Pure Healing (13 page)

Glancing at the oriental clock against the opposite wall, Valerius grimaced in self-disgust. He’d slept most of the day away, and yet he still felt exhausted.

And haunted.
The dreams had been so vivid in the night that he felt as if he’d relived the worst part of his past all over again. It happened frequently, as often as every other night, being overwhelmed by demons from his human life, and he’d spend his waking hours struggling to distinguish reality from memories. It was an involuntary reflex to want to cut off any body part of any person who touched him. For the last ten years of his human life, touch equaled humiliation and pain.
His body tingling with sensitivity from the remnants and Rain’s feeding, Valerius moved cautiously to get dressed. Just when he shrugged into a light black jersey, a soft knock sounded at the Enclosure’s door.
It was Wan’er, and she seemed hesitant, almost nervous, as she gained entrance to the chamber.
She stood just a few feet inside the threshold and clasped her hands in front of her. “Protector, I need to speak with you about a private matter,” she began without preamble, some of her no-nonsense straightforwardness coming to the fore despite her nerves.
Valerius gestured for her to come further inside and take a seat on any of the comfortable silk chaises, but she shook her head no. In order to not tower over her, he took a seat instead on a bench nearby and gave her a nod to continue.
Wan’er took a deep breath as if to bolster her courage, and blurted, “My lady Rain is not recovering fast enough.”
Valerius sat up straighter and gave the handmaiden his fullest attention.
Wan’er plunged on in a rush of words, “You do not realize what it cost her to heal you and now the General too so soon after. And she would never complain of it. She always over-stretches herself to ensure the health and well-being of others. You see, by the time of this Phoenix Cycle she was weaker than she’d ever been in the one thousand years that I have been her handmaiden. The last ten years had taken too much of a toll, and the last Consort had not been the strongest.”
At this, Wan’er gave Valerius a pointed glare.
A muscle ticked in the Protector’s jaw as he silently berated himself for his cowardice ten years ago. He’d give anything to do it over, but he also knew that back then,
nothing
could have made him apply for the Service of a woman he’d only just met, no matter how moved by her he’d felt upon first sight.
“What must I do to revive her strength?” Valerius tried to focus on what he could control, for the past could never be changed.
“Intercourse,” Wan’er stated matter-of-factly.
Valerius felt the blood drain from his face. It was not something he wanted to think about, much less talk to the Healer’s handmaiden about.
“You must release within her as often as possible as vigorously as possible,” Wan’er continued without batting an eyelash. “Didn’t she explain to you the Consort’s role? You are essentially her Mate for this duration. Blood is not enough. And it is obvious to me by looking at her state of health that you have not yet bedded her.”
Valerius abruptly got to his feet and paced away from the handmaiden to get some air in his lungs. He felt like the walls were closing in, and his pulse was leaping in panic.
“I do not know why you have not done the deed, but it appears my lady is accommodating your timeline and disregarding her own. But if you don’t do your duty to the Healer, she will not survive another week.”
Valerius remained silent and squeezed his eyes shut, as if to shut out Rain’s reality and his own consuming fears. He nodded once in comprehension, sensed the handmaiden bowing to him and heard her parting words.
“I leave my lady Rain in your hands. Please care for her well. I
we
cannot bear to lose her.”
And neither could he.
*** *** *** ***
The evening found Seth disappeared with only a briefly scrawled note: “I will be away indefinitely. Do not try to find me.”
As the remaining members of the Dozen gathered around to regroup and strategize, the gloom and sadness in the throne room was thick enough to cut.
Orion and Eveline would share Seth’s duties until his return – no one would even imagine that he wouldn’t. Aella would take over training of the recruits, whose numbers included the three Puremales that had applied, and failed, to Serve the Healer. Part of the time, she would benefit from Valerius’ assistance, but his primary duty was to strengthen the Healer and ensure her safety. Tristan and Dalair would rotate between guarding Sophia and hunting rogues, as well as tracking down the whereabouts of Leonidas. Aella would partner whichever one was on duty during the night.
Ayelet, meanwhile, continued her duties as Guardian and took up the search for potential replacements for the missing Consul and Elite warrior, as per protocol when one or more of the Zodiac went missing in action. It was not a responsibility she enjoyed, for she was essentially hedging against the safe return of her friends.
