Page 38 of Dark Chains: First Link
There were about fifteen of them, ages ranging from three or four to perhaps six. They sat on low benches or on the ground, some paying attention, some fidgeting, one picking his nose with dedicated concentration.
Tomek was in the second row, sitting with his legs crossed and his back straight, his attention fixed on the teacher with an intensity that belied his young age. He was mouthing the letters slightly ahead of the group, not showing off but simply unable to match his pace to his slower classmates. His dark hair, shiny and a little wavy like Sullha's, fell across his forehead, and his brown eyes, big and expressive like Sullha's, were bright with the pleasure of learning.
Something cracked open inside Yaaf's chest.
He wanted to protect this child because Tomek was Sullha's, and Sullha loved him, and he deserved a chance to grow up somewhere that wouldn't beat the brightness out of him.
"He looks so much like you," Number One said.
What he had really wanted to say was that the boy was beautiful just like his mother, but some instinct stopped him.
Sullha wasn't ready to hear that from him, and maybe she never would be. With what had been done to her, she might have lost the ability to feel anything for a male who was not her son.
15
NAVUH
The machine hummed.
It was a monotonous, low-grade sound that had become the soundtrack of Navuh's existence. It was a miserable replacement for those he had enjoyed on the island since he’d bought it over a hundred years ago. He missed the sound of crashing waves, of warriors drilling in the various training grounds, the five-times-daily devotional broadcasts that had carried his compulsion across the island, and even the sounds of the construction crews that had been brought in to repair the damages.
Now there was only the hum of the CPM machine, the soft whir of its motor as it bent his right knee to forty-five degrees, straightened it, and bent it again. Then the left. Then the right. The device moved his legs through a range of motion his muscles could not achieve on their own.
He lay in his bed in a room that had no windows, no natural light, and no view of anything except the ceiling, the walls, the medical equipment, and the door that opened only when someone else decided it should. The clan's undergroundcompound was somewhere beneath Los Angeles, but Navuh didn't know the precise location, and no one had volunteered the information. Not that it would do him much good. He was bed-bound, with atrophied legs and a body that had been devastatingly shattered, and the sad part was that even if he could send someone a map with a pin in it, no one would come to save him.
The memory of why he was in this situation surfaced the way it always did, uninvited and vivid.
Areana falling. Her body tipping over the cliff's edge, arms reaching for nothing, and the sound she'd made, or hadn't made, he couldn't remember anymore whether she had screamed or whether the scream had been his own, the roar of a male watching the only person he had ever loved plummet toward the rocks and the churning ocean below.
He had acted without thought. In that moment, his mind had gone blank, and his body had simply moved. He had thrown himself over the cliff after her with the single-minded certainty that if she was going to die on those rocks, he was going to die beside her, because life without Areana was not worth living.
He hadn't known that a Guardian was tethered to the cliff just below the lip of the overhang, and he couldn't have known that the Guardian had caught her, and by the time he had realized that she had been saved, he himself was already in the air, plummeting toward the rocks. He'd tried to shift his trajectory and land in clear water, but the shock of seeing Areana dangling from the Guardian's hand had distracted him.
The impact had broken nearly everything. His spine, his pelvis, both legs, most of his ribs, his left arm, and something inside his skull that the doctor had described using medical terminologythat he'd understood at the time, but he had since forgotten the medical language she'd used. The damage to his body had been so catastrophic and so widespread that even his immortal healing process had been overwhelmed. The body couldn't repair everything simultaneously, and it had prioritized the critical systems, the brain, the heart, the lungs, but if he hadn't been saved by the Guardians and gotten medical assistance, he would have died.
Navuh had no doubt about that, and he also didn't doubt that the only reason they had saved him was that Areana had begged for his life.
On the one hand, he was alive thanks to her, but on the other, he was in this mess because she'd conspired against him to get Tula off the island and spare her having to give up her child.
He wanted to be angry at his mate, but he didn't have the energy to summon the spark. His life had contracted to survival, but he wasn't sure what he was surviving for.
The CPM machine completed another cycle. Bend. Straighten. Bend. Straighten.
He could feel his toes, which was new, as of a few days ago. The sensation was faint, more of a pressure awareness than true tactile perception, but it was there.
The door opened, and Gertrude entered, carrying his dinner tray.
"Dinner," she announced, as if the tray in her hands might be mistaken for something else.
"I can see that."
She set the tray on the adjustable table and swung it into position over his lap. As always, the meal was barely adequate. He was being fed well enough, but it was designed for convalescent patients, and apparently, people in the process of healing had no taste buds.
This was supposed to be grilled chicken and vegetables, but both had the taste and consistency of something that was cooked in a soup.
"I have good news for you," Gertrude said while checking the CPM machine's settings. "You are getting a wheelchair. It should arrive on Monday."
Navuh arched a brow. "A wheelchair."
