Chapter 38 Navuh
NAVUH
Consciousness returned in fragments.
First, the sound. Beeping. Rhythmic and relentless, a mechanical heartbeat that wasn't his own. Or was it? Was that machine tracking his pulse, confirming he was still alive despite feeling so disconnected from his body?
Then, sensation. Or the lack of it. A peculiar numbness that extended from his extremities inward, as if his body had been wrapped in layers of cotton wool.
He couldn't feel his fingers. Couldn't feel his toes.
Couldn't feel anything below his neck except a distant, abstract awareness that yes, there was a body attached to his head, but it might as well have belonged to someone else.
Panic clawed at him.
Was he paralyzed?
The thought brought a surge of adrenaline that should have sent his fingers twitching, his legs convulsing, should have done something. But nothing happened. Or if it did, he couldn't feel it.
Navuh tried to move his right hand. Concentrated every ounce of will on making his fingers flex. Did they move? He thought maybe they had. A microscopic twitch. Or maybe he'd imagined it. Everything felt rigid, locked in place, as immobile as if he'd been encased in stone.
His throat was dry. Painfully dry. Like he'd swallowed sand and it had scoured everything raw on the way down.
Where was he?
The ceiling above him was painted some shade of white that wasn't white. Cream, maybe. The lighting was dimmed so he couldn't tell for sure. What he knew for a fact was that it wasn't any place he recognized.
A door swung open, he heard the hiss of hydraulics, the soft whoosh of air pressure equalizing, and then footsteps approached. Light footsteps. Feminine. The soft click of spiky heels on stone.
Was he in the brothel?
Why would he be there? He never availed himself of the services provided there. That was reserved for the guests of the island and the soldiers.
Navuh tried to turn his head toward the sound and failed. His neck refused to cooperate, leaving him staring at the ceiling like a corpse prepared for viewing.
The footsteps grew closer, and then a face appeared above him, leaning into his field of vision.
A pretty woman, with flaming red hair and blue eyes that assessed him with clinical detachment. There was no warmth in her gaze, no kindness, just the cool evaluation of a physician examining an interesting case.
Her white coat was open at the throat, or maybe lower, but he couldn't see.
Why was a doctor wearing high heels?
And she was definitely a physician. Nurses wore scrubs. Physicians wore coats. He knew that even though he had never visited a medical facility. It was just common knowledge.
"Good morning, Navuh," she said in a voice that sounded crisp, professional, and detached. "I'm Doctor Bridget. I've been taking care of you since you arrived here."
American English. But with something underneath—a lilt that suggested Scottish, though softened by years elsewhere.
The implication crashed over him like a tsunami.
He'd been captured by Annani's clan.
Who else would know his identity and dare such familiarity, using his name without the honorific it deserved? Who else would speak to him in American English with Scottish undertones?
How had this happened? Had he been ambushed? Kidnapped? Betrayed?
His memories swirled, fragmented and hazy.
Why couldn't he remember?
Why was everything so broken?
And then, with the force of a lightning strike, it came back.
The cliff. Areana's fall. Areana!
"Areana!" The sound that emerged from his throat was barely more than a whimper, while he'd intended a bellow.
"Relax," the doctor said, and there was a strange note in her voice—not quite kindness, but not cruelty either. "Areana is fine. She went to shower and change clothes. She wanted to look pretty for you when you woke up."
Relief hit Navuh so powerfully that if he'd had control of his legs and been standing, they would have buckled. As it was, he only felt his heart expand, the vice that had clamped over it releasing.
Areana was alive.
She hadn't died in the fall.
"I didn't think you'd wake up this quickly," the doctor continued, moving around his bed, presumably to check on the machines.
He couldn't see what she was doing. "I lowered the sedative dosage when it was safe to do so, but I expected you to remain unconscious for much longer.
" Her face returned to his field of vision.
"You're doing better than anyone has a right to do after shattering every bone in your body and destroying or puncturing every major organ, including your heart and portions of your skull.
