Chapter 5 #6
“Reule, you know what to do,” she whispered in his ear. “Don’t leave me this way. Don’t let them butcher me. Don’t …”
Reule overpowered her grasp and her hands came free with a pop.
The minute her hands released, she crumpled against him and he scooped her up off the offending piece of furniture.
She fell limply against his chest, reminding him of the first time he’d ever held her.
She was conscious, though. She was mumbling something incoherently against his throat as he held her tightly and strode out to the common room with her.
The Pack trailed after him, all recovered from the ordeal to one degree or another, only Amando needing Delano’s hand for support.
“What—?”
“Hush!” Reule commanded, cutting Delano off.
“We can question what she said later. Right now, we tend to her.” Reule did, however, double-check on Chayne to see if he was conscious.
Finding him deep in the latest induced sleep he himself had guided him to, Reule was content to concentrate on Mystique’s well-being.
He hesitated on the threshold of the Pack’s common room, sweeping his eyes over the furniture and suddenly seeing a minefield for her.
“Reule,” Darcio said quietly, “place her by the fire in my seat. She was sitting in Chayne’s chair a good minute or two before she placed her bare hands against it. I think if you keep her hands in her lap, she’ll be all right.”
Reule nodded in agreement. He made his way to the fire and settled her down, kneeling between her feet as he took hold of her wrists in a single hand and held them against her skirt in her lap.
Blood smeared over the pretty fabric, as well as beading against his palm, but he ignored all of that and reached to touch her too-pale cheek.
“Kébé,” he beckoned, turning up her eyes to his, relieved to see them back to their usual diamond beauty.
“What …” she said hoarsely, struggling to speak.
“Mystique, look at me,” he urged her, trying to get her to focus.
“What …” she tried again, swaying forward slightly into his hand.
“She must have experienced everything Chayne has been feeling, as if she were Chayne himself,” Rye noted. “It must have been like a raw psychic dump. She is overloaded.”
“I can see that,” Reule snapped. He was agitated enough without Rye pointing out the obvious.
He should have suspected something like this could happen.
He’d known something was off with her. The power of her sorrow, the way she seemed to intuit things so easily, and the control she used to guard her emotions were all reflexive abilities a ’pathic being developed.
Losing his temper made Mystique cringe and she jerked on her hands, trying to free them, but he held her tight.
She then leaned forward until she could touch her cheek to his, to his surprise snuggling up against him as best she could in the awkward leaning position.
He aided her effort instinctively by drawing closer to her.
“What,” she whispered against his ear, “happened?”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. You’ll be okay in a little while. You just need a minute to adjust.”
“No!” She gasped the word against his skin, the flutter of her lashes stroking his cheek. “What happened to him?”
Reule pulled back from her so he could see her face as understanding dawned on him. His chest tightened as he tried to decide what he should say to her. She’d been through enough of her own tortures; did she really need to relive those of another?
“Please,” she begged him softly, her head turning until he felt the gentle press of soft lips against his palm, “please don’t try to protect me. I must know.”
For a moment, Reule’s pulse roared in his ears in deafening crashes.
Once again, it was as though she had read his thoughts, and now he could no longer dismiss the possibility she might be capable of it.
He wasn’t omnipotent. It stood to reason that somewhere in their world, there was someone more powerful than he.
Was that someone sitting across from him right now?
It didn’t matter at that particular moment. He couldn’t make himself draw up caution against her. Not when she had been so clear a conduit for the pleas of an old and valued friend, and not when he was looking deep into her eyes while her kiss still burned into his palm.
“Jakals tortured him,” he told her quickly. “His name is Chayne, and they took their pleasure in his pain.”
“They fed from him,” she breathed. “They fed from his fear that they would learn of you. He worried you were vulnerable as he’d been because …” She hesitated as she searched herself for the part Chayne had left stamped within her. “You insisted on hunting without Shadow.”
“To hell,” Darcio swore softly, knowing exactly what she was speaking of, even if she didn’t precisely understand.
“They invaded his body,” she whispered, “four times. Twisting and shattering and …” She began to gasp for breath as the memory overwhelmed her, spilling tears from her eyes.
