Page 19 of Claimed for Eternity

“Mate,” I cooed, squatting down in front of him and being careful not to touch him because even with my gloves off I was covered in blood.

“I am too!” he sobbed, hiding his face in his hands.

“She’s going to be okay. She’s going to be alright. The baby too. He was breathing and it sounded like his heart knew what it was doing.”

“She was so pale, Barry! So freaking pale! He should’ve taken her to the hospital or got someone sooner! I don’t---”

“Not everyone is a healer, and things can go south fast. I don’t think he was slow. I think the blood was fast. Not as fast as us, though, mate. Not as quick as we are. We saved them. We did our job. We’ll call and check on them in a few hours but with some care and rest I bet Mercy will be as good as new. Let’s go inside and get cleaned up, okay?”

“Dead Martha is here too,” he sobbed, ignoring my question.

“Right now really isn’t the time,” I said to the dead woman through gritted teeth.

If she was solid, I’d have bitten her. This wasn’t the time to push and shove at my mate. Jarl’s bones could wait. The dead were important but the living had to come first. Xenos was in no shape to trek through the woods and dig for bones. Hell, neither of us were. I couldn’t leave him alone like this. Ignoring his sobs and meager protests, I scooped him up and carried him back inside. The lady at the desk asked if we needed anything but I ignored her because I didn’t trust myself not to snap. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Mercy’s fault or her mate’s. It was nature’s but with my pregnant Xenos crying so hard everything looked like a throat that needed to be ripped out.

I carried him back into the room and kicked the door shut behind us. Neither of us had time to put on shirts or shoes and that made undressing for the shower easier than it would have been otherwise. I started the shower but washed his face at the sink. He stopped trying to push me away and surrendered to my ministrations. His tears kept coming but I kept moving too.

I lifted Xenos into the shower once the water falling from above was warm enough. I slipped in with him and took us both down to the marble floor under the shower head. The water ran red around us, washing the life blood of Mercy down the drain and casting the illusion that the marble was pink instead of white. I scrubbed him clean from head to toe and then washed him again for good measure. Mercy had smelled healthy, but blood and oxygen bred bacteria and I wasn’t risking my pregnant mate getting sick or contracting an infection.

Once we were both scrubbed clean, I turned off the water and grabbed one of the B&B’s fluffy towels to dry him off with. Then wrapped him with another. I didn’t bother finding clothes for either of us before carrying him back to bed. It wasn’t our bed back home. It wasn’t in front of one of our fireplaces, but it wasthe closest that we had. I held him while he cried himself to sleep and at some point, I dozed off too.

I woke up before him the next morning. The sun wasn’t even showing its ass yet when my eyes opened. Dead Martha stood in the corner of the room. She was either strong or desperate because I saw her even after I got out of bed. With a long finger, she beckoned me to follow her. I rolled my eyes and grabbed clean clothes from my suitcase. Sooner or later, the job had to be done, and I wasn’t putting my pregnant mate through another stressful ordeal. If he was angry at me when everything was said and done, I’d deal with it then. At least, he’d be healthy and rested enough to be angry with me.

Dead Martha was in a hurry, but I stopped for a cup of coffee in the lobby before returning to the room to empty out my medical bag. It felt like sacrilege to unpack the supplies that might save lives, but I needed something to carry Jarl’s bones back with. Then I sent Saun a quick email from my phone to expect me and Jarl at BAKE sometime today.

The lady at the front desk didn’t know what to make of me asking for a shovel but she called someone from the gardening department who brought one in under five minutes. Not only was I a visitor but I was the guest who stopped a carrier and baby from dying on their premises.

Back when we first met, I might’ve left Xenos a note, but we didn’t need notes or texts anymore. After decades of living in each other’s heads we were always connected. There was no time that we were ever really alone or apart. If he woke up, he’d probably know where I was before I felt him awake. I wasn’t sure how much of his theory about Jarl’s bones lost in the woods affecting our baby was true. I believed in reincarnation both because of Star’s experience and because without it true-mates wouldn’t be true. If enough pieces of a theory were true, then the theory had to be too. It was just the way the world worked.