The fact that you're conscious and coherent is miraculous.
You should be dead, and for a while it was touch and go, but you'll live. "
"Will I walk?" he asked and hated how vulnerable it sounded, how desperate.
"Of course. You're an immortal. Your body can repair even a broken spinal cord. But it will take time."
"How long?" he pressed.
"Weeks. Maybe months for full recovery. You won't be mobile anytime soon, so get used to this view." She motioned at the ceiling. "I can have the television angled in a way that you can watch. After having saved your life, we wouldn't want you to die of boredom."
Did that pass for professional bedside manner in these parts?
He had a feeling that it didn’t and that the physician needed retraining. Unless she was being so callous to him just because of who he was.
He could not blame her. He deserved her derision, but that didn't mean he would not make her pay when he was able.
A small voice in the back of his mind whispered that she had saved his life and he owed her for that.
He wanted to silence that voice, but it was insistent, and eventually he decided that it wasn't worth the effort.
Seeking revenge against the physician taking care of him and helping him walk again would be low even for him.
Let her vent her anger at him. He had heard worse.
"You will probably be able to walk with assistance in four to six weeks if your healing continues at this rate. Full recovery will probably take twice as long."
Weeks. Months. It was an eternity for a male trapped in a broken body, held captive by enemies who had every reason to hate him and want him dead.
They had probably saved him just so they could interrogate him. That was what he would have done if he caught one of their higher-ups.
"Where am I?" he asked.
"A secure facility."
"The clan's?"
"Good guess. Yes." Bridget's tone was neutral, giving nothing away.
"Does Annani know I'm here?"
"Of course."
Navuh felt his pulse quicken or thought he did. Everything was so disconnected that he couldn't be sure which sensations were real and which were phantom memories of what a body should feel.
"When will she come to see me?"
The physician chuckled. "Who says she's coming to see you? You're not worthy of her time, Navuh."
That was insulting, both the direct address without his proper title and the assertion that he wasn't worth Annani's time. The doctor had done it on purpose to make him feel small, insignificant. She would regret it.
He wouldn't kill her, because she'd saved his life, but he would find a way to make her pay.
"I will make it worth Annani's time," he said.
Her eyebrow arched. "I doubt that."
"Tell her I want to see her." Navuh pushed compulsion into the words.
The physician actually laughed this time. "Nice try, Navuh. Your compulsion is useless here."
Impossible, unless the doctor was immune.
"But you can ask nicely instead." She leaned over him, placing something cold on his lips. "Open up. It's crushed ice. It will make you feel better."
It did. It was cold and blessed, and he felt the relief of it sliding down his parched throat.
The kindness surprised him. She'd just established that his power meant nothing here, and that he was completely at their mercy. She had no reason to offer comfort. The IV line in his arm provided all the hydration his body needed. The ice was purely for his comfort.
Why would she do that?
"Are you immune to compulsion?" he asked.
Bridget smiled and pushed her hair back, revealing a small device tucked into her ear. "Technology, Navuh. It was always going to be technology that brought your downfall. Compulsion-filtering earpieces. Every member of the clan has them."
Navuh felt his spirits sink to a new low.
He should have anticipated that one day the clan would develop something like that and render him powerless.
"I need to speak to Annani," he said, and then added the word that tasted like defeat in his mouth. "Please. It's important. She will thank you for it."
Bridget studied him for a long moment, her eyes assessing. "I'll convey your message."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet." She checked another monitor, made another note on her tablet. "She might not come. Probably won't, honestly. You're not exactly her favorite person."
"She'll come." Navuh infused the words with certainty.
"What makes you so sure?"
Because I have something she wants more than anything else in the universe.
But he didn't say any of that. Instead, he simply repeated, "She'll come because she'll be curious to hear what I have to say."
COMING UP NEXT
The Children of the Gods Book 103
Dark Island Bargain