Garden of Serenity (26 page)

“You eating?” She filled her fork, not realizing how hungry she was until her stomach grumbled protests.

“Already ate.” He pulled up a chair and couched his chin in his hands. “Everything all right with you?”

With her mouth full, all she could do is smile and nod.

“You seem distracted this morning and a little more than tired.”

The man was perceptive. “It’s been a long week. Brenimyn’s out again today. I’m worried for him.” She spoke around the food she shoveled into her mouth.

“You’re not worried for your own safety in all that’s to come? It seems to me you have a big role to play in all of this.”

Her head shot up in surprise.

His smile was slow. “I may not be a breeder, but I am a man, Jahara. I know about the prophecy and the new world order. I’ve heard Brenimyn speak. There’s very little happening here in the Garden that doesn’t get spread through this office. It seems even male breeders think my brain was lopped off with my testicles. They don’t realize I hear everything.”

They’d become good friends over the past weeks, but she’d never inquired about his upbringing. “Collin, how did you … I mean … your situation … who makes that decision?” She gestured at his lap, unable to ask about the castration.

“Do you know nothing of the fate of the babies born here?”

“Females, yes. My birth-sister is raising her daughter and my partner …” That’s not who Merenith was to her anymore. “I mean my friend, was raised in a school. But I’ve never thought about male babies.” Her heart twisted in her chest. She set down her fork, her hands covering her fragile fetus. Male or female, this child would be hers to love and raise with Bren by her side.

“Male offspring are a whole different breed of animal.” He settled back in his chair and crossed his legs at the knee. “In the past, no female wanted their male infants,” he said quietly. “They were discarded like tainted food. When boys are born, they’re taken from their Dames. No questions asked. It’s not a choice.” He smiled at her. “Brenimyn’s kidnapping is legendary among the breeders. There have been other Dames who’ve done the same over the years, I’m sure, but none of the men ended up back here at the Garden. He was fortunate to have his freedom for so long.” Collin’s smile faded.

“Most infant males are kept in a special place here in the Garden for less than a month. Even as a eunuch, I don’t know the location. We surmise it’s a nursery somewhere in the underground catacombs running beneath the Garden. Eventually, they’re all dispersed out to farms in the surrounding lands. They’re not enclosed like the Garden, but they’re isolated from other villages. The government fears another plague.” Collin’s eyes focused on a faraway memory.

“We’re all raised together until the age of ten. The breeding stock is chosen early. The weak are sent away to a separate village and castrated.” He let out a derisive laugh. “They wouldn’t want poor quality genes to go into the next generation. Forget about intelligence or personality.” Batting his lashes, Collin splayed his fingers across his narrow chest.

Jahara couldn’t help but smile at him. For all he’d been through, it amazed her that Collin had kept his sense of humor.

“The breeders are raised by the Ginia clan, the same brawny women who work as guards here at the Garden. They beat the young ones into submission. No one is allowed to utter an opinion different from those drilled into them by the government. There’s always the threat of bodily harm if one tries to defy the laws or exert their independence. If they can’t be retrained, they’re punished, castrated and sent to cities as laborers. After the women demean the renegades and make examples of them, few dare to rebel. That’s why women don’t fear a revolt here at the Garden. They believe men would never disobey a woman.”

Collin smoothed some wrinkles on his breeches before continuing. “Female breeding instructors go to the villages once a year to train those who have gone through puberty. They school them in the art of seduction and copulation. Before they’re ready they’re sent here to the Garden to join the breeding stock. Some who arrive are still boys.”

Jahara hated to ask the question—wasn’t sure she really wanted to know the answer—but it would be unfair not to acknowledge her friend’s misfortune and everything the government had put him through over the years. “What about you, Collin, and the others they castrate?”

“The eunuchs? Not many people, male or female, care about our fate. When we’re young, the women raising us beat and humiliate us, make us feel worthless. At a very young age they train us to do demeaning work. Wash and clean. Service to others is our only lot in life. We’re lower even than the laborers. I have brooding brothers who work as servants at the villages of the young breeders. It’s how I know what transpires there.” He shrugged, his half-smile sad and apologetic for knowing the information. “Some of us are fortunate to be assigned here at the Garden to work with the male breeders. We do the jobs the females couldn’t lower themselves to do.” He spoke the facts with icy repugnance. “It’s still going on. Children suffering every day just because they had the misfortune of being born male.”

