Chapter Twenty
Donovan
“Fuck!” I didn’t care that Mag was hot on my heels with his daughter—the scene unfolding before me left me speechless for anything other than profanity.
“Oh, shit,” Magnum said, catching a glimpse of what happened before snatching Blake and folding her face into his shoulder and carrying her out of the room.
“Cinder, what the fuck is going on?” I turned and glared at my brother’s fiancée, wondering why she was walking around smiling while Tulya was passed out on the floor. “Wipe that slimy grin off your face,” I scolded her. “You got what you wanted. Are you happy?”
I couldn’t stop the venom from pouring out of me.
“What did you do?” I directed my fury at the two women who’d been in the room—as if they had a clue. One was a full-fledged human and the other a Rubian nightmare.
“We don’t know. You were here too. You saw it happen,” Valerie stated from the chair she’d slumped into, rubbing her chest above her heart.
“I can’t help her or anyone now,” was all she said, breaking out into tears.
“My whole body hurts. All I feel is heartache and vile thoughts.” She seemed to be shaking her head to get the thoughts out.
I fell to the floor, unable to be pleased over the transfer working. Why? Because Tulya was out cold. Her chest was still rising and falling but she was completely unconscious. My lips yearned to run over her cheek, but I wasn’t that far gone.
“It was too much,” I whispered to myself, leaning over Tulya, choosing to caress her cheek with my palm. “Tulya, wake up!” I gave her a small slap on the face.
I was a man with feelings, who couldn’t show them, and the object of all my desires was lying there motionless.
“Tulya,” I said with more authority, crouched over her limp body.
“Don.” I felt a hand on my back. “Come on, let’s move her.”
Standing, I met Magnum’s face, shaking my head.
“If I wasn’t so concerned, I’d lay into you.
But we have one motionless Rubian and another woman sing-songing about getting her man back.
Not to mention a human in despair and an innocent child with powers.
” I tried to whisper, but the last part came out in a yell; I couldn’t care.
“The child is in the other room,” my brother said sternly.
“I’ll go to the child, my daughter.” Valerie stood and said to Magnum, “You can deal with her.” She knocked her head toward the floor where Tulya still lay. “She got what she deserved, if you ask me. Not that it was her fault. That one over there pushed for it.” This time her gaze cut to Cinder.
“If it was anyone’s mistake, it was mine.
I went along with this whole plan like the lemming my mother wants me to be.
” I gritted my teeth at no one, furious at everyone.
“Magnum, help me lift Tulya and take her to the car. Cinder, get the door. Hope you are all happy now.” I spoke in clipped phrases, each word coming out gruffer than the one before
Magnum bent and slid his hand under Tulya’s back. “She’s breathing,” he commented.
“No shit, asshole. If she wasn’t, I would’ve called 911.”
“We can’t do that, and you damn well know it.”
He had the nerve to question my Rubian knowledge. Him…Magnum, the breaker of every rule. But he wasn’t wrong. We didn’t see human doctors. For the most part, they wouldn’t notice the small synapses that were at the root of our abilities, but we just didn’t do it—
“You let your daughter be born and raised right out in the open, tough guy,” I slammed back.
He pursed his lips.
We stood there, staring one another down. “Get your hand out from her, I’ll lift her myself.”
I lowered into a squat and slid an arm under Tulya and grasped her gently into my chest before standing and running my lips across her forehead.
Magnum raised an eyebrow and I shook my head. “Don’t go there,” was all I said.
“Mom seems to have traded one headache for another,” he had further nerve to say.
I walked out of the house, Cinder standing and holding the door, and never looked back at my brother who dared to challenge me when all this was his fault.
“Open the car door too,” I called to Cinder, who was flopping around light as a feather. This entire scene gave new meaning to the burden Tulya carried.
I slid the limp woman across the back seat, telling myself that as long as she was breathing, she would be okay. I wasn’t sure what to call the state she was in—comalike or maybe a trance?
All I knew was the Minister or fucking Ezza was going to answer to me. Someone had to have known this might happen, and they still forced Tulya to do it.
I drove back to the hotel, one eye on the road and the other on the rearview mirror. In the back, Tulya was…resting? Sleeping? In a coma?
I had no fucking clue.
A few times, Tulya moaned, and it gave me some sort of hope she’d be okay.
Carrying her into the hotel, I ignored all side looks and went straight to the elevator bank. My phone buzzed in my pocket and sweat soaked through my dress shirt—both of which I also disregarded.
It took some careful finessing, but I made it into the room without dropping Tulya, delicately laying her on the sofa.
“Tulya,” I managed to whisper.
Nothing—
“Sweet Tulya,” I said, trying again to wake her, running my palm along her forehead.
Silence—
My phone started buzzing again as I slid down to the floor, my ass hitting the carpet with a thud.
I answered, seeing who it was. “Ezza.” Her name tasted like poison on my tongue and rang venomous through the line.
“I understand the transfer worked.”
That was what she led with. My blood boiled over in my veins. “Seriously? You don’t want to know about your daughter?” I couldn’t help myself. I was sick of Rubian rules and formality.
“I have our medic here. After we finish speaking, he will ask you some questions regarding Tuvy and help you get her settled.”
Sweat dampened the collar of my shirt. “After? Settled? Ezza, your daughter is unconscious.”
“You know how this works, dear Donovan. Serve Rubia first. The Minister is awaiting a full report, including information regarding Cinder returning happily with the child in tow. I can’t be worried about the pain left in her wake.”
I stood and padded toward the balcony, never more unsure in my life. Should I bitch Ezza out? Or take Tulya for help? Both choices went against what I’d been taught yet were equally warranted.
“What about your daughter?” I repeated my earlier question through gritted teeth, choosing what was behind Door A.