I followed Martha through SLEEP’S garden and off the beaten path into the woods while thinking about my mate. It didn’t matter if Jarl wouldn’t affect our pup. He affected Xenos from the moment Dead Martha mentioned him. I had killed my brother for murdering his chosen mate and trying to murder his baby. I could move some bones. I could dig them up and pack them up. Maybe I’d feel a pang of knowing that I could’ve been bones so many times during battles and I wasn’t. Maybe I’d feel lucky to be alive but it wouldn’t dive deep into my soul and tear at me like it would Xenos. It wasn’t that he was incapable of doing the dirty work, I just didn’t want him to ever believe he had to. That’s what he had me for. I might not be able to chase away hauntings but I could do this.

The sun was halfway to its zenith by the time Dead Martha stopped and stomped her translucent feet over a spot. I took a swig from the canteen I brought with me and got to work. Xenos woke while I was digging. His energy turned frantic as he tried to untangle himself from the towel find found his clothes.

“Mate,”I whispered over our mating link.“It’s fine. It’s better this way and by the time you get here I’ll probably be halfway back. I’ll do this part. You can help Saun and the others lay him to rest.”

Xenos sat on the edge of the bed crying for a long time. I sort of got it. It was sad when almost anyone died. It was even sadder if they died for a good cause. It was heart wrenching to think of what our unborn baby might’ve went through in his past life but I couldn’t dwell on that too long because we had lots of children. Xenos and I had past lives. Most people did. If I stopped to consider every ‘owie’ I’d never be of any use to anyone ever. So, I kept digging and let him cry it out for a while. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to stop crying on his own I turned to an old friend. It was an epic poem about Frost and Juda and I recited it over our mating link.

“Bring me your battles. I’ll fight them. Cut them down to size. Send your enemies to the Pit of Frost. We’ll mate on battlefields of conquered foes. None will rise above us. All worlds will sing songs of our victories.

Bring me your love, your broken soul, and I’ll carve pieces from mine to make it whole. Bring me your pain. Bring me your aches. I’ll carry them today, so that you might rest…”

Slowly his sobs receded, and he dried his tears.

“Careful, alpha. You’re getting close. You have to be.”

Taking his words to heart, I squatted down and ran my fingers over the loose dirt until they found bone. A femur and then Jarl’s skull. I let out a long, slow breath and said the obligatory prayer that I hoped he found his way back to his folks on the other side of the door. Then the hard work began. Bone by bone, I dug him up and placed him into my medicine bag. There was nothing I ever carried inside of it that would’ve saved him from the fire that charred him straight to some of his ribs but it could house him and cradle him on the path to his final resting place.

Dead Martha sobbed as I zipped the bag, stood up, and dusted my hands off. If I had been alone I might’ve carried the bag as I carried it every other day but whether or not he was a pile of bones now, he was still her baby. That part of her grief I understood. So, I clutched the medical bag to my chest and followed her back out of the woods.

Chapter Thirteen

Xenos

I ran a finger along the tombstone carved long ago for Jarl. It was made of crushed shell too. I let out a long, slow breath as a grave was finally dug in front of the stone. Saun and Barry took turns digging while Martha and her carrier watched on. Dead Martha stood on the edge of the cemetery as if she feared getting too close to her own stone. Sometimes it was easy to forget that ghosts and spirits could be superstitious too.

If Jarl ever wandered the world as a spirit, that time was indeed over. His bones were bones. They weren’t haunted or enchanted or filled with some lingering life force. Every time I thought about how we would all someday just be bones and dust I cried. If my dad were here, he’d tell me to stop. He’d hug me while he said it, but he’d say it nonetheless. He’d say that’s why we had to live each minute as our best life.

When the grave was sufficiently deep, Suan and Barry covered the dirt with some of the prettiest elven woven cloth I’d ever seen. It was green and blue like the sky and earth mingled just to make it for Jarl. Then they laid him out. Barry’s knowledge of autonomy helped them get all his parts and pieces in more or less the correct spots. That way we could all say he was stretched out and relaxed for the rest of eternity.

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