Page 2 of Hainn

“Hainn is perfectly competent and has more than enough skill and healing power to assist you from this point onward,” Keshara said, her voice firm. “We’ve all agreed on that point.”

“What do you mean ‘we’? No one asked me and surely as the patient involved my opinion matters most.”

“Timtur concurred in the decision.” Keshara delivered this stunner and then drew a deep breath. “I’ll be plain with you, sister, you’ve embarrassed the man. Dr. Garrison assures us that it’s not uncommon for human patients to become attached to, even convinced they have feelings for their doctors and shebelieves, as do the rest of us involved, you’ve developed a crush on Timtur.”

“An unrequited crush,” Gabe said, voice flat and cold. “The man’s a claimed mate and happily paired with the sister of the Supreme Alpha’s mate Jill. He has no interest in any other woman, human or Badari. Seven hells, Jezari, the Great Mother herself told Timtur the mating with Lily had her blessing. You getting all possessive and pitching fits demanding to see him has made him uncomfortable and?—”

Keshara put a calming hand on his arm and he choked off whatever else he was going to say next.

Jezari shrank against her pillows and her fangs and talons deployed as she contemplated the idea of a human woman claiming the senior healer. “Then it’s a mistake. He hadn’t met me before he met her?—”

“I’m going to forget the fact you just stated the Great Mother in her infinite wisdom and caring made amistake.” Keshara’s voice was ice cold and Jezari was shocked at the burst of Alpha power emanating from her sister at that moment. “You can apologize to the goddess later. Right now you need to hear me plainly. There is not now nor was there ever anything between you and the senior healer of all the packs except a patient/healer relationship. Raeblinn has been in the room for every meeting you ever had with Timtur and has testified to the Supreme Alpha nothing was ever said or done by the healer to indicate the slightest impropriety or interest in you other than as a patient.”

“The Supreme Alpha held a meeting to discuss this?” Jezari asked in disbelief. “What right does he have to involve himself?”

“Be glad he’s not here talking to you today,” was Gabe’s counsel.

“We gave blood oath to Aydarr,” Keshara said, shooting her mate an affectionately exasperated glance. “I was the proxyfor all of my sisters, including you. Your behavior has created a problem for the Badari and Aydarr deals with such things in an efficient manner. He was thinking of transferring you to the northern settlement to let the Tzibir healer, who is quite senior himself, finish the healing process for the next few months. Raeblinn would go along as well. Either you work with Hainn—and be respectful to him, unlike yesterday’s episode—or you will be sent there in exile. Aydarr’s not about to have disruption of this sort in the valley.”

“We are fighting a war against the Khagrish you know,” Gabe said.

“Aydarr’s quite fond of Lily Garrison, Timtur’s mate and she’s extremely well regarded by all the Badari and the humans,” Keshara said in a more ordinary conversational tone while Jezari was trying to take in the shock of possible exile away from her sisters. “I’ve seen them together and I know as a Badari that they’re Claimed mates.” She tapped her chest above her heart. Leaning closer, she took one of Jezari’s hands.

“I know you’ve been living in a nightmare ever since the Director put you into the terrible pod and drained your life force from you. I know all of us Badari women had an unfortunate life until Gabe rescued us. I completely understand how you could become attached to and fixated on the man who was doing his best to heal you. You didn’t have any context, he was the first Badari male you were ever in proximity to and he is an exemplary member of our species. I blame myself for allowing the situation to continue for so long. I should have insisted other healers rotate in and out. I should have realized what you were going through and had this talk with you about Lily months ago.”

“Yes, you should have,” Jezari said in an angry voice. She had so much pain in her head and her heart right now that all she could think about was to strike out but she held herself back.Barely. “Why didn’t he ever say anything if I was supposedly making him so uncomfortable?”

“According to Raeblinn and Timtur himself, he tried, once he was aware your emotions were going in an unfortunate direction but you seemed oblivious to his remarks.”

“He never told me he was mated,” she said stubbornly.