Sophia wanted to take a leave from school to help, but none of her Council would hear of it. One, there was not an obvious place for her to add value. Two, everyone wanted to shield her from the unhappy immediacy of their situation. Her normality seemed to give the Zodiac something positive to focus on.
Sophia, however, felt helpless and angry at their protectiveness. She was young, but she was resourceful. There were many things she could do to ease their burdens, even if it meant deciphering and stamping official papers that often took hours of Seth’s day.
She stomped to her bedroom in a fit of temper and despair, Dalair following a few paces behind.
Slamming into her room, she stormed without looking behind, “Why do you have to follow me everywhere? We’re in the Shield, I’m safe as can be, for crying out loud!”
Dalair took small favors where he could – at least she hadn’t slammed the door in his face. “You know that it’s protocol when we’re in Code Red. You know that one of the Elite must be with you at all times,” he reminded her gently, his voice quiet and low.
“But why does it have to be you!” Sophia practically whined, throwing up her hands in disgust. “Why can’t it be Aella or Tristan?”
Dalair did not understand her displeasure with him, which had been increasing lately at an alarming pace. He knew why she
should
detest him, but Sophia didn’t know herself. And he would do everything in his power to keep it that way.
He calmly answered her question, “Tristan and Aella are hunting tonight.”
“I know that,” Sophia muttered, “it was a rhetorical question.” She grabbed her pajamas and headed into her bathroom, leaving the door open so he wouldn’t have to come over and beat it down in case she were to drown in the bathtub. Geez! How stupid could this situation get?
Dalair stood against the outside wall beside the bathroom door with folded arms. He listened to her brushing her teeth, turning on the shower and removing her clothes. He closed his eyes to magnify his other senses so that he could tune out the background noise.
“You’re sleeping on the floor,” Sophia called out in a raised voice to be heard over the strong spray of the water. Unfortunately, she often forgot that Dalair’s Gift was his hyper-developed senses, so her loud voice was like fingernails against the chalkboard of his eardrums.
“I have a sleeping bag and an extra comforter you can use,” she continued in the same pitch, causing Dalair to cringe ever so slightly. He concentrated for a moment and dialed his hearing down, while still blocking out the background noise.
He wouldn’t need the comforter, Dalair thought, but he remained silent.
“And I don’t want to get any argument from you about my leaving the lights on when I sleep,” Sophia groused some more, “that’s the way I like it so you can just deal.”
Again, Dalair didn’t feel he needed to comment. Of course, he would adhere to her preferences. She was his queen. He would never gainsay her.
Unless it was for her own protection.
Some minutes of silence passed and then he heard, “You better keep your clothes on when you sleep. I don’t ever want to see you naked.”
A pause. Then, “Not that I give that a lot of thought, I mean, I don’t think about you naked at all. But just in case you do that sort of thing – you know- sleep naked. You just better not do it near me.”
Dalair frowned slightly. Verily, he didn’t understand her at all. It seemed like she was an entirely different person from the queen he once served. But
sometimes… sometimes he felt a recognition for her deep within his soul.
Another few minutes and Sophia emerged from the bathroom in a fluffy white robe, the baby animals on her light blue PJs on full display beneath its hem. Over-stuffed pink piggy slippers warmed her feet and made her waddle rather than walk. She was toweling off her shoulder-length chestnut hair as she came around the enormous four-poster king-sized bed to pull back the covers and stack her pillows for bed-time reading.
Looking at her comfortable bed and the hard floor beside the bed covered only by a colorful thin wool rug, Sophia felt a pang of conscience. If it were Aella, or any other of the Elite for that matter, who was here right now with her, she wouldn’t hesitate to invite them to share her comforts. She’d been raised by the Zodiac, after all. They were family to her – parents, aunts and uncles, elder brothers and sisters.
In the beginning, she’d felt the same familial affection and love for everyone, including Dalair. In fact, when she’d been a child, he was always her favorite companion. He spent the most time guarding her and taking care of her than any other Elite member, despite Valerius’ role as Protector. And up until Sophia was ten, she’d often slept in his bed, seeking him out in the middle of the night when nightmares plagued her. In many ways, he’d been her security blanket.