A hot lump of emotion clogged her throat and tears burned in her eyes. “I had no idea. No one’s ever spoken of that fate of male children.” She leaned over and kissed his soft cheek. “I’m sorry for all you’ve been through. It’s all so … wrong.”

Collin brushed a tear from her cheek. “You truly are an honorable woman among women, Jahara. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that you have been sent to save us
all
from the government’s tyranny.”

* * * *

Mikalyn wanted to be anywhere, but stuck in Gabriella’s office here at the hospital, watching the woman come apart at the seams.

“It’s imperative we completely sever the bond between these two as soon as possible.” Bresilee’s hands stirred the air as she continued to rant, her restless feet wearing a pattern in the thick rug. “That healer has been nothing but trouble since she entered the Garden and her breeder makes my skin crawl. We need to show these cretins who’s in control. Getting that good-for-nothing male out of the Garden will be the first step in crushing this foolishness.”

Mikalyn’s stomach flipped. After she’d witnessed Jahara’s unselfish efforts to save Lukiam, she was sure she didn’t want any part of a plan that would harm the healer or her mate.

 “That computer person, Xylani, Xykile, or whatever her name is,” Bresilee impatiently brushed the name from her mouth, “has the feed from their apartment going to monitors in this office, security headquarters and my home. If Brenimyn and Jahara are planning some kind of coup we should be alerted in plenty of time.” Gabriella stopped pacing and focused all her anger toward her. “Mikalyn, did you hear me?”

“No, I’m sorry. I was thinking of one of my patients.” She didn’t feel any compunction about lying to the woman who seemed to have taken complete leave of her senses in the last forty-eight hours.

“Except when she’s in the well-check, I expect you to stick to Jahara like a shadow. She can’t do any harm when she’s with those insipid creatures, but I don’t need her filling the women with any foolish rhetoric. As difficult as it might be, get her into your confidence. Befriend her.”

Mikalyn was already bonded with the woman. Lukiam’s blood had linked them in a kinship as tight as any familial tie. Gabriella didn’t need to know that. “As you wish.” She inclined her head. Staying close to Jahara would make it easier to keep her friend informed of the director’s nefarious plans.

Gabriella turned to Kylie. “How’re the plans on your project proceeding?”

“Everything’s falling into place,” Kylie said. “Tomorrow afternoon we’ll convene a special meeting of the Governmental Body. We’re going to let Brenimyn speak in hopes his own words will bury him.”

“What have I missed?” Mikalyn asked innocently. “It sounds—”

Gabriella turned at the sound of the door sliding open, her voice rising with anger. “Jacinta, I asked you not to bother—”

“I think something is terribly wrong.” Fear rode tight on Jacinta’s words. “Please help me.”

Six eyes focused on the amniotic fluid dripping from Jacinta’s skirt.

Chapter Nineteen

Mikalyn stood next to the delivery bed, holding Jacinta’s hand. The young woman’s eyes rolled in their sockets and her teeth clenched against the pain. Mikalyn ran her fingers through the silky mop on her lover’s head, the white light of her palm working to find the pain centers in her brain. Nothing seemed to be helping.

“Oh, it’s happening again.” Jacinta sat up as her uterus convulsed with the next contraction. “Can’t you make it stop?”

“We’re trying, Jacinta,” Gabriella said, her voice strained against the tension filling the small room. “I’ve paged Dr. Linsig, she should be here momentarily.”

Jacinta’s discomfort and her own inability to find the woman’s pain receptors made Mikalyn impatient. “Shouldn’t we just deliver the baby? I’m sure we don’t need to wait.”

“Are you questioning my protocol?” Gabriella asked tightly.

“No. I’m just—”

“You’re here only as a courtesy for you partner, Mikalyn. Don’t you forget that.”

“My sincere apologies, most honorable healer. I overstepped.” Her trembling fingers continued to probe Jacinta’s skull.

“Shall we proceed?” Gabriella pulled an ancient piece of equipment from the corner of the room. “Let me show you the child.” She smeared Jacinta’s swollen stomach with jelly and pressed an instrument to her skin. A picture of the baby in her lover’s womb flashed on a computer screen. “There she is. A little girl.”

 Relief flooded through Mikalyn when she found the spot she’d been seeking. As the warm heat flowed through her palm, Jacinta’s nails released their grip on the flesh of her hand.

