FALL (The Senses) (8 page)

“No one
will ever harm you again, I swear this to you.” She knew he was making his
words an oath to himself as well as the Goddess he served. “I swear to you for
all that I am, all that I am left, that I will protect you for as long as I
walk this Earth.”

Waleron
tucked his jacket in beneath her chin, his hand lingering on her jawline,
tracing what she guessed were bruises. Delara felt warmth radiating from his
closeness, the energy of authority sifting across her skin, and with a sigh of
relief she closed her eyes with bliss.

“Waleron,”
she murmured when his hand drew back. “How...are you...?” She coughed again and
blood spurted from her parted lips, dripping down her chin. She thought she
heard him curse then felt a rough cloth on her face as he wiped it. “What
happened—”

He
placed his finger on her lips silencing her from talking. “Do not speak, Maitagarri.
Please.” She coughed again and she knew from the amount of blood and her deep
wheezing that it wouldn’t be long. She felt his hand on her head curl into a
fist then quickly relax again before he softly stroked her hair. “I will never
let you go. Understand me.” His voice grew deeper and stronger as if he was
speaking not to her but to someone much more powerful than they both were. “You
will not die.”

But, she
was dying. There was no doubt with coughing up so much blood. Relief. Sweet
liberation from this pain. She was saddened to leave Waleron again, but maybe
this was all a dream anyway.

“No!”
His voice raised and he put his scarred thumb under her chin. She focused on
his eyes and she thought she saw...anxiety. He looked scared, something she’d
never seen in those blue eyes of his. “You will not die. I will not let you.”

“So...long...you
left. I was so...alone.” She tried to whisper the words, but it came out broken
and harsh. “Cold... I’m…” She coughed and swallowed the bitter iron taste of
blood several times. “So cold Waleron.” Her vision faded and she took a haggard
breath then coughed again.

She
thought she heard him curse once more, but Waleron never swore. His hand
lightly caressed her hair as if he was afraid of hurting her further.
“Maitagarri.”

A
burning sensation started in her lungs, suffocating and painful. Death was
calling and she had nothing left to fight it nor did she want to. She could die
in peace now. He had come. Waleron. The man she loved with all her heart.
Whether her imagination or not, it didn’t matter as long as she died like
this—in his arms.

She
closed her eyes and let go to the heavens that were calling to her.

“No!” he
roared. “No, god damn it. You will live. You will not leave. Do you understand
me? Fight, baby. Fight and I swear I will find a way to protect you for the
rest of my life.”

A car
door slammed then she heard feet running, the vibrations in the ground alerting
her of how near they were. Waleron’s fierce voice shouted at someone to heal
her. Zurina murmured something too muffled to understand, but it was filled
with sadness, unease maybe. The last she heard was Waleron vehemently arguing
and Zurina’s soft, sorrow-filled words fading in and out and then...nothing.

Waleron
couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Her
lungs are filled with fluid.” Zurina knelt beside Delara, her cat-like charcoal
eyes sweeping over Delara’s broken body. “It’s too late, Waleron. I’m sorry. I
cannot save her.”

“Noooo!”His
shout rose up into the air causing cardinals to take flight from their nests in
the limbs of nearby trees and rabbits to cower in their holes. “You’re a
Healer. Her heart still beats. She will live.”

Zurina
sighed, one hand reaching out to touch his forearm, then darting back again as
his frown grew brutal. “I’m not strong enough to heal her. Especially not now
after healing you in the Realm.” There was resignation in her voice. “This is
Tarek’s doing. I’ve seen his image already from merely putting my hands close.
I suspect he doesn’t realize she lives.” Zurina shuffled back on her knees, her
jeans wet from the moist, cold ground. “It’s too late for her. Please Waleron,
allow me to put her in DS and let her go in peace without pain.”

“Never.
You will save her,” he demanded grabbing Zurina by the wrists and forcing her
hands over Delara’s chest. “Take the fluids from her lungs. Now!”