And then she discovered that she liked boys.
She had crushes on various boys from her schools and was quite inspired by a couple to compose exceedingly bad love letters. But somehow when she came home to the Shield, one look at Dalair and she felt dissatisfied, frustrated, and downright angry.
Her attitude towards him changed very gradually. First there was the separation, until the Elite resumed their normal rotational schedule for taking care of her, and she saw Dalair more and more infrequently compared to the earlier years of her childhood. Then there was the distancing, when she purposefully forced herself to take a more active and consistent interest in boys her own age, human boys, that is. She made herself look upon Dalair with the same indifference as one would gaze at scenery and art.
Incredibly amazing scenery and art. On the same relative scale as the Taj Mahal or Michelangelo’s David, but scenery and art nevertheless.
And finally, there was resentment. For some reason, very recently in fact, Sophia felt inexplicably irritated, annoyed and all out frustrated whenever Dalair was near. It was as if PMS hit her hard and fast only in his presence. He could do and say nothing right.
Sometimes, she even hated him.
“Um, look,” Sophia muttered grudgingly, as if speaking the words left a bitter taste in her mouth, “you don’t have to sleep on the floor. You can take the other side of the bed and we can roll the comforter and sleeping bag into a barrier between us so you don’t get slapped and kicked when I spread out during the night. I tend to move around a lot.”
“No need,” he replied in an even tone, always that blasted even tone, “the floor is fine.”
“Suit yourself,” Sophia said rather haughtily with a toss of her hair. “Don’t blame me if you catch cold or get back pains.”
Without responding, Dalair spread the sleeping bag and comforter on the floor right beside Sophia’s side of the bed and lay down on his side facing away from her, using his bicep as a pillow. He would not sleep this night, he knew, not when the danger was ever increasing, but he didn’t want to sit or stand looking wide awake and making his presence seem more intrusive.
Sophia got settled in her bed, leaned back against her tall stack of pillows and pretended to read. The room was brightly lit with an overhead chandelier and her bedside lamp. She used this opportunity to assess the Paladin unobserved.
He was the leanest and shortest Elite warrior, though he still stood over six feet tall. His build reminded Sophia of Middle Eastern or Latin American men, leaner in the chest and especially at the waist than Europeans. But proportionally, at least in Sophia’s opinion, his type of figure was the most beautiful. Broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist and hips with long, lean limbs, his torso making a perfect upside down trapezoid. The only curve on his unyielding body was his taut, muscular buttocks, and that only made him even more appealing in his overwhelming masculinity.
Sophia was an ass woman and his ass was probably the finest she’d ever seen. Her fingers itched to test it for resilience, her teeth tingled to sink into the tantalizing flesh. No doubt about it, the Paladin had a world-class backside.
Rather like a wild Arabian stallion.
Dalair did nothing to emphasize his “charms,” though that didn’t stop Sophia from ogling him every chance she got. It was an involuntary reaction. She often didn’t even know she was doing it until someone or something alerted her that she hadn’t blinked in a long period of time.
When she caught herself in the act, she was always very annoyed. What was the point of lusting after the Paladin? Like they would ever end up dating. She kept reminding herself to save her hormones for the human boys. The risk/ reward ratio was much more attractive in that case.
Sophia watched his deep, even breathing lift and depress his ribcage with utter fascination. It was hypnotic, really, and strangely soothing. If she could just see Dalair breathe like this, then everything was all right with the world. And if it wasn’t, then it would be. Because he was here, and she had absolute faith he would make it so.
Reminding herself to keep up the pretense of reading, she flipped over a page of her romance novel but kept her gaze glued to Dalair’s back. And then it roved covetously down his spine to his perfectly developed backside.
Sophia licked her lips as the room began to grow warmer and her mouth grow drier.
Abruptly, she wondered how he compared to Ere. Both were dark-haired, of similar height. If she put them side by side, Dalair was by far more masculine with his bronzed skin, lean muscles and ever-serious weight-of-the-world expression.
Ere, on the other hand, while intensely masculine when Sophia didn’t have Dalair to compare him to, seemed more refined, elegant, definitely more of a scholar type than a warrior type, which made sense. He was hauntingly beautiful, whereas Dalair was…