“Every Badari can sense a Claimed mate and is warned off,” Keshara said as if holding a tight rein on her patience. “I’m sure he felt there was no need to tell you the plain fact. I can only assume your extreme illness as a result of what the Director did to you at the complex blunted your instincts. I mean, the ordeal certainly suppressed your ability to converse telepathically.”

Jezari felt foolish indeed, allowing herself to get attached to a man who was mated. Despite her stress right now she admitted to herself she hadn’t noticed any stirring of the mate bond in her own heart when Timtur was near.I guess I was in denial. I suppose I was so enamored of the perfectness of him and me meeting this way and how everyone would envy me.Desperate to move the painful conversation along, she asked, “What happens now then?”

“Hainn is going to be in shortly to perform today’s healing session. You work with him, you don’t ask for, talk about or try to contact Timtur. You don’t distract yourself from your task of getting well enough to walk out of here in a few months and take up your place in the packs as an honored member of the Badari.”

“You make it sound so simple, sister.” Jezari knew her laugh was brittle.

“It can be,” Keshara assured her, sounding relieved that the hardest part of the conversation was over. “Few people know of this episode and none will speak of it. Fortunately everything you said was in Badari so none of the humans here in the hospital understood. We can all move on.” She patted Jezari’shand which she’d continued to hold all this time and sat back, smiling at Gabe.

“Do I have to stay in this place?” Jezari allowed her gaze to roam around the white walled room, with all the cold, metallic medical equipment the Badari had looted from destroyed Khagrish labs. “Surely I’d heal better if I could be in the residence with you and my other sisters.”

“That’s up to the healers, not me. Our collective concern is for you to regain enough strength to leave here and function on your own again.” Keshara’s answer was tactful for a denial.

“Work with Hainn,” Gabe said. “Make release from here a goal for yourself. The sooner he clears you, the sooner you can join all of us in the valley outside the hospital.”

Jezari gritted her teeth. She was still dealing with the idea of her sister being mated to a human and his presence today as well as his interjections made her furious but he was a fact of her life now and forever. As Keshara’s mate and her Enforcer, Gabe was entitled to her respect. There was so much involved in being part of a pack now, instead of a fairly cohesive group of sisters living in a regimented environment. She never wanted to revert to the life she’d had in the labs but all these new requirements and conditions were a lot to take.

There was a knock on the door and Hainn walked in, with Raeblinn right on his heels. Jezari sank against the pillows, knowing Keshara must have summoned them telepathically. Her sister was right—her own ability with the mental communications had been ruthlessly suppressed by the Director to prevent her from warning her sisters what the Khagrish were actually up to. She might not ever regain the power to speak mind to mind.

Raeblinn had an uncertain smile and Hainn appeared determined to be cheerful. He and Gabe exchanged greetingswhile Keshara left the chair and moved away from the bed. “I’ll check in on you tomorrow, sister,” she said to Jezari.

Hainn set a bag of herbal remedies and other implements of a healer on the visitor’s chair. “Today I want to do a total assessment, with emphasis on the neurological system,” he said in a calm voice. “We should establish a new baseline and work from there to get you up to par.”

She tried to speak and had to clear her throat hard. Emotion was clogging her vocal cords. Raeblinn handed her a glass of water as everyone waited for her response. After a few swallows, Jezari set the glass on the table and said, “Whatever you think best, healer.” The sentence was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to utter but the tension in the room subsided and relief was palpable. Keshara and Gabe left and Hainn approached the bedside, his hands already glowing with the green energy of the goddess’s healing powers.

That night Jezaridreamt she rose from the bed and walked through the empty hospital, outside into the fresh air of the Sanctuary Valley, which she’d never seen with her own eyes. In her dream she knew where she was going and despite the lingering frailty of her body, walked unerringly and tirelessly through the valley, into the woods, emerging in a huge stone circle. She wasn’t surprised to find a woman waiting there for her, dressed all in white, hair long and silver in the moonlight. Jezari was almost disappointed not to be able to see the Great Mother’s face. After all her travails and the extreme emotional low of the day, she was ready to be done fighting and to leave this life. But if the goddess was concealing her face with a veil of spun moonlight, Jezari’s time wasn’t complete.

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