Zurina
jerked back when she neared Delara’s body. Waleron knew that the Healer would
suffer immensely for helping Delara, she’d envision what happened, feel the
pain that Delara felt. It would be a tremendous strain on both Delara and
Zurina to make the healing possible. If it was possible.

It had
to be. Christ, how long had she been lying in this ditch? Why? Why would Tarek
do this? Zurina’s eyes were wide with horror illuminating them. “Think of what you
ask.” Her voice unsteady, she continued, “It will be days of healing and she
can’t survive DS. She may never heal and could slip away after intense
suffering. I would not want that for any of us.” Zurina’s eyes closed and she
inhaled a deep breath. “Please Waleron, reconsider. You’re not thinking
clearly. Let her go.”

Was he
seeing unclearly? Was it too late? Was Zurina right and he was going to put
Delara through horrendous suffering? Zurina never hesitated to try to save any
of them. Could she be right?

“No,
I’ve given an oath to protect her. I will not break it. Ever. You will save her
at all costs.”

Zurina
inhaled sharply. “You didn’t. Your oath is to the Senses and your mother. And
more importantly to the Goddess. This woman cannot surpass that. Let her go,
Waleron. Please, I beg of you.”

Without
touching Delara, Waleron felt her heart struggle to take its next beat. He
smelled death in the air and his panic was overwhelming. Let her go? No,
impossible. Losing her would be like taking out his heart and throwing it in
the pit of hell. No. Delara must live.

“Waleron.” Jedrik stepped closer
and placed one hand on his shoulder. “Delara wouldn’t want...frig, maybe it’s
best—”

Waleron
turned his head, his eyes glaring and Jedrik lowered his hand and his head.

“Save
her. I will not ask again,” Waleron warned Zurina.

“Waleron.
I can’t. I won’t put her through the suffering.” Zurina went to back away but
he grabbed her arm with such force that she winced.

Waleron
didn’t know why she was so adamant about refusing to heal Delara and right now
he didn’t care. “I’m not asking any longer, Zurina.”

Zurina
waited for several seconds before finally giving a solemn nod.

Waleron
gripped Delara’s hand in his and Zurina gave him a puzzled look. He knew it was
because he was touching Delara. He’d visualize and feel what happened to Delara
when Zurina healed her.

“Do it
now,” he insisted.

Zurina
did as ordered, lowering her hands over Delara’s chest, focusing on her heart
and lungs first. Waleron watched as an intense heat filled Zurina’s palms and
she closed her eyes, a soft hum emerging from her lips as she began the painful
healing process.

The
visions struck him as if someone had taken a scabbard and ripped into his guts.
Tarek’s fists pummeling Delara’s body like a punching bag, Delara’s limp form
taking the beating with no recourse. The marble table with Delara’s blood
pooling on the surface. The cracked wall after her body flew into it. The
shattered TV. The snap of bone as Tarek twisted her arm.

Waleron’s
grip on Delara’s hand released. His entire body trembled and his stomach heaved
with horror as he staggered to his feet, ignoring Jedrik reaching out to assist
him.

Stumbling
out of the wet ditch, Waleron fell to his knees on the gravel shoulder beside
the car, one hand leaning on the front tire and the other holding his body up
from collapsing on the ground.

“Whoa
man, you okay?” Jedrik asked, having followed. “Christ, maybe you should…”

Waleron
waved him away with a fierce scowl then proceeded to throw up on the side of
the road.

Goodbye

The
hollow sound of his boots on the hardwood floor reminded Waleron of a man
walking Captain Edward Low’s wooden plank. He felt like that unfortunate soul,
hands ruthlessly tied behind his back—rage, anger, fear, and vulnerability all
soaring through his insides like an out-of-control wildfire. It had been this
way since Tarek’s trial before council seven days ago. He felt agonizing
ambiguity about what he should say to Delara.

