Chapter 4
After he’d bathed, dressed, and taken some supper, Reule entered Chayne’s quarters. To his surprise, the room was in a total uproar. Chayne was the center of a ruckus that looked like a mass wrestling competition, he realized a moment before an arc of blood spattered in droplets against him.
“What in the name of all that is holy are you doing?”
Reule’s bellow sounded like the hard crack of a whip, and everyone, including the heavily panting Chayne, froze in mid-tableau.
Delano, Saber, and the smaller man Reule recognized as the apothecary all turned their heads to look at their thunderous Prime’s visage.
Rye, who was standing back as though supervising, was closest to Reule and also turned.
Delano and Saber, it appeared, were attempting to secure Chayne to the bed by physical force so the apothecary could tend him.
How Chayne was even moving after so much blood loss was beyond Reule.
The Prime was infuriated and he made it very clear with an emanation that sent his Packmates staggering.
“Damn!” Rye yelped, jumping back from his Pack-leader in shock.
“Uh!” Delano concurred, bolting away from the bed. Saber staggered back as well, the Prime Defender swinging around hard to stare at his leader. The apothecary cringed and shook.
“Back off!” Reule commanded even though they were backed away already.
“Would someone care to tell me why you’re wrestling with an injured man?
” But they all knew that Reule was really asking how they dared try to strong-arm Chayne when they knew—absolutely knew—it was the worst way to go about getting his compliance.
Chayne loathed being held down. In light of his recent captivity, it would be even less tolerable to him.
Chayne, the last one he’d demand an answer from, ground out in response, “That demented son of a bitch was going to clamp that contraption on me!” Chayne swung a shuddering arm toward the apothecary. An arm, Reule noted, that had been broken when it had been skewered by a steel spike.
“By the Lord,” Reule swore as his Packmate’s agony beat at him. Yet he forced himself to move closer. Chayne’s other arm and his legs were no better off.
The contraption in question made Reule’s blood curdle as he laid eyes on it.
The steel vises were meant to hold realigned bones together, screwed tightly in place against the skin to form support.
But this was often at the cost of utter agony and flesh that would break down over the weeks of healing.
Most men opted for splints, taking their chances with lameness rather than facing a vise.
Reule himself had done so once when a sword strike to his upper arm had broken the long bone.
Bearing four splints on four broken or very likely shattered bones would be sheer hell, but vises as well?
It was unthinkable, and he didn’t blame Chayne for finding the power despite his suffering to resist those who thought to force him.
“Since when,” Reule asked through gritted teeth, “do we force a sane, independent friend to go against his wishes?”
“The bones are sh-shattered, M-my Prime,” the apothecary stammered, though Reule had been addressing him not at all.
Reule swung a black glare at him, and a percolating growl of fury elicited a gasp of fear from the physician. Then he glowered in turn at the three others in the room. “I await an answer,” he spat, dismissing the apothecary’s response.
“We weren’t. W-we would never!” Delano said, cursing when he realized he was stammering as well.
“We were trying to calm him after the apothecary tried to put on the vise, but he got more upset and started flailing. Reu … My Prime,” he corrected himself, choosing formality at Reule’s black scowl, “we’ve all been faced with vises at one time or another.
We’d never take the choice away from Chayne. It just got out of hand.”
“Chayne—” Reule moved Delano back and looked down at his friend as he lay quivering with nauseating agony. “They’ll use no vises. You have my word. But you must allow me to put you to sleep. There’s no need for you to suffer.”
Chayne shook so hard his chestnut brown hair vibrated with motion, but only his tan eyes, dull with suffering, moved to look up and acknowledge him.
It was difficult to watch him, to know that the damage to some bones was likely to be irreversible.
It was worse than a death sentence, and Reule felt his friend’s recognition of it.
Chayne also knew that none of his companions would condescend to him or act with pity.
What Reule offered was mercy: Mercy for a boyhood playmate, whom he knew as well as he knew himself, who’d rather die than beg for what Reule was offering to him.
