CHAPTER 9
The bonding ceremony was set for the first full moon of autumn. Despite her mother's best efforts trying to get Carson interested in food, clothing and any one of the thousand little details that went into a ceremony, she still managed to sneak away to the healer's hall at every chance. She spent long hours with Chase working with him in his craft or on the hall itself. She organized a party of several of the younger adults to come repaint the walls while another group planted flowers around the wide porch. The rickety little desk in the tiny office was removed and shelves installed making it into a storage room (that's what it had originally been at one time) and a new, larger office was almost completed in the back of the hall. The two room addition measuring twelve foot wide and sixteen foot long would contain a small kitchenette and something the main hall didn't have - windows to let in the breeze during the sweltering late summer heat.
“Hey Doc! The computer's here.”
Chase looked up from the discussion on whether or not a second door was needed in his new office as a young man walked in carrying a large box. “Oh, put it right there on the floor. I'll get it hooked up in a bit.”
Carson rolled her eyes. “You know that he is our resident technology guru, Chase. Let him do his job.” She pointed behind her. “His office, Leo. Just move the stuff off the desk and do your thing.” Then stepping up placed a small box on top of the larger one. “That’s the new software.” She mumbled. “When you get it installed take the boxes with you and all the disks.”
A pair of arms snaked around her waist and a pair of lips pressed to the hollow where her throat and shoulder met. “It was only one time,” he mumbled.
She laughed. “And had Leo not accidentally taken the disks out of the boxes, we would be buying all that software again. You're lucky you didn't burn your cabin down. As it is, almost losing the stove was bad enough – not to mention all the smoke cleaning we had to do”
He growled softly then nipped her shoulder. “How was I supposed to know you had just used the eye and it was still warm? Besides, I blame you. That halter top should be outlawed. You stretched and I completely forgot about the boxes I was holding. Next time don't distract me when I am putting things away. Oh and I mean it, by the way, I don't want you wearing anything that skimpy out in public. It was all I could do to keep from claiming you before the bonding.”
She stepped out of his arms and crossed her heart, holding two fingers up. “Scouts honor. Halter tops are a no-no,” she grinned at him impishly.
“You weren't a girl scout,” he growled at her.
“So?” She smirked at him. “I love you.” She kissed him sweetly.
“And I love you too,” he replied and nuzzled her tenderly before popping her butt with his hand. “Naughty girl,” he murmured against her skin.
She grinned mischievously. “Doctor Blackston, you haven't seen naughty yet.”
His wolf sat up inside and took notice. “Oh really?”
She started to give him excruciating detail on just how naughty, when the hall door slammed open and one of the younger teens ran in. “Doc Chase!!”
He stood up and swung around. “Denver? What's wrong?” He noticed how ashen her face was and was reaching for his medical bag even before he got an answer.
“Micah told me to find you. There's a girl. She's really hurt bad. Hurry please!!”
“Show me,” he pointed towards the door and hurried after the girl. Carson was hot on his heels.
Denver led them through the compound to the back side of the storage building and plunged into the woods. As was normal for her, every sound ceased as Carson invaded the sanctuary of bird, insect and beast. It used to bother her – the way animals quieted whenever she was nearby, but now it barely even registered. Manna once told her it was nature's way of paying homage to her as a dreamer. Since it didn't seem to happen to all of the other dreamers, she didn't know if she believed it or not.
Chase's long legs ate up the distance while Carson had to almost run to keep up. Denver was babbling and Carson couldn't make heads or tails about anything. She said something about lots of blood and being attacked, but the words ran together into a mixed up jumble. They hurried through the thick woods until she could detect the scents of Micah, Butch, Ellis and her father. There was another smell; unfamiliar, wrapped in the tangy metallic of blood. Human. Her wolf categorized it quickly. Chase caught the scent at the same time and put his hand back. “Stay back,” he whispered to her. She shook her head and followed him anyway. He palmed his face, stubborn woman, but didn't try to force the issue.
The trees thinned into a small clearing roughly twenty feet in diameter with a pile of boulders stacked haphazardly in the middle. This was Make-out Hill, which explained the small group of teens standing nearby. Stepping around the last tree, Carson saw her father kneeling alongside Butch and Ellis next to a small lump partially hidden by the waist high grass. Looking up, she saw Micah paroling just inside the woods on the other side, his eyes wary, his ears tuned for any danger. Denver pointed towards the group but wouldn't go any closer. Instead she moved over to the boulders with the other teens whispering softly, their faces pasty and their hands trembling.