Waleron’s
fury during Delara’s recount at the trial had been uncontainable, ripping
through his body like a serrated knife, his chest exploding into fragments of earth-shattering
disgust. Zurina had risen from her seat as his power shifted to a dangerous
magnitude. The Four Wraiths waited apprehensively around the oblong marble
table. He felt their elements rising within them, ready to react if need be.

However,
it was Delara’s telepathic words and her serenity that reached through his
black rage and kept him from going against council’s law and killing Tarek with
his bare hands.

“He
is not worth your life. Please Waleron. Let it go.”

He met
her eyes and she gave him a half smile accompanied with a diminutive shake of
her head, the strands of her hair floating across her shoulders as though a
breeze had suddenly entered the Realm and sought to surround Delara with its
embrace.

Waleron
had growled with frustration. His eyes latched onto Delara’s stiff and pale
figure sitting before the council. Her hands were in her lap, most likely
pinching her thighs like she always did when upset, and there were black
half-moons beneath her coffee eyes. He did the only thing he could before the
rage consumed him; he Traced from the trial.

It was
later he heard the outcome. The vote that Tarek be sent to Rest for twenty
years instead of being executed. It had been a tied vote and Zurina was the tiebreaker.
She went against Waleron and opted to put Tarek in Rest instead of killing him.
Waleron had been furious with her decision, but he knew why she did it. Zurina
was a Healer, which meant she had more faith and sympathy than any other.
Still, the knowledge that Tarek would one day walk the Earth drove a spike
through him.

After several
hours of a raging eruption, Waleron ended up walking in limbo through the
corridors of the Realm as though caught in a trance—shadows of yesterday and
hope for tomorrow mixed with despair. Even the supposed involuntary calm that
one experienced when in the Realm had failed to appease his darkness and rage.

Finally
leaving the Realm, Waleron strode down the stairs of the Talde house in Toronto,
the vision of Captain Low’s plank in his mind again. Today, he had to see her.

Waleron
stopped outside her door, resting his hand on the doorknob.

Why was
he here? Why couldn’t he just stay away? His reasoning was that she deserved an
explanation and yet the truth was in his apprehension to see her for the first
time in the last seven days. The knowledge that whenever he was near her a tenderness
he had not experienced in a long time brought him to his knees. She made him
vulnerable to his Scar and the rage it fed on for the last sixty-one years. He
hated the risk And yet...he needed to see her.

He
didn’t knock; he didn’t need to. Delara was a Tracker and would have scented
him the moment he Traced here. His hand twisted on the knob and he opened the
door quietly to stand like a statue on the threshold.

His eyes
instantly found her on the far right side of the room leaning over the bed. She
was folding a long-sleeved, dark-green cotton shirt, her fingers graceful
against the soft fabric until her head snapped up as she noticed his intrusion.
From her profile, he saw her nose crinkle while her back stiffened, obviously
displeased.

He shut
the door with the heel of his boot.

The
shirt forgotten, now a heap on the white bedspread, Delara crossed her arms
over her chest as if to erect a barricade against him. By the coolness of her
expression, she was attempting to appear undaunted by his presence, yet they
both knew better. Her eyes shifted uneasily from side to side, blinking too
often. Fear and anger. She had witnessed his rage in the Realm and it probably
scared her, reminded her of Tarek. And she was mad at him for avoiding her.
Confused and hurt, too. He’d saved her life, been there the entire time it took
for her to heal, and then when she woke, he left.

God, he
should have never come.

Yet he
knew that what spiraled between them was undeniable and he had to try and undo
the link before it became too late. His body thought otherwise as he faced the
other half of his heart
.

Control.
She deserves better.

God, but
look at her. He needed to be with her just once before he gave her up for all
time. Didn’t they both deserve to lie in one another’s arms after all they
suffered? Could he be with her one time without hurting either of them? Could
he take that chance? No—could
they
take that chance?