Page 1 of Hainn (Sectors New Allies #19)

CHAPTER ONE

One year ago…

J ezari floated in a bitter ocean of acid, the taste foul in her mouth and the feel of the fluid on her skin irritating. She wasn’t truly conscious but her mind functioned at a low level, aware enough to realize the Khagrish were draining her of energy and of her Badari gifts, in order to make more of their own immortality serum. There wasn’t anything she could do to thwart them in this plan except to die and Jezari begged the goddess for that fate every time her conscious mind surfaced even fractionally. But the Great Mother wasn’t listening or else she had other plans for Jezari.

Then came a day when the ocean evaporated, the lid of her prison was flung open and she heard the beloved voices of her sisters. The women were excited and talked so fast she couldn’t process the words, although she got the impression they were begging her to live. She was languid and uncaring but the relief from the draining of her essence gave her a tiny spurt of energy and she hung onto life with the tip of one finger.

There was a man’s voice mixed in with those of her sisters. She didn’t recognize the tones and wondered idly who he was to them.

A sensation of being placed on a litter and rushed through corridors she used to stride confidently on her own two feet.

Was she in a flyer now? Where were the Khagrish? And the Director?

It was all too much for her and she relinquished her tenuous hold on awareness.

Nine months ago…

She floated in a sweet cloud now, as if bathed by cool waters and surrounded by fragrant flowers. Jezari didn’t care to bestir herself to acknowledge any of it but there were a few voices which could summon her from her sleep. Keshara, her beloved sister and best friend, could always pull her to consciousness for a few moments. Raeblinn, her annoying sister, who seemed to be caring for her constantly and who wouldn’t go away and stop pestering her to do things she had no desire to attempt. Ah yes, she’d respond to Raeblinn’s voice if only to protest and complain.

But then there was his voice. Deep, melodious and meant for her ears alone, she was sure. When he spoke to her she grew happy and confident and perfectly willing to do anything he asked, although all he ever requested were more of the tiresome medical things, meant to build her strength and pry her from the semi-comatose state she preferred. When he was in the room, he brought with him the healing energy and she bathed in it and felt as if she was dancing in a gentle rain. To ensure more of his visits she made the effort she wouldn’t put forth for any other Badari—and certainly not for a human healer, several of whom she knew came in and out of her room at times. For this man she would awaken and rise from the bed and then they would be together…

Six months ago…

Jezari threw the dinner tray at Raeblinn, screaming for her to get out. “And take that useless South Seas soldier with you! He’s not my healer, Timtur is my healer and I insist on seeing him at once, do you hear me? Why are you keeping him from me?”

“I’m in charge of your case now,” Hainn said as he and Raeblinn picked up the food and dishes Jezari had scattered across the room in her fury. “I’ve explained this to you any number of times. Timtur is a busy man, in charge of all the healing in the valley, as well as being the primary link to the Great Mother. He has many more patients than just you.”

She covered her ears in a childish gesture but her emotions were still all over the place since she’d climbed into full consciousness. She had lingering pain and weakness and mysterious outbreaks and setbacks from the terrible things the Khagrish had been doing to her. “And the only one who can help me is Timtur.” Now she was grabbing at everything in reach that wasn’t fastened down and hurling it at the two people she regarded as standing between her and the man whose attention she craved. A tiny part of Jezari’s mind whispered she was scarily out of control and she tried and failed to stop herself. She heard the infernal medical devices beeping and sounding alarms as her body broke down under the power of her distress and anger.

The door opened and Aydarr, the Badari Supreme Alpha strode in, followed by Keshara, who tried to rush to the bed to embrace Jezari but was held back by the others. Aydarr fixed his glowing golden eyes on Jezari and like a fool she met his gaze, intending to be defiant, but his power and dominance were so overwhelming she couldn’t avert her eyes. Rest, little sister. Calm yourself, seek the peace of the goddess and find your way to us in a better mind tomorrow.