“She will be fine. She’s never been pushed to the limit.
Basically a cream puff, that one. Spinning her stories, helping me only when I request. Never testing her powers.
A lucky lass, the pain has seeped out of her veins up to this point.
Now, she asked it to really work for her.
Frankly, I should have demanded more from her. ”
“I hardly think this is the time to diminish Tulya’s work or contributions to Rubia.” I defended the woman lying listless inside the hotel room. With the ocean lapping in the background, I told myself to get my shit together or my mother and Ezza would get their pitchforks out for me.
“Exactly. Now tell me, do you plan to go back and get your brother and the kid? Now is the time with the birth mother being down and out—”
If I’d exposed any of my feelings for Tulya, Ezza wasn’t picking up on it. She was wholly focused on her own mission. “Do I need to? Wouldn’t it be best for them to just leave? Valerie can be dramatic, and she was on one about her coming to Rubia with the kid. Whose name is Blake, by the way.”
“You need to make sure everything runs smoothly. I’ve sent the jet.”
“Wait, why are you doing all this? Where is my mother?” All of a sudden this was taking a darker turn. I’d been in a haze over Tulya’s spell and hadn’t thought this through clearly.
“I’m in charge. Your mom is indisposed.”
“What?” My voice was rising at an alarming rate. Any minute, I was going to get tossed out of the hotel. “Indisposed?”
Ezza cleared her throat. “Your mom didn’t handle your brother spending the night with the woman. Cinder really let her have it, and the Minister and I had to take over. We are making sure this is all resolved, and your mom is resting.”
“Serves her right,” I mumbled.
“What did you just say?” Ezza took a sinister tone with me, but I wasn’t Tulya.
“I said it serves her right. If there is one thing I’ve learned on this adventure, it’s that you—the proverbial you—are way too controlling when it comes to us, all of us adult kids.”
“Listen, Donovan, it’s not your place to decide how things work in Rubia, so stick to what you’re good at. And before that, make sure your brother gets on the jet with Blake and Cinder, and not the human woman.”
She disconnected the call without asking after Tulya or connecting me with the medic, but at least she called Blake by her name rather than the kid. As for Valerie, she would always be the woman.
Stealing a glance at Tulya, who was still out, I stepped inside the room and checked that her breathing was still steady.
I didn’t know what to call this other than a deep slumber.
It wasn’t a coma or anything natural for the body to do—it was a Rubian reaction to way too much pressure.
The latter I was sure of, and I needed the damn medic to tell me what to do.
Snatching my phone out of my pocket, I went back on the balcony and texted Magnum.
Be there in an hour. Taking you, Blake, and Cinder to jet. Be ready.
I didn’t have the time or focus to write more.
In fact, I stuck him on Do Not Disturb and set about calling the medic myself.
We didn’t have doctors in Rubia because we couldn’t attend medical school, but we had a large supply of medics who’d studied as much as an MD.
They ran our small hospital and were responsible for all of the Rubian population.
I assumed Ezza meant the chief medic; she wouldn’t associate with anyone else. I just happened to have Abraham’s number from when he cared for my father.
Pushing the call button, I waited for him to pick up.
He greeted me as if he’d been briefed on the scenario. “Donovan, how are you? I was expecting to hear from you.”
“Cut the formalities, Abraham. Ezza was supposed to put you on a call. I have Tulya here, completely out of it…in some sort of deep slumber. If I’m being blunt, I’m not happy or comfortable with this.” It was as honest as I could be in this very moment.
“Her system shut down,” he said bluntly.
“So, this happens? You’ve seen it? Knew it? What the fuck?” The questions bubbled out of me.
Of course Ezza had to know this was a risk too.
“Yes, it’s a chance we take when powers are overly tasked, especially when it comes to interacting with humans.”
“What the hell?” I paced the patio and peered in the window, and there Tulya still lay, her hair fanned out around her, eyes closed. My heart ached a bit more with every glimpse. “Why would they ask her to do this, then?”
I asked the question without thinking.
“Some answers are above our pay grade,” Abraham simply responded. “Also, if I’m not mistaken, she did this for your mother?”
I shook my head. My goddamn mother. I wanted to throttle her—I knew better—but what did she care who Magnum married?
“In short, Tulya’s abilities require her body to absorb all the negative emotions of a Rubian. Something inside her acts like a siphon with a sort of vent to push it out of her body. It’s why she gets so hot when the feelings start to infiltrate her body. That’s my rudimentary explanation.”
“But what went wrong?” Not that I didn’t care about the process. In fact, I made a note to ask at a later date about my own capabilities. But I needed to know what to do.
“Well, you see, the heat is her body starting to work, pushing the emotions out. I don’t know how much she has disclosed but she becomes extremely warm when inheriting the pain.
Typically, her system disposes of the emotions, and that acts as a cooling agent.
In this case, my guess is she held on to the pain until she could target the human and started to send her the suffering in short bursts, causing her body to overheat.
She never cooled off, and she is in some sort of hypersleep. ”
“This has happened before? You’re not even looking at her and know all this.”
“Yes.”
His one word was curt and final. He’d seen it, Ezza knew it, and he wasn’t giving any more. “You need to come and help her. You should be on your way, for God’s sake.” It was all I had left in me.
“When your brother and his bride-to-be, along with his child, land in Rubia, I will come.”
“What? You should be on the jet coming to pick them up.” I was feeling twitchy from all of this.
“Minister’s orders, especially since your mom had a spell. He is requiring lawfulness be restored.”
“And what about his niece? Is he not worried about her?”
“Put a cool compress on her forehead. Apply some ice behind her neck and try to drip some water in her mouth. I’ll see you soon. You’d better get your brother packed up.” He had the nerve to disconnect.
It had been a day of people leaving me hanging on their orders.