Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
At the end of the fourth week of their residency in Kyden’s house, Jamirr was standing in his room in the barracks after dinner, wondering what Samyra was doing with her evening and wishing they were free to spend time together without any excuses. He heard Kyden’s voice in his head.
Join us, brother.
It was an invitation but also a command and even though he couldn’t accept Kyden as his Alpha he respected the man’s authority and position. Where?
We’re waiting for you at the south end of the public garden, by the fish pond.
He put on his boots and hastened from the room, leaving the barracks and heading into the vast garden.
He knew the spot Kyden referenced and when he arrived a minute or two later, he found all five of the Badari standing beside the pond.
He envied them their pack bond and rubbed his hand over the ache in his chest, intensified right now because he stood outside the pack and wanted so desperately to be a part of it again.
These weren’t the brothers he was created alongside with in the Khagrish lab but they might as well have been.
He knew them now and would die for any of them and they’d do the same for him.
“We’ve got something to show you,” the Alpha said as Jamirr approached. “We think you’re ready now. You’ve gotten most of your memories back, you remember our language, you can talk mind to mind—”
“Yes to all of that,” Jamirr said a bit harshly, “But I haven’t changed my mind about staying with Samyra.”
“This has nothing to do with her,” Kyden assured him, eyes flaring amber in the dusk. “This is a Badari matter.”
He turned and opened a gate in the wall, walking through with his usual confident stride.
The others followed him and Dmitri gestured for Jamirr to precede him.
He heard the gate clank shut behind them.
Jamirr had been all over the public portions of the estate during the previous month and the brothers had taken him to a few restricted places like the obstacle course but he had to admit he’d been curious what Kyden had tucked away here that was so private.
They were approaching a circle of trees, not massive enough to be old growth but huge, standing close enough that their canopies created a green roof.
Kyden led the way through the trees and Jamirr emerged from the undergrowth to find himself in a meadow so green the color seemed impossible.
He looked up but the sky was still the dusky red and gold of this planet’s sunset, not the cobalt blue of his planet of origin.
He knew where he stood.
“The circle of the goddess,” he said scarcely above a whisper. Rotating 360 degrees he saw he was surrounded by the trees. “You recreated her sacred place. Does she—is she—can she be appealed to here?”
“We’ve been blessed by her presence,” Kyden said. “We know we’re far from our home and we can never go back there but she watches over us still.”
“Can’t you feel it?” Rennyr asked, watching him closely.
Jamirr closed his eyes and barely breathed, taking in everything his senses could tell him about the glade where he stood. “Yes, I can.” He opened his eyes again.
“She told me to bring you here,” Kyden said.
“In a vision. Since you’ve regained your Badari knowledge and identity I’ve coded the gate to allow you entry here any time.
You don’t have to be with one of us. But, brother, only you.
You cannot share this with Samyra or anyone else.
This place is for the pack alone and you, as our missing brother. ”
“I understand.” He was full of boiling emotions, ragingly impatient for them to leave him alone in this place of peace.
If the Great Mother had asked for him to be here then perhaps she planned to speak to him or give him a sign as to what she expected of him.
It had been so long since he’d worshipped in the original circle on his home planet and his knees weakened at the possibility of reconnecting with the goddess who watched over his kind.
To know she cared about him, a lost Badari without even a pack, would give him much needed hope the future could work out in the ways he desperately wanted.
“We’ll leave you here then,” Kyden said. “May the goddess bless you.”
Jamirr watched them file out of the glade, going between the trees and out of sight.
He didn’t know how Kyden had wrought this miracle so far from their home but he was grateful.
Free from watching eyes he lay on the grass, on his back, studying the sky, trying to overlay it in his head with the cobalt blue of home.
The scent of the grass was pleasant and soon he noticed a floral note creeping in.
Closing his eyes he drifted off to sleep, lulled by the peace and the perfume of the goddess’s flowers.
“You’ve had a long journey,” she said to him.
She was seated on the rock which served as her throne on their home planet, although as he came to full consciousness Jamirr realized he was still in the circle of trees on Kyden’s estate.
He had no explanation for how the rock chair had materialized here.
Her face was in shadows, for which he was thankful.
Gazing upon her features meant a man was near death and he had no desire to leave his life and Samyra behind.
Although if he could have had the choice earlier, when he was an abused and confused slave, he might have taken it.
But Badari never gave up and he hadn’t, even though at the time his true identity was behind the cloud of cryosleep-induced amnesia.
Jamirr rolled into a kneeling position, to honor her. “Thank you for walking with me, my lady, and giving me brothers again.”
“And your mate,” she added, her voice musical.
“She—she isn’t mine to claim,” he said, “But I intend to stay by her side and protect her always. I can’t accept the pack bond for that reason, hard though it may be to walk a solitary path.”
“The journey isn’t done yet,” the Great Mother said. “And I walk with you as well, you know. Keep your dreams and your faith.”
“Did my brothers earn their Afterlife?” he asked.
She was the only one who could give him news of the men in his original pack.
Even though he and Talinn were both Generation Six, as a member of the Tzibir pack Talinn hadn’t had much contact with the other Badari with canine and feline alien predator DNA.
Talinn had also been sold before the time when the scientists ended all Generation Six members, as he had also been, so although they shared a few general memories of the labs, he hadn’t learned much about his brothers.
It had been uplifting to talk with Talinn about their Alphas at the time, to be able to speak of at least one man Jamirr had known and honored.
Talinn felt the same. Even though the packs had been kept separate, everyone knew the three Alphas.
“They did.” She made a graceful gesture with one hand and suddenly his Alpha and his brothers stood in a half circle beyond her seat.
Jamirr drank in the sight, eyes filling with unabashed tears, memories crowding his mind.
How could he ever have forgotten these men?
“I will hold all of you in my memory and honor your sacrifices for the rest of my life,” he vowed.
Grief hit his body as a physical pain, remembering the people closest to him since the moment he was ‘born’ and knowing they were gone forever at the same instant.
He held his breath as Garron the Generation Six Alpha for the feline descent pack stepped forward, to lay one hand on his shoulder.
For an instant the pack bond flickered in his chest, weak but there.
“You’ve done well, brother. I’m proud of you.
And I have no hesitation in releasing you to take the bond up with your new Alpha, when the time comes. Travel well.”
And he was gone, as was the Lady and all the brothers.
The pack bond snapped and disappeared.
“No!” His cry sounded like the shriek of a great cat and felt as if it was ripping his insides.
Hands to his chest where the pack bond had existed for a few precious seconds, he fell onto his back and lay curled in a protective position, guarding his heart.
The world spun around him and went black at the edges.
Jamirr didn’t fight the oncoming darkness—he welcomed it as a release from the pain.
When he stirred and awoke again, he found a layer of the goddess’s purple flowers over him, as if she’d laid a blanket on him to keep him warm.
The petals drifted away as he sat up and he grabbed a few in in cupped talons, breathing deeply of the scent.
The flowers only grew on his home world but through some miracle she’d manifested them here for him.
The perfume was soothing to the aches in his chest and head.
He rose to his feet and let the last few petals float away, rising improbably to the night sky.
The Great Mother watched over him.
She’d given him a mate and now he had hope one day he could Claim and be Claimed.
His brothers had gone to the Afterlife the Great Mother promised all Badari and were beyond the reach of the Khagrish scientists or any other earthly travail.
And he had more distance to go on his journey but as he left the grove and headed for the barracks beyond the gardens Jamirr’s heart felt lighter and he was filled with determination to figure out a way to have what he wanted most—Samyra as his claimed mate and a bond to this Alpha and this ragtag pack of Badari.