His words rang in her head and Jezari grew sleepy, her eyes closing despite her best intentions to stay awake and keep fighting until she got what she wanted. What she deserved after the horrors she’d endured.

Timtur. At her bedside with his kind face and healing energy.

She drifted away thinking of him…surely he’d be here soon,

When she awakened Raeblinn was in her room as usual, cheerful and upbeat as if nothing had happened. Jezari apologized sincerely for screaming at her and throwing things and the two women exchanged a stiff hug.

“Is Timtur coming today?” Jezari asked. “I should wash my face and get my hair combed first. Have to appear at my best for him, you know, show him I’m making progress as he wishes.”

Raeblinn was oddly reserved and avoided Jezari’s eyes as she said, “Keshara and her mate are coming actually. We let her know you were awake and calmer.”

“Oh, all right, that’s fine. They can step outside when he arrives.”

Her sister gave her an odd look, almost pitying, but didn’t say anything else.

Soon enough Keshara and her human mate Gabe knocked and came into the room. Raeblinn nodded at them and left immediately, taking the remnants of breakfast away.

Jezari knew Keshara had been designated as their tiny pack’s Alpha so she was respectful this morning. Gabe took up a position leaning on the wall beside the bed. If she didn’t know better, Jezari would have thought he was preparing to intervene if she attacked her sister, which would never happen. She had to admit she’d gotten worked up the day before but unless someone let that insufferable South Seas warrior who called himself a healer into the room she wouldn’t get into a snit today. Jezari hoped she’d made her point on the issue.

“How are you feeling today, sister?” Keshara asked.

“Much better. Eager to see the healer and do more work on regaining my strength so I can leave this place. He inspires me to make my best effort, you know. Such an incomparable man.” She sighed and twirled a lock of her hair around one finger.

“About that.” Her Alpha’s tone changed and immediately Jezari became wary. “Hainn will be your healer going forward. He’s perfectly capable of supporting your continuing recovery now.”

Anger flooded her system and the damn sensors began beeping more insistently. “I don’t understand why everyone is determined to make me endure the bumblings of a more junior healer when I’m doing so well with Timtur’s help.” There, she’d tried to be reasonable and not to scream her frustration. Her inner predator approved but continued to prowl.

“Hainn is perfectly competent and has more than enough skill and healing power to assist you from this point onward,” Keshara said, her voice firm. “We’ve all agreed on that point.”

“What do you mean ‘we’? No one asked me and surely as the patient involved my opinion matters most.”

“Timtur concurred in the decision.” Keshara delivered this stunner and then drew a deep breath. “I’ll be plain with you, sister, you’ve embarrassed the man. Dr. Garrison assures us that it’s not uncommon for human patients to become attached to, even convinced they have feelings for their doctors and she believes, as do the rest of us involved, you’ve developed a crush on Timtur.”

“An unrequited crush,” Gabe said, voice flat and cold. “The man’s a claimed mate and happily paired with the sister of the Supreme Alpha’s mate Jill. He has no interest in any other woman, human or Badari. Seven hells, Jezari, the Great Mother herself told Timtur the mating with Lily had her blessing. You getting all possessive and pitching fits demanding to see him has made him uncomfortable and?—”

Keshara put a calming hand on his arm and he choked off whatever else he was going to say next.

Jezari shrank against her pillows and her fangs and talons deployed as she contemplated the idea of a human woman claiming the senior healer. “Then it’s a mistake. He hadn’t met me before he met her?—”

“I’m going to forget the fact you just stated the Great Mother in her infinite wisdom and caring made a mistake. ” Keshara’s voice was ice cold and Jezari was shocked at the burst of Alpha power emanating from her sister at that moment. “You can apologize to the goddess later. Right now you need to hear me plainly. There is not now nor was there ever anything between you and the senior healer of all the packs except a patient/healer relationship. Raeblinn has been in the room for every meeting you ever had with Timtur and has testified to the Supreme Alpha nothing was ever said or done by the healer to indicate the slightest impropriety or interest in you other than as a patient.”

