleasure, Clan Mother." Bridget's gaze moved over the group, lingering on Mia for a moment. "I sent Areana upstairs an hour ago. Thankfully, she didn't argue."
Toven bent to press a kiss to Mia's forehead. "Good luck. Just don't get too close to him."
"I'll be fine. He's stuck in a hospital bed."
"He's dangerous even when paralyzed."
Mia reached up, patted his cheek, and smiled with the gentle condescension of a loving mate. She must have learned a long time ago that arguing with Toven when he was in his protector mode was a waste of energy. "Wait here. Read a magazine."
He cast a glance at the magazines stacked on one of the side tables.
"They look to be at least six years old."
"That's good. The world was nicer back then, or at least it appeared to be. It was probably just as rotten as it is now."
"It was always rotten, my love." Toven smiled, but the smile did not reach his eyes. "That's why I retreated from it until I met you." He sat on one of the waiting room chairs and reluctantly reached for one of the magazines.
"Navuh has been in good spirits today," Bridget said. "I think he's starting to enjoy having nothing to do and watching television all day or chatting with his mate."
"When Navuh is in a good mood, I'm worried," Kian muttered under his breath. "What makes Navuh happy has the opposite effect on everyone else."
"A good mood makes him more talkative," Bridget said.
"A brooding Navuh is a closed-off Navuh.
" Bridget turned to Mia. "As we discussed, I'm going to introduce you as Azul, the physical rehabilitation specialist. You work during the day at a hospital, so you're only available for evening sessions.
I'll tell him we wanted you two to meet so you can get to know each other before therapy begins. Sound good?"
Mia nodded. "Don't worry. If he asks me questions, I can answer them with more authority than an actual therapist."
"I have no doubt." Bridget turned back to the door, pulled out her phone, and aimed it at the lock.
Annani straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and became the Clan Mother. The transformation happened in the space between one breath and the next, the worried mate receding behind the mask of authority that she had worn for thousands of years.
As the door swung open, Anandur went in first and positioned himself against the far wall. Brundar followed, taking the opposite wall. They bracketed the room like bookends made of muscle and barely concealed weaponry.
Only then did Kian step through, followed by Annani and Mia, with Bridget bringing up the rear.
As usual, Navuh was propped up against a mound of pillows that made him look less like a prisoner and more like a convalescing king holding court.
He looked better than the last time Annani had visited.
There was color in his face, and his naturally slim frame seemed a little bulkier, filling more of the bed than it had before. The paralysis still held his lower body, but his arms moved freely.
He smiled, and the unnerving thing was that it looked genuine.
"Annani." His voice was warm, which was always the most dangerous sign. A cold Navuh was predictable. A warm Navuh was performing. "You honor me with another visit. How gracious of you."
"You look like you are glad to see me," she said, settling into the careful verbal dance that their visits had become.
"I am." He spread his hands, gesturing openness that would have been more convincing from someone who hadn't spent millennia trying to kill her and her clan and striving to conquer the world.
"I missed you. You cannot imagine how incredibly boring it is to be confined to this room day after day with only one person to talk to.
Areana is my beloved mate, but we have exhausted all possible topics of conversation. "
"I am sure that is not the case. Areana has been cut off from the world for five thousand years. That is a lot of catching up to do. You could talk for weeks and not exhaust every topic."
"Oh, well." He shrugged. "I don't want to bring up global affairs and politics. Those topics upset her." His gaze moved past Annani and Kian, past the immovable brothers on either wall, and landed on Mia.
She was partially hidden behind Bridget, doing an excellent job of making herself seem smaller than she already was.
Her shoulders were drawn in, her chin was ducked, and she was peering around Bridget with an expression of wide-eyed apprehension that was either a masterful performance or genuine terror.
Knowing what she knew of Mia's plan to play into Navuh's intimidation, Annani suspected it was a bit of both.
"And who is the little bird?" Navuh asked, tilting his head with the predatory curiosity of a cat that had spotted movement in the grass.
"This is Azul," Bridget said, stepping slightly to the side so that Mia was visible but still partially shielded. "She's a physical rehabilitation specialist. Once you're cleared to begin therapy, she'll be working with you on regaining mobility and strength."
"A rehabilitation specialist." Navuh's gaze stayed on Mia. "I would expect someone taller and more muscled for such a role. If I fall, can you catch me?"
"Of course I can." Mia's voice came out as barely more than a whisper. "I'm an immortal. I work at a human hospital during the day, so I have to pretend that I'm weak, but I'm not."
"Azul is very good at what she does," Bridget said with professional authority. "I wanted you two to meet so you can get comfortable with each other before the therapy begins. The rehabilitation process works best when the patient and therapist like and trust each other."
"Like and trust," Navuh repeated the words as if tasting them. "An interesting concept in this setting."
"It can be done if there is goodwill," Bridget said.
"Azul will also likely be assisting with Khiann's rehabilitation once he's recovered from stasis, and that should tell you all you need to know about how much we value her ability.
