Page 10 of Muted Voices (Broken Ashes #1)

“S hit man, Reed, reel it in, buddy. My Kitsune wants to come out, and I’m struggling to keep him back,” River says with a smile, trying to ease the tension.

It’s been a while since Reed has lost his grip on his extensive magic, and this is only a sliver of it. I struggle to stay upright and drop to my knees like his magic is making me want to do, despite the fact that the man himself would be horrified. It’s something ancient that’s built into all supes when faced with someone like Reed.

“Shit,” Reed curses as he immediately pulls his magic back, and we all breathe a sigh of relief. “Sorry, guys.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’re all worried about her. I don’t think any of us expected to react like that.” Raiden is the one to reply, and surprisingly, his voice is still on edge.

Doc picks this up immediately and, now that everyone is calm, strides further into the room, pushing through us to see what we’re guarding.

I watch as his eyes go wide, and he simply stares at Neith, before looking back over us and saying, “I’ll admit that’s not what I was expecting, but I can see why you all reacted the way that you did. I get the feeling that there’s more to this, but she clearly needs help so you all need to back the fuck up and keep your instincts under control so I can treat her,” his eyes move over to Reed as he asks, “understood?”

Reed nods firmly once, “Understood.”

He slowly backs up into the furthest corner away from Neith, but it doesn’t escape my notice that he is still close enough that he can watch her closely. I have to admit that this situation is just getting stranger and stranger.

She’s even got the big guy acting out of sorts, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen, and from his reaction, I don’t think that it's something he’s ever dealt with before, either. That’s something that we can focus on later though because Neith’s life is in danger, and I refuse to have her disappear on me again.

Not after I’ve spent so fucking long trying to find her. She has my entire focus, and I’m not the only one watching her with a level of concern that I shouldn’t have, considering I haven’t seen her for years. The others are too, and they either don’t know her at all or have only met her briefly. Now that I know that Neith is the human that put herself between a dangerous supe and my brothers, it makes a lot more sense. What doesn’t make sense though, is that she was able to draw her weapon and kill the shifter in time to save them, and from what the guys have told me, it definitely wasn’t a new situation for her.

Just what the hell has my tiny best friend been up to in the decade or so since I last saw her?

Doc

R ubbing my hands together is a habit that I do to get my magic sparking so that I can use it to scan her and find out exactly what’s wrong. It usually needs that little reminder in order to kick start, and it always has. This time though my magic is barely restrained. I’d be incredibly concerned since my magic is dangerous, and if uncontrolled it could cause an extreme amount of damage, but I know what its intentions are because they’re the same as mine. My magic is worried about this tiny human who has my best friends and the closest thing I have to family tied up in knots.

I don’t like it.

Also, I’m not too fond of the fact that the same scent that intrigued me at the crime scene is clinging to her; it’s still human, but there seems to be a slight tinge of something I haven’t scented before underlying it. I don’t know what to make of it.

I pull myself out of my thoughts; all of this can wait until later; right now, she needs my help, she’s fading fucking quickly, and I’m fucking begging whoever will listen that it's in my capability to help her. It feels like it's vitally important to my existence that she is okay, and I won’t be admitting that to anyone any time soon; they’ll think that I’ve finally lost it.

Hoovering my hands over her body, I concentrate on what my magic is telling me, and I frown.

“What? What’s wrong with her? I couldn’t pinpoint it properly,” the urgent question is full of concern and comes from the person that I least expected it to come from, Raiden.

Everyone stares at him in shock, not that he notices since all of his attention is on the woman on the couch. It’s a shock that he hasn’t gotten bored and wandered off again; it takes a lot to hold the powerful Reaper’s attention.

Apparently, this tiny human is capable of that even in unconsciousness.

I shake my head and talk while starting to summon the things that I need from my lab and office in order to help her; if I were with anyone else, I wouldn’t dare show this amount of power, but these men are as close to me as brothers, and I trust them with my life.

“She’s got severe lacerations across her hip and stomach; that’s where the majority of the blood is coming from. They’re bad enough that I’m not sure how she is still alive; she is also covered in cuts and bruises, but that’s not what is killing her. She’s starving, extremely dehydrated, and suffering from extreme exhaustion. Again, at the levels that I’m reading from her she should be dead.” As I finish explaining her confusing condition to the others, the things that I have been summoning turn up, and I work to get an IV line into her so that I can get her some much-needed fluids.

Reed’s growl of a voice rumbles through the room, “Why aren’t you using your magic?”