She sighed. “I'm going to walk them back,” she said as Chase reached the still lump on the ground. “They don't need to stay here.”
“Ellis can. I think we may need you.” Her father's tone was soft, almost too soft for even her sharp ears to hear. “Find Cayson and bring him back,” he looked at Ellis, “and hurry.”
Ellis nodded and motioned for the teens to follow him; meanwhile Carson made it the rest of the way to the where the men stood. Chase had dropped to a knee and was pulling instruments out of his bag. Tossing a lightweight aluminum blanket package at Butch, he grunted. “Open it and cover her up. She's in shock.” Humans are so fragile.
Carson's hand covered her lips as a gasp escaped. How he could even tell how the bloody lump on the ground was still alive escaped her. To put it simply, she looked as though she had been mauled. Long bloody slashes covered her torso and she could see the muscle under the shredded skin. One arm was twisted under her back, and one eye was swollen shut. A long jagged slash opening her face to the bone arched from just below her right side hairline across the bridge of her nose, down her left cheek and ending just below her left ear. It had missed both of her eyes, a fact that was nothing short of a miracle. Tatters of cloth hung to her frame, covering nothing. Under the copious amounts of blood, one could see the soft curves of a female, definitely a human. Wolf metabolism burned off any fat insuring them to always have lean muscular bodies. This girl had full breasts, wide hips and just enough padding to insure she was soft all over. Carson watched in horror as a small bubble, red with blood, expanded from the corner of her cracked and bleeding lips.
“Carson!”
She jumped and blinked, tearing her eyes from the girl's mutilated face to her father. “Huh?”
Chase reached her hand and squeezed it. “Baby, focus, I need you to see if you can dream for her. With her being human, I don't know if it would work or not, but I need you to see if it's possible. If you can, find out who she is, where she came from and what happened to her. Most of all, try to see if you can keep her calm, just hold her in this world until I can get her stabilized.”
“That's more like what Cay does, I don't think...”
Chase's tone was tight. “Cay isn't here. Just do what you can.”
Carson nodded numbly and dropped to her knees by the girls' head. Closing her eyes, she held her power in and gently touched the girl's arm. The girl's skin felt clammy and a soft groan left her lips. Carson flinched and tried to not press too hard and cause the poor girl more discomfort. Gently, she allowed just a thread of her power to flow out of the hand and into the girl, sinking into her stream and opening herself up to the dream.
At first the images were fuzzy and u
nfocused. There were sounds and smells, emotions, but nothing that she could grab on to. Letting just a bit more of her power out she tenderly probed, listening for anything that may shed a light on what had happened to her. Shutting out Chase, Jeff, and the world that they were standing in, she listened with her heart, letting it guide her. She caught emotions – joy over a baby being born. She felt the gentle strength of a man's arms around her as she cuddled the newborn against her breast. She frowned, unable to discern if she was in the past or future stream. Nudging slightly she sent tendrils into the scene, unable to clearly see anything; the white fog remained shrouding everything. There were shadows that moved in the mist but there was nothing she could focus on. Willing the stream to move she waited as more dim images played themselves in her mind. Shadows moved. Shapes changed, expanded and left. But still there was nothing solid or concrete. Carson frowned. Perhaps she couldn't dream a human after all.
She caught a tendril of thought slip into the dream with her. “Who are you?”
It was so faint, she thought for a moment that surely she had imagined it. The thought pressed again, this time laced with reds and white of pain; it was obviously in distress. It almost hissed at her, “Who are you?” She was so shocked she almost pulled her hands away and ended the dream. Very rarely could anyone ascertain when a dreamer walked through their stream.
“I'm Carson. I'm a dreamer. I was trying to find out what happened to you and where you came from. We found you on our lands.”
The thought paused a moment. “Is this real?” It was soft and unsure and very faint.
She sent confidence and assurance through the connection. “Yes, it's real. My people are... different, and I'm more different than most of them. What is your name?”
The thought was so quiet she was afraid it had disappeared completely. “Zandria,” it whispered softly. “Am I dying?”
Carson bit her lip. “I... I don't know. I was trying to find out what happened but I can't see anything in your stream. It’s all hazy and foggy. I don't even know if I was in your past or future.”
“You can see my past? What did you see?” There was a panic in her thoughts and Carson hurried to calm her.
“I see just glimpses and yours were all foggy. That has never happened before.”
There was a touch of relief. “Maybe it's because I'm blind.”