" She turned to Annani. "The Clan Mother wants the best possible care for her mate. "
The mention of Khiann's name had been deliberate, meant to guide Navuh's thoughts toward him so Annani could pluck them more easily from his mind because they would be right there at the surface.
"Come," Annani said to Mia, extending her hand. "He is not going to harm you. He needs your help, and he is smart enough to know that frightening his therapist is counterproductive."
Mia hesitated for exactly the right amount of time, just enough to seem to be considering, and then stepped forward and took Annani's hand.
The effect was immediate, even though Annani was not supposed to feel any difference.
Perhaps it was just in her imagination, but she felt warmth flood through her arm and into her chest, not physical heat but something deeper, an amplification, a brightening, as if someone had turned up the power on a dimming lamp.
"Hello," Mia whispered to Navuh, managing to make the single word sound like an apology for existing.
Navuh studied her with an assessing gaze. "Why are you so frightened of me? What did they tell you about me?"
"Not much," Mia admitted. "But enough for me to know that you are not a good male."
"And yet you propose to be my therapist. Why?"
She shrugged. "It's my job. When the Clan Mother asks me to do something, I do it. I will give you the same level of care I will give Khiann."
Annani was proud of her. She was reinforcing Bridget's mental direction.
"Good." Navuh smiled, and it was the smile of a wolf that had decided to play with its food. "You have guts despite your mousy appearance." He tilted his head. "Tell me, little Azul. What will this rehabilitation involve?"
Mia launched into a halting but credible description of rehabilitation protocols, a range of motion exercises, progressive resistance training, and neuromuscular re-education, and Navuh listened with interest.
After spending years in rehabilitation herself, she knew the process from the patient's side with an intimacy that no amount of medical training could replicate.
While Navuh's attention was focused on Mia, Annani tightened her grip on the young woman's hand and turned her own attention inward.
The power was there, bright and strong. She gathered that power, shaped it, and directed it toward Navuh, reaching into his mind.
She encountered nothing.
There was no resistance, no wall. It wasn't the sensation of pushing against a barrier.
It was simply nothing. An absence. As if the place where his thoughts should be was made of something that her power could not touch, not because it was defended, but because it was fundamentally impenetrable.
Like pressing her hand against stone and expecting it to yield.
The stone did not resist. It simply was, and she was not strong enough to change its nature.
Thralling was not going to work.
She shifted her approach. If she could not read his thoughts, perhaps she could compel him. Compulsion required a different kind of power, one that did not need to enter the mind but instead pressed against it from the outside, bending the will rather than reading it.
She waited for the right moment, when Mia's description of rehabilitation exercises trailed into a natural pause.
"Is Khiann really safe under that enclosure?" She kept her voice conversational, but behind the words she pushed every ounce of compulsion she could muster, amplified by Mia's power, directed like a lance at the center of Navuh's consciousness. "Tell me the truth, Navuh."
He frowned. Not the frown of a man fighting compulsion. Not the strained expression of someone resisting an external force. Just the ordinary frown of a man who had been asked a question he found irritating.
"Of course he is. I designed that chamber to withstand the entire mansion collapsing on top of it. I have told you this already."
Annani searched his face, his eyes, the micro-expressions around his mouth, for any sign that her compulsion had taken hold.
A slight slackness in the jaw. A momentary blankness in the gaze.
The barely perceptible delay between hearing the command and formulating the response indicated a compelled mind rather than a free one.
There was nothing.
Either he was immune to her compulsion and answering freely, or he was answering truthfully, and her compulsion was redundant.
"Do you know how we can get him out?"
"Why are you asking all these questions that I have already answered?" Navuh's frown deepened, and now there was an edge of suspicion in his voice. Not suspicion of compulsion because he clearly had no idea she was attempting it, but suspicion of her motives.
She could push harder, pour every drop of power into a single, focused command, and try to crack whatever it was that made his mind impervious.
But she knew that it would not matter. The stone would not yield.
Not because she was weak, but because Navuh was what he was, a descendant of the Eternal King who had inherited not just the power of compulsion but the immunity to it.
She had suspected it. Now she knew.
Annani released Mia's hand and sat on the single chair beside Navuh's bed.
She had not collapsed. She had not let her posture crumble. Her expression did not betray the wave of disappointment that crashed through her. She was the Clan Mother. But she allowed herself one slow breath.
"I am asking because I think you are bluffing," she said, and her voice was steady even if her heart was not. "You have no idea how we can get him out."
It was a gamble. A redirect. If she could not compel the truth from him, perhaps she could provoke it.
Navuh's expression shifted. The suspicion faded, replaced by something that looked almost like amusement. Almost like pity. And buried beneath both, so deeply hidden that anyone less observant than Annani might have missed it, a flicker of satisfaction.
He had won this round, and he knew it.
"It is easy," he said, his voice carrying the calm assurance of a man who held all the cards and was in no hurry to play them. "You let me talk with Losham and I give the command." He spread his hands. "It's as easy as it gets."