“The Supreme Alpha held a meeting to discuss this?” Jezari asked in disbelief. “What right does he have to involve himself?”

“Be glad he’s not here talking to you today,” was Gabe’s counsel.

“We gave blood oath to Aydarr,” Keshara said, shooting her mate an affectionately exasperated glance. “I was the proxy for all of my sisters, including you. Your behavior has created a problem for the Badari and Aydarr deals with such things in an efficient manner. He was thinking of transferring you to the northern settlement to let the Tzibir healer, who is quite senior himself, finish the healing process for the next few months. Raeblinn would go along as well. Either you work with Hainn—and be respectful to him, unlike yesterday’s episode—or you will be sent there in exile. Aydarr’s not about to have disruption of this sort in the valley.”

“We are fighting a war against the Khagrish you know,” Gabe said.

“Aydarr’s quite fond of Lily Garrison, Timtur’s mate and she’s extremely well regarded by all the Badari and the humans,” Keshara said in a more ordinary conversational tone while Jezari was trying to take in the shock of possible exile away from her sisters. “I’ve seen them together and I know as a Badari that they’re Claimed mates.” She tapped her chest above her heart. Leaning closer, she took one of Jezari’s hands.

“I know you’ve been living in a nightmare ever since the Director put you into the terrible pod and drained your life force from you. I know all of us Badari women had an unfortunate life until Gabe rescued us. I completely understand how you could become attached to and fixated on the man who was doing his best to heal you. You didn’t have any context, he was the first Badari male you were ever in proximity to and he is an exemplary member of our species. I blame myself for allowing the situation to continue for so long. I should have insisted other healers rotate in and out. I should have realized what you were going through and had this talk with you about Lily months ago.”

“Yes, you should have,” Jezari said in an angry voice. She had so much pain in her head and her heart right now that all she could think about was to strike out but she held herself back. Barely. “Why didn’t he ever say anything if I was supposedly making him so uncomfortable?”

“According to Raeblinn and Timtur himself, he tried, once he was aware your emotions were going in an unfortunate direction but you seemed oblivious to his remarks.”

“He never told me he was mated,” she said stubbornly.

“Every Badari can sense a Claimed mate and is warned off,” Keshara said as if holding a tight rein on her patience. “I’m sure he felt there was no need to tell you the plain fact. I can only assume your extreme illness as a result of what the Director did to you at the complex blunted your instincts. I mean, the ordeal certainly suppressed your ability to converse telepathically.”

Jezari felt foolish indeed, allowing herself to get attached to a man who was mated. Despite her stress right now she admitted to herself she hadn’t noticed any stirring of the mate bond in her own heart when Timtur was near. I guess I was in denial. I suppose I was so enamored of the perfectness of him and me meeting this way and how everyone would envy me. Desperate to move the painful conversation along, she asked, “What happens now then?”

“Hainn is going to be in shortly to perform today’s healing session. You work with him, you don’t ask for, talk about or try to contact Timtur. You don’t distract yourself from your task of getting well enough to walk out of here in a few months and take up your place in the packs as an honored member of the Badari.”

“You make it sound so simple, sister.” Jezari knew her laugh was brittle.

“It can be,” Keshara assured her, sounding relieved that the hardest part of the conversation was over. “Few people know of this episode and none will speak of it. Fortunately everything you said was in Badari so none of the humans here in the hospital understood. We can all move on.” She patted Jezari’s hand which she’d continued to hold all this time and sat back, smiling at Gabe.

“Do I have to stay in this place?” Jezari allowed her gaze to roam around the white walled room, with all the cold, metallic medical equipment the Badari had looted from destroyed Khagrish labs. “Surely I’d heal better if I could be in the residence with you and my other sisters.”

“That’s up to the healers, not me. Our collective concern is for you to regain enough strength to leave here and function on your own again.” Keshara’s answer was tactful for a denial.

“Work with Hainn,” Gabe said. “Make release from here a goal for yourself. The sooner he clears you, the sooner you can join all of us in the valley outside the hospital.”