Carson gasped. “That's why I can't see your stream. I have to see through your eyes in the dream.” She hesitated a bit. “Zandria, do you remember what happened?”
The thought pulled back as if it didn't want to remember. “I’m tired, Carson, and I hurt so bad. It burns and aches like fire in my entire body. So tired... I just want to go to sleep.”
“No!!” Carson started to panic. “Listen to me Zandria. My brother, Cayson, he's coming. He can help you. Don't give in to the sleep. Hold on until he gets here. He's an empath. Just hold on, please.”
The connection was lost as her hands were pulled away from the girl. She blinked, realizing her father was holding her in his arms. Beside them, Chase started chest compressions. She whimpered as tears slipped down her face. “Hold on Zandria. Please, just a few more minutes,” she whispered. She heard footsteps approaching. “CAYSON! HURRY!!” she screamed.
In the space of a few seconds, her brother burst into the clearing, eyes falling to his sister and father sitting on the ground next to a form streaked with red. Chase was on his knees doing CPR. “Hurry Cay. Don't let her die,” Carson sobbed.
He slid to a stop and knelt beside his family, steeled himself and touched her bracing for the worse and let his shield down. The agony that slammed into him almost knocked him flat. White hot pain burned through her along with sadness, fear and uncertainty. She was so weak, he could barely detect her spirit. Letting his instincts take over, he gritted his teeth and pulled, drawing the pain from her, storing it deep in his own belly to be dealt with later. Quickly, he pushed his own strength into her, filling the void with it, willing it to fill her heart, her mind. He cajoled her faint spirit to fight, to not give up. Pushing with everything he had, he fed her with his strength. Then he hunted until he found another center of pain and drew from it, siphoning as much as he could and shoving it into the pit of his stomach before again pushing his own energy into her. He began to feel light headed as the pain fought its prison and bright pinpoints of light flashed behind his eyelids. Gritting his teeth, sweat popped up on his forehead as he fought against the desire to give into it and surrender. He continued this pull of pain and push of strength until the majority of her pain was stored safely in the prison in his belly. Coughing, he drew a ragged breath, moaning as it screamed and fought to get free. He felt hands on his wrists and opened his eyes looking into the eyes of his twin.
“It's okay. You can let go now. You can stop. She's breathing on her own. We need to get her to the hall.” She whispered to him. “Cay? It's okay. Just let go.”
Tears rolled down his face as he sat back on his butt and took several ragged breaths. His hands shook as he looked around and saw the stunned looks on everyone's faces. He wiped his brow hissing as he felt the sting of angry red welts across his beautiful face. There were more crisscrossing his chest and arms. Gulping a great lungful of breath, he nodded slowly and back away so that they could load the girl on the gurney. Getting to his knees he tried to rise up only to collapse again. Twisting to the right he vomited, losing everything that was in his stomach. They watched in amazement as the places where his hand touched the ground, twin circles of black slowly spread until they intersected. Carson stood and jumped back, watching the diseased spheres spread until they finally stopped several feet from where he knelt. Rolling away onto his back again, he threw one arm over his eyes, every muscle in his body shaking as cold sweat rolled off his body.
“Holy Hannah, Cay. I didn't know you could do that.” Carson whispered in awe as she knelt by her brother and gently touched his still burning skin. He groaned from the light caress, too tender for even this.
“Neither did I,” he replied hoarsely.
It took almost a half hour before Cayson could stand again and another twenty minutes to make their way back to the compound. By the time they made it to the grounds, the sun had set and clouds were rolling in bringing with them the flash of lightening and the promise of storms. Carson helped her brother to the healer hall and deposited him on a bed. Pulling the covers up around him she kissed his cheek. “Get some rest. I'm going to go check on Chase and Zandria.”
If he heard her, she didn't know. As she pulled the curtain closed, he was already softly snoring.
.-~*~-.
“Frankly, Jeff, I'm shocked as hell that she's still alive. There was so much blood loss, even as I started CPR I knew it was a wasted effort. There is no reason for her to still be alive. I'm totally stumped. Relieved, but still stumped.” Chase sat across from his alpha, sipping a mug of Molly's special chilled spiced cider aka 'Heaven in a Cup'. The weather had turned bad the evening that Zandria had been found and though it had blown itself out the next day, the air had turned marginally cooler. Though it was cool this morning, the forecast called for another scorcher by this evening. One of the great things about the South. If you don't like the weather, wait fifteen minutes.
