Chapter 15
NAVUH
The machine hummed.
It was a monotonous, low-grade sound that had become the soundtrack of Navuh's existence. It was a miserable replacement for those he had enjoyed on the island since he’d bought it over a hundred years ago.
He missed the sound of crashing waves, of warriors drilling in the various training grounds, the five-times-daily devotional broadcasts that had carried his compulsion across the island, and even the sounds of the construction crews that had been brought in to repair the damages.
Now there was only the hum of the CPM machine, the soft whir of its motor as it bent his right knee to forty-five degrees, straightened it, and bent it again. Then the left. Then the right. The device moved his legs through a range of motion his muscles could not achieve on their own.
He lay in his bed in a room that had no windows, no natural light, and no view of anything except the ceiling, the walls, the medical equipment, and the door that opened only when someone else decided it should.
The clan's underground compound was somewhere beneath Los Angeles, but Navuh didn't know the precise location, and no one had volunteered the information.
Not that it would do him much good. He was bed-bound, with atrophied legs and a body that had been devastatingly shattered, and the sad part was that even if he could send someone a map with a pin in it, no one would come to save him.
The memory of why he was in this situation surfaced the way it always did, uninvited and vivid.
Areana falling. Her body tipping over the cliff's edge, arms reaching for nothing, and the sound she'd made, or hadn't made, he couldn't remember anymore whether she had screamed or whether the scream had been his own, the roar of a male watching the only person he had ever loved plummet toward the rocks and the churning ocean below.
He had acted without thought. In that moment, his mind had gone blank, and his body had simply moved.
He had thrown himself over the cliff after her with the single-minded certainty that if she was going to die on those rocks, he was going to die beside her, because life without Areana was not worth living.
He hadn't known that a Guardian was tethered to the cliff just below the lip of the overhang, and he couldn't have known that the Guardian had caught her, and by the time he had realized that she had been saved, he himself was already in the air, plummeting toward the rocks.
He'd tried to shift his trajectory and land in clear water, but the shock of seeing Areana dangling from the Guardian's hand had distracted him.
The impact had broken nearly everything.
His spine, his pelvis, both legs, most of his ribs, his left arm, and something inside his skull that the doctor had described using medical terminology that he'd understood at the time, but he had since forgotten the medical language she'd used.
The damage to his body had been so catastrophic and so widespread that even his immortal healing process had been overwhelmed.
The body couldn't repair everything simultaneously, and it had prioritized the critical systems, the brain, the heart, the lungs, but if he hadn't been saved by the Guardians and gotten medical assistance, he would have died.
Navuh had no doubt about that, and he also didn't doubt that the only reason they had saved him was that Areana had begged for his life.
On the one hand, he was alive thanks to her, but on the other, he was in this mess because she'd conspired against him to get Tula off the island and spare her having to give up her child.
He wanted to be angry at his mate, but he didn't have the energy to summon the spark. His life had contracted to survival, but he wasn't sure what he was surviving for.
The CPM machine completed another cycle. Bend. Straighten. Bend. Straighten.
He could feel his toes, which was new, as of a few days ago. The sensation was faint, more of a pressure awareness than true tactile perception, but it was there.
The door opened, and Gertrude entered, carrying his dinner tray.
"Dinner," she announced, as if the tray in her hands might be mistaken for something else.
"I can see that."
She set the tray on the adjustable table and swung it into position over his lap. As always, the meal was barely adequate. He was being fed well enough, but it was designed for convalescent patients, and apparently, people in the process of healing had no taste buds.
This was supposed to be grilled chicken and vegetables, but both had the taste and consistency of something that was cooked in a soup.
"I have good news for you," Gertrude said while checking the CPM machine's settings. "You are getting a wheelchair. It should arrive on Monday."
Navuh arched a brow. "A wheelchair."
"Don't sound so enthusiastic. It's a significant step in your rehabilitation."
"A significant step would be walking. A wheelchair means that walking is not imminent."
"A wheelchair will allow you mobility and get you out of this bed.
Stimulating your mind is just as important as stimulating your muscles, although I'm not sure we should do that.
" She adjusted the machine's angle by a degree and checked the straps around his feet.
"Your mind is twisted and devious enough as it is. Still, you should be pleased."
Her compliments lifted his mood a little. "Where exactly will I go in this wheelchair?"
Gertrude straightened. "I'm not sure yet. I guess it will be okay to take you to the corridor outside the clinic so you will have a stretch of distance to cover, but we need to get authorization for that."
"The corridor," he grimaced. "How thrilling."
"It's a start. Farther along in your rehabilitation, I might get permission to take you to the swimming pool. Water therapy would be excellent for rebuilding your leg muscles."
He blinked. "There's a swimming pool down here?"
"There's a swimming pool, a gym, a rec room, a kitchen, a movie theater, and a great deal more. The underground complex is extensive."
He filed that information away the same way he filed everything. He wasn't planning anything, but the information might become useful in the future.
"I didn't expect a swimming pool in an underground bunker," he said.
"It's not a bunker. It's a keep." Gertrude removed the dinner cover from his plate. "Eat while it's warm."
"What's the difference?"
"A bunker is a small place to hide. A keep is a stronghold, a place to live and protect."
She was in a talkative mood today, so maybe he could glean some more information from her. She wasn't usually so forthcoming.
"Does your entire clan live in this underground?"
"No. We don't live here."
"So, what do you use this place for?"
She looked at him, and he saw the deliberation in her eyes. "We used to live in the building that sits on top of the underground. Now we live in a much nicer place where we have homes instead of apartments. I can grow herbs in my garden now."
"That's nice, but you still didn't tell me what you use this sprawling underground complex for."
"To hold prisoners like you." She pointed at the tray. "Eat."
He ate, not because he was hungry but because his body needed the nutrients to heal, and the chicken was getting cold.
The nurse hadn't told him the truth, not all of it anyway, but he knew that he had reached the end of what she was willing to share. She hadn't denied that the underground complex was sprawling, and that was important information as well.
The question that bothered him the most, though, was why no one came to see him anymore.
Annani and Kian had previously been visiting him regularly with the clear purpose of extracting information from him, and he'd been playing the game with them skillfully, negotiating the best he could given his precarious position.
It had been quite entertaining and stimulating.
If they wanted to keep his mind engaged, they should come see him more often.
Khiann was his strongest card, the mate Annani had been mourning for millennia, who he had been holding in a booby-trapped glass enclosure precisely for this kind of situation.
This was his last-resort bargaining chip if he ever fell into the clan's hands, but it hadn't worked as well as he had planned.
He had parceled out the information in fragments, enough to keep them coming back, but never enough so they could continue without him. The only way Annani could get her mate back was by promising to free Navuh.
Then Losham triggered the booby traps, the enclosure collapsed, and the clan must have figured out a way to get Khiann and the other four immortals in stasis without Navuh's help because no one had come to see him in days.
He tried to console himself that the lack of visitation could mean many things.
The removal of debris and excavation could have hit an obstacle, and they were waiting for conditions to change before resuming their questioning.
It could mean that they were preoccupied with other matters and would return when their schedule allowed, but it could also mean that they had found another way to reach the chamber and extract the chests.
That was the possibility that kept him awake at night.
If they no longer needed him, he had no more bargaining power. He would remain their prisoner forever, tolerated because Annani wouldn't want to hurt Areana by executing him, but he would be living at their mercy.
To him, that was the equivalent of death, and if not for his love for Areana, he might have chosen to end it all and ask Kian to kill him or put him in stasis. But he couldn't do that to the female he loved more than anything in this ugly world, including himself.
He had to continue to plot and keep his spirits up for her.