“Enough, kébé, please … We know.”
“No! I was … I was there. I … felt it. I felt it all. I was there.” Reule felt her beginning to shake violently within the clasp of his hand.
“I thought telemetries could only sense the present status of the person associated with the object?” Delano said, sounding highly agitated as he began to pace behind Reule’s back. “She’s talking as if she was there when it was all happening!”
“She was.”
Reule’s head snapped around to confront Darcio, his hazel eyes narrowing on his Shadow. “What?”
“She was. She was there. Right upstairs. Maybe she isn’t talking about the telemetric episode, Reule. Maybe she’s remembering the house. She was there. Upstairs. While it was happening.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “I was. I felt it. I felt the sharpness and the shattering. The twisting and the pleading. He wouldn’t give up. Not ever would he give up.”
“She was in contact with the house itself. Her hands on the floor. She didn’t need to be in the room to know everything Chayne was feeling and suffering.
It was like having a front-row seat for someone of her power.
Lord damn me, no wonder she was out of her mind when we found her.
” It also could explain how she knows so much about the Sánge, Reule mused.
She had probably absorbed it from Chayne, or even the Jakals.
Even her feelings toward him. She might have absorbed Chayne’s sense of loyalty and devotion to him and not even realized she was responding to it.
“Take me!” Mystique unexpectedly tried to surge to her feet, the abruptness of the movement nearly sending Reule onto his backside. Instead he stood up with her and absorbed the thrust of her small body as she tried to push her way out of his keeping. “Take me to him! Reule! I beg you to take me.”
“To Chayne?”
“No. Absolutely not!” Delano barked. “Reule, I forbid it!”
The directive was met with absolute silence and stillness, even Mystique freezing in place as the Assassin’s words made their impact.
Rye was the first to move, and the step was well timed to intercept Reule, who swung around to face Delano with a snarl and a flash of fangs that made Mystique gasp and throw her hand up to her astonished mouth.
“My Prime!” Rye had thrown himself into the path of fury, but when Delano growled with a gleam of fangs as well, he found himself in the dead center of a challenge.
“Wait! Both of you! My Prime, remember that Chayne is Delano’s natural brother.
He has a right to his emotions getting away from him.
I don’t think he meant to challenge you.
” He turned to Delano while keeping a hand against Reule’s chest, even though the power of the muscles bunching beneath his palm told him his efforts only succeeded for as long as Reule allowed them to.
“Delano, you know even you will never survive a Prime challenge, just as we all know that you didn’t mean to issue it.
Brother or no, as a Packmate, Chayne is Reule’s responsibility until he has breathed his last. We all made that choice the day we took our oaths.
You have no right to make demands on his behalf, but you know Reule will always listen to your wishes. ”
“Will he? Will he listen to my words when he has been bewitched by this … this …”
“Think carefully about what you say, Assassin,” came the threatening hiss from behind Rye.
And Reule.
The entire Pack was snapped out of the tension between the two men when the small woman at Reule’s back issued the threat to the Assassin as though she had never known an instant of fear in all of her life.
“Mystique?” Darcio lifted a brow at her and tried to repress a wave of delighted humor.
“Do you doubt me, Shadow?”
Darcio threw up his hands in submission when her eyes flashed furious platinum sparks of outrage.
“Not in the least, good lady,” he said quickly.
“Frankly, I would be a fool to underestimate you at this point. But I think we all would like to know why you want to see Chayne. He suffers badly and is very proud. He wouldn’t wish for strangers to see him so. ”
“No doubt,” she agreed, pausing to take a calming breath.
She turned to Delano. “And no doubt you have great cause to suffer hurt, as well as think me a grave danger. Especially after these past minutes. But I promise you …” She looked at Reule to include him in her statement.
“I promise you both that you can take a blade to my throat the very instant I do him a harm. Although, by now, there is little anyone could do to harm him more than was already done. Reule,” she coaxed, reaching out her hand, “take me to him. Please.” Her eyes flicked to Delano.
“Ready your blade, Assassin. Even your Prime cannot outmaneuver your speed.”
“Let’s go, then,” Delano said grimly as he slid his dagger from its sheath.