Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“I’ve got faint signs of brain activity,” she said when Adam forced her to stop, her exhaustion so great that to allow her to go on would have been a dereliction of his duty as wing leader.
“I can’t see it.” Adam had enough familiarity with the machines to be able to read them on a basic level, and right now, the brain scan was a deadly blank.
“Here.” Naia zoomed in to the most rudimentary of the graphical readings, and yes, there they were—tiny spikes and blips.
Adam’s gut had been a knot since the instant they’d found Jacques; now it twisted with harsh physical pain. He didn’t say anything to Naia, however. It was obvious that she needed this minuscule bit of hope…even if he knew it wasn’t anything on which she could base that hope.
That reading? It could be nothing but the final agonal pulses of a dying brain.
Adam had no idea what being trapped mid-shift while badly wounded did to a brain, but he knew it couldn’t be good. Adam couldn’t even feel Jacques through the blood bond any longer, though the bond hadn’t completely severed.
The awareness had begun to fade seconds after he landed beside Jacques, as if his best friend had started to let go once under his wing leader’s watch—only Jacques wasn’t the kind to let go. He was a stubborn fucker. So it hadn’t been a choice. If Jacques could’ve hung on, he would have.
Adam said none of that to Naia, didn’t even allow a hint of his fear to seep through as he nudged her to the small room in the infirmary that she’d set up with a bed. There was no point in fighting to take her to her actual suite—Naia wouldn’t go, not with Jacques in such a critical state.
“Kavi is here to watch over him,” he reminded her when she hesitated on the way out of the patient room. “Amir is going to keep her company—remember, he also has paramedic training, so he can help her if she needs it.”
Naia didn’t move.
“We both need to sleep,” he added, then threw in a dose of guilt to force her hand. “I can’t rest until you do.”
That did it. He made sure she didn’t stop again, not even to give her nurse further instructions. Not only was Kavita Roshan highly experienced—she’d been Naia’s right hand for years—she was currently in the second year of a study plan that meant she had begun to take over a number of the more routine procedures from Naia.
Kavi helped Adam by slipping out of sight when she saw them emerge from Jacques’s room, while Amir stayed in sight. “Kavi and I will make sure he’s never alone,” the wing commander promised. “Sleep so you can help him when you wake.”
Bleary-eyed, her body trembling, Naia just nodded and was soon lying in the bed. She was asleep by the time Adam covered her with a blanket, but deep lines marked her forehead, her hands were clenched tight under her head, and the normally rich cream hue of her skin held a grayish pallor.
Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he stroked her hair and leaned down to press a kiss to her cheek. “Rest. Your clan watches over Jacques. We need you whole and healthy.” He kept up the gentle strokes, using skin privileges to reach the most primal core of her, the part that was of the falcon within and that accepted its wing leader’s word as law.
Natural falcons didn’t act the same way, were often solitary flyers, but changelings weren’t the same as their wild brethren. As with feline changelings, their human halves changed the equation, made them crave community.
Healers were the most community-minded of them all, the softest, and apt to wear themselves down to the bone to care for their clanmates. That was why wing leaders were so hyper-protective of their healers—Adam included. As far as he was concerned, Naia had no self-protective instincts at all.
Amir was waiting outside when Adam left Naia—after she finally fell into a sleep deep enough to be restful. “Kavi is with Jacques,” his brother-in-law said. “No other patients in the infirmary right now, so he has our full attention. If Kavi has to deal with anything, I’ll step in. We won’t leave him alone.” An attempt at a smile. “He might wake up out of plain irritation—you know how he scowls when we drag him to social events.”
Neither one of them laughed, the idea of Jacques’s scowl being missing from future parties one neither of them could face. “Wake me if anything happens.”
A quick nod. “But you have to rest—you can’t be so worn-out that you crash if Naia needs to draw more energy from you.”
Adam nodded; Amir was right. The energy transfer would suffer a catastrophic glitch if Adam’s body just couldn’t take it anymore. It was what his grandmother had feared most as she began to age—and why she’d urged Adam to take on the mantle long before her death.