“Is the pain subsiding, my love?” Mikalyn leaned into Jacinta’s ear. “It won’t be long now. We’ll have our offspring in our arms.” She cooed in a sing-song voice. “Dr. Bresilee has everything under control.”

The door flung open. “Dr. Linsig can’t be located.” The caretaker ran breathless into the delivery room. “We’ve tried everywhere. Shall I page Dr. Khateri?”

“No.” Bresilee shouted. “Mikalyn shall help me with the delivery.”

“But I haven’t finished my training,” She forced the words past the cold fingers of panic gripping her throat. “I’ve never been in the delivery room for a birth.”

“It would be wonderful to have you deliver our offspring, Mikalyn,” Jacinta slurred. Perhaps Mikalyn had dulled more than the pain receptors.

“It’s not difficult. I’ll deliver the baby. You’ll heal Jacinta. Just another part of your training.” Gabriella’s tone was a little too cheerful for the grave situation. She snapped gloves over her hands as the caretaker wheeled the tray of scalpels next to Bresilee.

“Ready, Jacinta?”

The young woman nodded, drool oozing from her lopsided grin.

The healer made the first incision from hip to hip, exposing muscles and the uterus. The uterine walls pulsed and rolled. Mikalyn glanced up. Thank the heavens Jacinta no longer felt the pain. She lay with her eyes closed, unfazed by the sharp blade invading her body.

Mikalyn stared at the veteran healer, the woman unusual quiet in her concentration. She’d been through enough situations with Gabriella to know when the woman was worried. And there was definitely something about this delivery that was making the director uncomfortable.

Gabriella drew the blade down the uterus, blood pouring from the wound. So much blood.

“Pull the muscles aside and I will lift her out,” Gabriella instructed.

Mikalyn did as she was asked, getting her first glimpse of the baby nestled in Jacinta’s womb. The tiny fetus was tucked into a ball, her head snuggled below her mother’s pubic bone.

“There we are. In a hurry to join the outside world, little one? You’ve arrived a couple of weeks ahead of schedule.” Gabriella maneuvered her hands under the baby, working her out of the cocoon.

As she lifted the baby away from Jacinta, Mikalyn could see the newborn’s coloring was wrong. The white mucus was plastered over blue skin, not the healthy glow of pink. The baby drooped unnaturally in Gabriella’s hands. Mikalyn knew there should be more movement from the infant.

“Mikalyn, cut the cord immediately. Then help me with the baby,” Gabriella said tersely.

“But first let me stop Jacinta’s bleeding,” she said.

“The baby first. Jacinta can wait.”

But the woman couldn’t wait. Jacinta’s eyes had closed and her bronzed skin had turned an unnatural shade of gray. Blood poured from her uterine walls, sucking the life essence from her lover. Mikalyn looked at her partner’s beautiful face.

“No, she needs—”

“Help me. Then heal her,” Gabriella ordered.

She cut the cord, obediently following Gabriella to the small incubator the caretaker had prepared. The baby had not cried and Jacinta had not spoken. Mikalyn shivered against the icy dread coursing through her veins.

“Mikalyn. The child. Save the child.” Gabriella pulled Mikalyn’s hands over the limp body. “Heal. My energies are tapped out. I cannot.”

Everything was spinning out of control. With so much healing to be done and Gabriella apparently out of commission, there was no way Mikalyn could save them both. She didn’t have enough experience. “Go get Dr. Khateri,” she yelled at the caretaker. “We need her now!”

“Stay where you are.” Gabriella held up a warning hand, Jacinta’s blood dripping from her glove. The caretaker froze in mid-step. Still working Mikalyn’s hands like she was operating a machine, Gabriella moved them over the baby. “Damn it, Mikalyn. Make. Her. Breathe.” Gabriella’s fingers released their grip only long enough to sweep the baby’s mouth. She pressed them up and down on the little chest. “I can’t save her alone.”

Mikalyn didn’t give a damn about this baby. It was Jacinta’s convulsing body behind her that had Mikalyn’s attention. She tried to pull her hands from the baby, but the crazed woman stood blocking her, holding her hands over the baby.

“Save her, damn it.”

“Not unless you get Jahara.” Mikalyn stared into the evil slits of Gabriella’s smoldering eyes. Her own filled with loathing for the woman, who, up until this moment, had been her mentor and hero.