“Are you sure she's human?” Jeff steeped his fingers together, looking of them. Beside him, Will listened carefully.
He put the mug on a coaster on the polished surface of the desk. “There's no indication she's anything but. Our DNA and human DNA is almost identical, organs the same and unless you knew what to look for, you wouldn't think we were any different; well, aside from the whole turning furry, howling at the moon, running through the woods in our birthday suits thing.”
Jeff chuckled and shook his head. “Has she said anything? Does she know what attacked her? A bear or dog?” He hoped it had been a dog. If it w
as a wolf, that meant they had a rogue as there were no more wild ones in this part of the country. When they had taken over this territory several centuries ago, the local feral population moved on. “Please let it be a dog,” he mumbled.
Chase stared at the mug steaming on the desk. “Not yet. She's awake and seems to be in pretty good shape, considering what she's been through. I've tried to talk to her, Molly's talked to her. Even Carson has, but she won't respond beyond answering simple medical questions. She won't say where she's from, where she was going or anything about her personal life. I've run several tests; hearing, reflexes and found them to be normal. She has diminished vision in both eyes, just as Carson said, but otherwise is healthy as an ox.”
Jeff pursed his lips a moment. “And Cay?”
“I'm amazed. I've never had any personal contact with an empath before, but what he could do... Best I can tell, he actually pulled her pain out and gave her his own strength. I can't explain how he did it, but I know without a doubt, your son saved that girl's life.”
Jeff stood and moved around to the side of his desk, propping against it and staring out the window. “How is he now?”
Chase smiled. “He's right as rain. Slept like a log for twenty two hours straight then woke up like nothing ever happened. You know all those marks on his body that looked like hers? Gone. Every one of them. And what gets me is hers are almost healed. If I didn't know better, I'd think she was a wolf – either that or whatever it was he did, he healed her. Damdest thing I've ever seen. I can't explain that either and from talking to him, neither can he.” He stopped a moment. “Oh and one other thing, considering the fact she's in the middle of a pack of wolves, I thought it best to tell Zandria about us. She showed no surprise at all, just took the news that werewolves were real as easily as telling her the wall was white.”
Jeff took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “A bit of an enigma then.” He resumed staring out the window. “What do you think, Will?”
His beta scrubbed his chin with his hand. “I think there's something going on with that girl. I don't know what it is, but there's definitely something hinky going on.”
Jeff nodded and turned his gaze back to Chase. “Keep an eye on her and let me know if anything changes. Is there anything else going on?”
“One sprained wrist, a cut toe and two cases of poison ivy in a very intimate place,” Chase laughed softly. “I've told those pups a thousand times to not be peeing on everything in sight while in human form. Maybe now they'll listen.”
There was a knock on the door then it cracked open. “Sorry for interrupting, but I think you may want to see this,” Miriah motioned for them.
“Is something wrong?” Chase stood and started for the door.
“No, nothing's wrong, just be really quiet.” She put her finger over her lips and opened the door wider. Jeff's brow wrinkled in confusion, but he followed along behind his mate, Chase and Will bringing up the rear. As they walked across the compound towards the healer's hall, Jeff noticed several members of the pack had stopped dead in their tracks, looking towards the hall their heads cocked in a listening stance and more were joining them. There was a lovely sound wafting on the breeze.
“What is that?” Chase whispered.
“Shhh,” she pointed towards the hall.
The pots of begonias dotting the porch waved gently in the breeze and in one corner, a large palm stood sentry over the four new rockers. Three of them were empty, but the forth, tucked under the palm, contained Zandria.
She was singing.
The song that lifted on the breeze was beyond beautiful. Slow and sorrowful, it flowed over the compound, slipped through the air and caressed the pack as they stood in rapt awe. Softly she sang, the words unrecognizable, but the melody called to them. It reached out to them, drawing them into it until they felt it reach into their chests and tug at their hearts. They all stood in rapt awe as she continued. After several moments, it finally ended and there was a collective sigh from the assembled.
“She sings?” Will whispered softly.
“Like an angel,” Miriah agreed.
Slowly the normal hustle and bustle sounds of the compound resumed and people took up whatever they were doing when the impromptu concert began. Everyone that is except one person. Miriah nudged her mate and pointed to the corner closest to them. Cayson stood there, a look of pure adoration on his face staring at the songstress, a bag of compost split open and forgotten at his feet. His eyes were fastened on her and he leaned towards her. “I think he's finally over Amanda,” Miriah whispered.