Jezari gritted her teeth. She was still dealing with the idea of her sister being mated to a human and his presence today as well as his interjections made her furious but he was a fact of her life now and forever. As Keshara’s mate and her Enforcer, Gabe was entitled to her respect. There was so much involved in being part of a pack now, instead of a fairly cohesive group of sisters living in a regimented environment. She never wanted to revert to the life she’d had in the labs but all these new requirements and conditions were a lot to take.

There was a knock on the door and Hainn walked in, with Raeblinn right on his heels. Jezari sank against the pillows, knowing Keshara must have summoned them telepathically. Her sister was right—her own ability with the mental communications had been ruthlessly suppressed by the Director to prevent her from warning her sisters what the Khagrish were actually up to. She might not ever regain the power to speak mind to mind.

Raeblinn had an uncertain smile and Hainn appeared determined to be cheerful. He and Gabe exchanged greetings while Keshara left the chair and moved away from the bed. “I’ll check in on you tomorrow, sister,” she said to Jezari.

Hainn set a bag of herbal remedies and other implements of a healer on the visitor’s chair. “Today I want to do a total assessment, with emphasis on the neurological system,” he said in a calm voice. “We should establish a new baseline and work from there to get you up to par.”

She tried to speak and had to clear her throat hard. Emotion was clogging her vocal cords. Raeblinn handed her a glass of water as everyone waited for her response. After a few swallows, Jezari set the glass on the table and said, “Whatever you think best, healer.” The sentence was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to utter but the tension in the room subsided and relief was palpable. Keshara and Gabe left and Hainn approached the bedside, his hands already glowing with the green energy of the goddess’s healing powers.

That night Jezari dreamt she rose from the bed and walked through the empty hospital, outside into the fresh air of the Sanctuary Valley, which she’d never seen with her own eyes. In her dream she knew where she was going and despite the lingering frailty of her body, walked unerringly and tirelessly through the valley, into the woods, emerging in a huge stone circle. She wasn’t surprised to find a woman waiting there for her, dressed all in white, hair long and silver in the moonlight. Jezari was almost disappointed not to be able to see the Great Mother’s face. After all her travails and the extreme emotional low of the day, she was ready to be done fighting and to leave this life. But if the goddess was concealing her face with a veil of spun moonlight, Jezari’s time wasn’t complete.

A sigh escaped her lips.

The Great Mother, who stood in the center of the circle, beckoned her closer. “No need to fear me, daughter. I’m not offended by what you said today, despite your Alpha’s warning.”

“I do regret the remark, my lady,” Jezari admitted as she walked into the circle and stopped a few feet away from the goddess. “Since I was rescued and revived I feel as if I’m out of control, a leaf spinning in a great vortex, not knowing up from down. I have no control over anything, least of all my emotions.”

“Yes, you were always about control and order before the enemy stole your life essence to prolong their own. You chose a wrong path in your confusion and that future is denied to you, as you were told today. My healer and his fated mate belong together and he wouldn’t be right for you, nor you for him.” She laughed and the sound was like bells chiming in soft harmony in the space. “You don’t even know him as a person, Jezari. You were attaching yourself to the idea of Timtur, not the actual man. You must be more careful going forward.”

“I’m not going to let myself fall into feeling anything for another male, ever. ”

“And there you are wrong yet again. There will be someone for you, daughter, if you open yourself to the possibility at the right time. You and he could have an excellent future and accomplish much for your people.” The goddess shrugged. “Or you can remain closed off and bitter. Alone. The future has many branches, endless possibilities arising from the choices a mortal can make. This abiding need you have for control of everything is impossible to accomplish in the real world, and is a strength taken to weakness. What happened to you in the lab where you were created was never under your control.”

“You could heal me now, tonight,” Jezari said boldly, done with the discussion of her past and of possible fated mates in the future.