I raise my eyebrow as I glance over at my powerful, growly friend, “You know why.”

He nods sharply, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his face is blank, like it usually is but I see his fists clenched tightly. He’s more thrown by this turn of events than he wants to let on, but then again I think we all are.

“I don’t,” River announces, pacing behind the couch and somehow still managing to keep his eyes on the woman.

“She’s human,” I state as I move to take a look at the wounds on her hip and stomach now that she is hooked up to the IV and the main issue is sorted. I am seriously concerned that she’s got these wounds, and she looks like something that has walked out of a swamp covered in dirt, debris, and fuck knows what else? It’s the perfect breeding ground for infection.

I’m suddenly very aware of the eyes boring into me, and the threat level increases in the room.

Looking up I frown as I stop gently prying her shirt away from her wounds so I can treat them. Eyes of the varying supernaturals they are and not my brothers stare back at me, each of them dangerously still. I’d be offended, but I know that if I were in their position, I would be feeling the same as them; it's territorial in a way that I’m not sure I can explain or even fully understand. I know that they wouldn’t hurt me, just like if the roles were reversed I wouldn’t hurt them, but the instincts are there.

They are screaming to protect this woman at all costs.

There’s another emotion underlying that one that suggests that despite the initial territorial reaction, she would be safe with them, watching their faces closely I can tell that they’re all feeling the same.

“Are we good now? Can I continue to treat her?” I ask them all, my eyes studying each of them closely, there’s no escaping the fact that these men are some of the most powerful supernaturals in the world, and although I’m strong enough to be on the same level as they are, I could not take them all on at once, especially if Reed wanted to get involved since his true strength is actually head and shoulders above the rest of us. Of course, I also wouldn’t want to.

One by one, each of them relaxes as they seem to feel what I am, that she is safe with me and I don’t mean her any harm. I shake my head as I look back at her and continue to ease her shirt away from her wounds; this situation is fucking crazy.

The wounds clearly happened quite a while ago because the blood on her shirt has dried. Not only is that yet another confusing thing about her, since from my scan of her the wounds were severe enough that a human should have been rendered pretty much useless with pain, but it also presents another problem. The scrap of fabric that she’s wrapped around them is stuck to them. By pulling the fabric away in order to give her the stitches that I know she needs, I risk reopening the wounds and making her bleed again.

I don’t want to cause her that kind of pain, but there’s also a real possibility that if the guys smell her blood and know that I caused it, even though it’s not by actually causing her harm, all hell is going to break loose, possibly literally in one case.

“Why did you stop?” Van asks curiously.

“Her shirt is stuck to her wounds, and by unsticking it, I’m most likely going to make them bleed again,” I explain as I expected several growls echo around the room, confirming my theory of how they’d react. The loudest and deadliest, however, comes from Reed, and without meaning to, we all drop to our knees, our heads bowed.

“Fuck, sorry, I had absolutely no control over that,” Reed apologises as the tornado of magic he just released snaps back to him.

The truly terrifying thing is that the wave that just brought us to our knees is only a small fraction of his power, and I am eternally grateful that he has such ironclad control over his magic.

“No worries, man,” Ransom smiles, completely relaxed as we all stand again.

“It happens,” I add with an understanding smile.

“We all felt the same,” Griff admits, and it’s that admittance that has Reed’s shoulders relaxing slightly.

“Could we not wet the shirt so that it comes away more easily?” Raiden asks, getting us back on track.

“We could, but then she’d be wet, and we absolutely can not change her clothing,” I point out, and they all nod rapidly in agreement frowns on their faces.

“Could you heal her?” Griff asks. “I know you couldn’t use your magic to heal the dehydration and starvation, but she’s not in danger of dying from these wounds right? I know that supes have healed similar things before.”

I pause, “I can check with my magic and make sure that it’s actually a possibility. That’s the only way I can think of knowing for certain if it will cause more harm than good.”

“You could also take it really slowly, and if there’s an issue, stop immediately,” River suggests, chewing his thumb nervously and still pacing.

I nod, “Good idea.”

My magic comes to me easily and for once does as I ask it immediately instead of half-heartedly fighting me for a couple of moments just because it's bored. It lets me know pretty fucking quickly that I should be able to heal her with absolutely no issues, but even so I want to do as River suggested and take it slowly.

“My magic seems to think I can heal her with absolutely no ill effects,” I tell them.

“Take it cautiously anyway,” Reed practically commands.

