I slump into the chair at Tessi’s desk and just watch her sleep. “Do whatever you have to. I’ve got more important things on my mind.”
He pulls out a jar of paste that will draw my wounds shut overnight and taps my chest armor. I take everything off but don’t look away from where Radar lies with her. He faces away from her, watching her back.
An instinct like that is not simply trained into Mindorans. It is learned by soldiers in the field, my M-pack, during times when it was necessary to survive with sleeping rotations.
Rorsar rips off all the Mindoran patches the doctor applied, proving they still don’t quite know how to handle our kind. The paste Rorsar slathers deep into every cut burns, but it doesn’t touch the coldness in my chest as my Shifter and I look at the female who makes us feel at peace, the one we need not just to complete us but to complete our pack and reunite our family. There will not be another. Tessi is it. And we can’t have her.
“Zorin.” Rorsar rests a hand atop my shoulder. “I can hear your heart racing. Your Shifter is upset.”
“I can’t have anything I want. Did the goddess curse us?”
Rorsar leans back against the desk and crosses his arms. “I don’t know if I would call our powers a curse. But everything else does seem to feel that way.”
He has lost his family too, like most of the members of our M-pack. Even with his superspeed and exceptional agility, he could not save his mate.
“Sometimes, brother,” he quietly says. “The reason, I think, that we do not see the good in the world is because we are the good.” He finishes my back, arms, and chest, then moves to my legs. The paste thrusts scorching pangs into my flesh,but I dare not flinch when Rorsar works, or he will be rougher about it simply to remind me that things could be worse. “We save others. We fight when no one else will. Mindor continues because of what we do.”
“I am just tired. I feel like the only thing I have left is to keep going. I am out of hope, faith, desire...”
“You’re not alone.”
When Rorsar gets up, I thank him. “How are you holding up?”
“Fine.”
I twist my tight neck and grumble when it pops. “We both know that’s Luna shit.”
“Like you said, sometimes all we have left is to simply keep going.” Rorsar motions to the sofa. “Rest. Onidus and I will guard. You can confront reality tomorrow.”
Rorsar packs up his things and walks out. When I get up, Radar lifts his head.
I want to walk to Tessi, stare at her beautiful face until I fall asleep, but I don’t sense that Radar will let me. And I don’t want any commotion to wake her. So I lie back on the sofa and put my feet up on the armrest because I am too tall to fit between them.
I take one more look at Tessi before the exhaustion hits me, and I can’t keep my eyes open. I have too much healing to do to stay awake any longer. And yet, I fight it. Deep down, I fear that when the morning comes, she will be taken from me like everything else.
15: Azrim
The forest does not comfort me like it once did. I long to disappear among the stars, search them for embers of Jezza, burning in other galaxies to give me hope there is more to this life.
The universe obviously doesn’t care who or what dies. Hope. Love.The most beautiful female in the entirety of our species, inside and out.
The forest is damp this morning from recent rains. Mud and moss squish under my paws as I lurk through the underbrush, feeling more like a shadow than a soul.
Rhysan needs a mother who can feed him.
It rips the hole in my chest wider every time I think it. And every time I think it, it is because I have to in order to keep myself from breaking into camp and taking him.
Emarza knows loss. She has emptiness in her den that Rhysan can fill. He has made their family whole. And she was Jezza’s best friend.
I will not act on anger or impulse.
I will be calm.
I swipe at a tree in passing and cut it down, my claws tearing through the trunk.
Jezza would tell me to think about them. She would tell me that only a few of us are strong enough to give everything for others so that they might live better lives. That it is some kind of power on its own to be able to accept our loss and keep going.
She does not know how every step aches after losing her or how little I care what becomes of my carcass out here in the woods. Nothing matters becauseshewas everything. Withouther, our son would not exist, I would’ve wandered alone forever, and Aegeris may have finally died off for good.
