Page 100 of Dark Destiny: The Fates' Bargain

"Good morning, my love," she said.

His fingers were warm and motionless in her palms. She stood there, trying hard not to let despair overwhelm her or allow a single sound to escape her.

"Annani." Bridget came to stand beside her, one hand braced beneath the curve of her belly. "I was going to call you this morning, and then Alena's cart pulled up outside and saved me the trouble."

"When did they wake?"

"Sometime before dawn. Hildegard was on shift. She says John Doe number two opened his eyes first, and then the others came up one after another. They track movements, and some can close their fingers, but none can talk yet."

Annani looked at the bed next to Khiann's, where a male lay with his mouth moving and nothing coming out.

"He's been at it on and off for nearly an hour," Bridget said. "I told him to rest and he ignored me, which I consider an excellent sign."

"Do you speak the old language?"

"Only a few words, but he understood my tone and my hand gesture." Bridget lifted her palm in the universal shape of enough.

Annani's fingers tightened around Khiann's.

"Why is Khiann not waking?"

"I don't know," Bridget said quietly. "His readings are the strongest of the five, and his regeneration is outpacing theirs. It must be his different physiology. He is a god."

"That means that he should have regenerated faster."

Bridget sighed. "I've delivered babies who took their time and babies who came early, and the ones who took their time were not any less healthy than those who hurried to be born. Khiann is taking his time. I know that this is not much comfort for you, but it is what it is. He will wake up just like the others. I promise."

Bridget could not really promise that, but her words helped nonetheless.

Annani laid Khiann's hand down on the blanket. "Excuse me for a few moments, my love. I need to greet your friends."

She stopped next to each of the other four, saying good morning in the old tongue, enunciating slowly and clearly. They looked back at her, but there was no recognition in their gazes.

"They don't know who you are," Alena said quietly beside her.

"No, they do not."

"It is their first morning," her daughter said.

"I know that, and I hope they will regain their memories, but if they do not, I will tell them about the world they left behind. I never knew their names or their families, so I cannot fill all the gaps for them, but I will do my best."

Annani returned to Khiann's bed, sat down in the white plastic chair, and took his hand between hers again.

"Your guards are awake," she told him, in the old tongue, pitched low just for him. "They do not know their own names, and they do not recognize me." She caressed the back of his hand. "They might still remember who they were before the stasis, and if theydo not, they will have to build themselves anew in the world they have awakened to."

His hand lay still.

"Two days ago, I made a bargain with the Fates," she whispered. "I will not tell you the terms, and if the Fates are merciful, you will never need to know them." She closed her eyes and matched her breathing to his, slow and deep, keeping him company wherever he was.

The pressure against her palm was so slight that she discarded it at first. It was her imagination playing tricks on her, her longing creating what was not there.

Then it came again, and it was not the loose aimless twitching of the other four that she had watched for days. This was slow and ordered.

Khiann's fingers curled beneath hers one after another, deliberately, and closed around her hand.

Annani did not move.

She sat with her mate's fingers wrapped around hers for the first time in five thousand years, and no sound came out of her.