“I am not here to make life easy for the Badari,” the Great Mother said, frost in her voice. “Victory is only appreciated when it’s been fought for and won. Gifts of such magnitude are often frittered away and not valued at their true worth. You aren’t ready to walk the valley in reality, my daughter; you have work to do.”

And she was gone.

Jezari gasped and almost fell out of bed, staring at the hospital room around her in confusion. Was it a dream? A true vision? Either way she was in for a long stint of frustration before she gained her freedom from this place and the close supervision of her people. Settling against the pillows and yawning, Jezari vowed to put in so much effort all the busybodies—and especially the new standoffish healer—would be astonished and impressed. She was done being bedridden and less than all her Badari peers.

One month ago…

Hainn stood just inside the door of the hospital and watched as Jezari descended the stairs through a clapping, cheering group of human hospital workers, happy to see her succeed in walking out of the facility on her own. Her Badari sisters waited quietly at the foot of the stairs to greet her, several of them bearing small bouquets of the wildflowers which grew so abundantly in the valley. It wasn’t the Badari way to make loud demonstrations of enthusiasm—too many years in the labs under the watchful eyes of the Khagrish scientists had made them all masters of internalizing every emotion, including joy and pride. He felt both to varying degrees right now. She’d been a most challenging patient to work with, proud, haughty and guarded after the unfortunate episode of her infatuation with the senior healer. On the other hand, she’d worked hard at the physical therapy tasks Hainn set for her and he admired her determination. No Badari should ever be so weak for such an extended time, but the Khagrish had damn near killed her in their life sucking pod.

He had to admit his magic had taken on an entirely different tone and texture over time as the two of them had their sessions. He’d never experienced the same energy, much less the pure satisfaction he got when applying his healing gift to anyone else. It was as if she amplified his power and returned it to him, complete with extra sparkle.

Timtur came up behind him and clapped him on the shoulder. “A successful outcome—you should be proud. She didn’t make it easy for either of us, did she?”

“Jezari’s a fighter all right.” Hainn caught a final glimpse of her in the midst of her sisters, all laughing and talking at once and then he turned away to walk with Timtur to their next meeting.

He was going to miss sparring with Jezari. She had a biting wit and keen insight and was never at a loss for words, even if she hadn’t deigned to speak to him all that often. She was so unlike the human females in the valley and Hainn found the contrast fascinating. The human women he flirted with, danced with and slept with were soft. He was glad as a South Seas Badari he was able to experience what the humans called casual dating. The Northern packs were much more uptight, all about finding their fated mate and not so much as looking at another woman until then. Hainn and his brothers enjoyed life a little more and the human women were only too happy to help them.

Certainly there were some among the women who were as tough as Badari. Flo, his Alpha’s mate for one, and Jill the Supreme Alpha’s mate absolutely. Hainn liked them both and respected them, would accept any order they issued, but in his personal life he preferred less edgy and challenging partners. Still, as he walked with Timtur, he reflected on the fact he’d enjoyed his sessions working with Jezari, even if she drove him to the edge of his patience at times with her attitude and assertiveness. She’d overcome so much and he wished her well. Unlikely he’d ever be called upon to treat her again nor was he going to run into her socially. The valley was relatively small but he and Jezari probably wouldn’t travel in the same circles and she wasn’t going into combat under any circumstances. The Supreme Alpha had decreed she’d suffered enough and he wouldn’t risk her health by placing her in a combat unit.

Hainn judged it a wise decision. Jezari was a loner as far as he could see and undoubtedly wouldn’t take orders well. She’d be questioning everything in the midst of blaster fire and explosions. He chuckled and Timtur quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Something I said was funny?”

“No, not at all, sorry, brother. My mind was wandering a bit.” Hainn paused to allow the senior healer to enter the room first and gave himself a mental shake. Enough thought of Jezari. She wasn’t his problem any longer, except for a routine followup in a few months and there was a room full of cubs waiting for him and Timtur to conduct an assessment of their development and ascertain whether any of them had potential as a healer. Duty called and the vision of Jezari receded.