Chayne could accept a request made by his Pack-leader, however, and still maintain his dignity. “No drugs,” he rasped out, blood appearing on his lips as he spoke. He shook so hard, he’d bitten his tongue. “Sleep only, Reule.”
Reule nodded. Even in torturous pain, Chayne sought a way to justify accepting the offer to put him under a forced sleep. Drugs weakened a man and, as with the vises, few Sánge males accepted them.
Reule wasted no time. The Pack knew the moment their leader swept into Chayne and seized his mind. The shaking of his body halted and Chayne went still, his breath holding … holding … and then the release of a rushing exhale, and Chayne was in oblivion.
The rest of the Pack should be so lucky.
When Reule whirled to face them, it was with another snarl of displeasure.
He even flashed fangs, though mostly at the apothecary.
“With all the years each of you have known Chayne, what made you believe that holding him down was the way to calm him?” It was a rhetorical question because Reule gnashed his fangs when Rye opened his mouth to argue.
“Leave!” he snapped at them. “I will tell myself that three days without sleep or food have impaired your judgment!” Reule’s contemptuous look at Saber spoke volumes for the fact that the Prime Defender had no such excuse, as he’d not been out on excursion with them. “And as for these …”
Reule marched over to the apothecary and snatched the offensive metal vise from his hand.
The contraption, with its cuffs and screws, looked like the instrument of torture it was.
“These,” he hissed, “are banned from this keep. You will never bring them onto these grounds again, is that very clear?” The vise crashed down on the table with a clang.
“B-But …” the physic sputtered.
“If you do, I will have your balls cut off. Can I make it any clearer?” There was no need. The apothecary swallowed and nodded. “Now, you will care for him as you would me,” Reule commanded the physician.
Disgusted and furious still, Reule gave them all a sharp nod before he drew his temper up around himself and attempted to take it with him when he left. It was apparent by the chills that washed through the room that he wasn’t entirely successful in his endeavor.
Pariedes found him a few hours later sitting before the fire in his study. She moved in near silence, thinking he was probably asleep after the ordeal of the past few days, but as she came up on him, she saw him turn his head and incline his chin to acknowledge her.
“How is our guest, Para?”
“Fast asleep, My Prime,” she responded promptly, although he probably could have taken the information from her mind.
Prime Reule had manners and used courtesies, unlike others who thought-read whenever the impulse struck because they believed it was a birthright to nose around in everyone’s business.
Prime Reule preferred to cultivate spoken conversation and disdained the discourtesy of strip-mining his people for information just because he was the most powerful telepath in the city.
He also expected the same of those within his circle.
The exception was, of course, the Packmates.
Packmates were the sworn companions of the Prime Packleader.
As such, the group was in constant mental conversation with one another.
They did not use words, but a harmony of connectivity that made them always aware of one another.
A Packmate had to consciously work to break away from the collective awareness of the Pack if he sought privacy.
They were welcome to do so, but the Pack had existed in this connective state for so long that it became uncomfortable for a Packmate to remain closed off for very long.
It also became discomforting for the Pack to be missing the input of a member.
Para had cared for Prime Reule’s household for five decades now, and she had learned a great deal about the workings of the Pack.
She knew that none of them would rest easy as long as Chayne suffered pain.
With the added distractions of sleeplessness, worry, and the volatile mystery of an unexpected guest in the house, it didn’t surprise her to find her master staring dumbly into a fire.
“She was out on her feet. Tetra and I barely had her nightgown on before she was in dreams.” Para fussed around the room as she spoke to him, tidying up things he’d set carelessly aside, including a wineglass that sat empty nearby. “She asked for you many times,” she ventured.
“You cared for her far better than I would have,” he murmured in reply.
“Shall I inform you when she wakes so you may visit with her? That apothecary wanted access to her,” Para added with a scowl, “but I believe sleep is the only medicine she needs. And plenty of good hot food. She ate like a starving animal. I was forced to moderate her lest she make herself ill.”
“So you sent the apothecary away, I take it?” he asked, turning inquisitive hazel eyes on her, the expression making his handsome visage seem boyish. Since his looks were quite dark and fierce, it was a surprising turn of countenance. It made Para smile at him warmly.