“I planned to brother,” I reassure him.

For the first time in a long time I focus all of my attention on my magic and what I want it to do. It seems to sense my trepidation as well as I can sense it’s need to heal her, and because of that I know that the only reason that it’s going as slow as it is as I start to push the infection that’s already begun to form out of her body, consuming it with my magic, is because of my ironclad grip on it. If it weren’t for that, then my magic would’ve moved through her and healed her as quickly as it would heal a supernatural, and although it seems to think that it would be fine, I can't risk it.

I’m incredibly tense as I trust my magic, with my guidance, to fix the wounds that should’ve killed her within minutes of them happening. But, she’s had them for, I’d guess, at least a whole day, and I have no idea why she didn’t get to a hospital straight away or why she chose to come here. I’ve never seen her before, but that underlying scent is familiar in a way.

Finally, my magic has done its job, and I allow it to do a quick scan of her vitals to make sure that the IV is doing its job, it is but it’s barely making a dent and I can already tell that she’s going to need a lot more, I summon it and then look around at all of the incredibly worried faces surrounding me.

“Okay someone fill me in, who is this and what the hell is she doing in your house on the brink of death?” I demand, crossing my arms over my chest and staring them all down one by one.

“Is she okay now?” River asks, bouncing in place, an outward sign of his anxiety.

I sigh but nod. I have a feeling that none of them are going to answer me until they know that this woman is okay. “Her wounds are healed; she should be dead from them alone. They were more severe than I thought, and she’s going to need a lot more fluid to get her levels back up to where I’m happy but she’s out of the danger zone.”

“Good,” Van says, as he starts pacing.

“Van, how the fuck is she here?” Griff asks.

Van turns to him and asks, “How the hell didn’t I know that this was the woman that saved you in that tiny fucking town?”

“Wait, this is the woman?” I ask, even more confused than I was minutes ago, and then mutter, “That explains why I recognised her scent.” Before anyone can question me I ask, “Wait, why are you asking Van?”

“Because he’s the one that answered the door and brought her in,” Ransom replies, his eyes slightly narrowed.

Evander starts pacing, his hands going into his hair, a sure sign that he’s stressing about this situation. I share a look with the others as we wait for him to sort his thoughts out. We all know that there’s no point in trying to get anything out of him at the moment, if anything he’ll just snap at whoever spoke to him. It’s better to wait until he’s sorted it out in his mind before he’ll be able to tell us.

Finally, after what seems like forever, and actually did take long enough that the rest of us are all fidgeting in some way with impatience Evander stops his pacing and turns to look at us.

“You know my best friend from when I was a kid?” he asks, and I frown, not knowing where he’s going with this because it surely can’t be the way that I think it is. That would be far too unbelievable, and I say that as a supernatural creature.

“You mean the one that you’ve been periodically searching for over the past decade, even after we told you to give it up because she’d completely disappeared, or worse?” Ransom asks a knowing look on his face.

Evander raises his eyebrows and gestures to the woman on the couch who I didn’t know the name of until now.

“Wait, hold up a fucking a minute,” Raiden exclaims, looking from the couch to Van and then at Griff, River and Ransom. “This is Ink? Your best friend?” Van nods, and Reed continues looking toward the others, “And the woman who saved you from a supe, a hybrid one at that?”

“Yeah, Neith,” River replies.

“So she gave us a fake name. That’s odd in itself even more so if you add it to everything else,” Griff replies, and I can’t help but agree.

Van starts shaking his head rapidly, “No, she didn’t. Her name is Neith.”

I pull a face, “Dude, nicknames are supposed to be shortened versions of a person's name, or cute like cupcake or some shit, how in the hell does Ink relate to Neith?”

“Is that really the question that we need to be focusing on right now?” Reed asks, as he moves further into the room, and away from the corner where he put himself when he started to have problems keeping certain parts of his magic on lockdown.

I shrug and smirk, “Probably not but it’s still a question I’d like an answer to, and in all honesty, I think that it’s probably the easiest one to answer when it comes to Neith, I’ve got a feeling.”

“Was she at the gates?” Ransom asks getting us all back on track.

Evander shakes his head.

“What do you mean no?” Raiden demands, his eyebrows raising.

“I know for a fact that if you left the house, the wards would’ve let me know, and if you’d gone outside of them and left the grounds, too,” Ransom points out, since the wards are his, although all of our magic has been put into them to strengthen them, even mine despite the fact that I don’t live here.