Page 30 of Changed

Though her voice starts firm, I can sense how close to the edge of her control she truly is. She paces back and forth, fractious energy radiating from her, even as she continues to take deep, slow breaths, two halves of her fighting for dominance. That she is even still fighting to remain calm in this confusing and frightening situation she finds herself in speaks of her immense courage and fortitude.

I go to her, catching her by her upper arms, firm but gentle.

“Slow yourself a moment and speak with me. Perhaps there is a way in which I can help you.”

She glares at me, but also, her hand goes to my chest, not so much pushing me away as bracing herself against me. Her body leans into our bond, even if she is not so ready to do so in spirit yet, and my heartspace thrills at this small piece of connection.

“You want to help?” she says, bright anger blazing in her eyes for a moment. “Fine. This is the last thing I remember.”

Behind her, a shape starts to form out of nothing. A huge, towering raskarran with fangs and claws bared as he lunges towards her. I sweep her behind me, ill prepared to take the attack myself, but better the blow lands on me than her.

Of course, it is just a dream, and the figure fades to fire smoke as it reaches me, nothing more than a tickle over my chest. Still, my heartspace pounds, my body still braced for a savaging.

And willing to take it to protect my Brooks.

Her fingers close around my arms now, gripping me for balance. I turn to her again, taking her arm in my hand and inspecting it for scars, marks.

“I do not remember seeing wounds on your skin,” I say. “Only those that we treated. You remember this attack, but you do not seem hurt.”

“No,” she says, batting me off before folding her arms around herself. Uncomfortable because of the memories or because of my proximity? I back away, holding up my hands in submission once more.

“Then what…” I start, but before I can finish, she interrupts, her voice sharp and cutting.

“I don’t know!” She pinches her eyes shut, slows her breathing as she fights for control over her feelings once again. “I don’t know what the fuck is happening,” she continues, voice calmer now. “I wake up from cryostasis without a medical team around me like there should be. All alone in the basement. I can barely remember what I was doing here, never mind what circumstances lead to me being frozen, but there’s blood all over the floor in the main corridor and my research team is missing. It was my job to protect them.”

“You are a warrior.”

“I’m a soldier.”

I let the sense of the word wash over me.

“I feel perhaps this is a similar thing.”

I do not know if it is my calmness getting through to her, or if her emotions are just burning out, but she sighs, the anger in her expression fading.

“Maybe,” she says. “You’re a warrior?”

“Yes, linasha. It is my job to protect the tribe.”

“And that’s why you were guarding the base? The women in cryostasis there?”

“Yes.”

“Then you understand how I feel.”

I think of my own rage and pain at the loss of Sam while she was in my care. Her frustration and anger at herself echoes my own feelings exactly.

“Yes, I understand your feelings well.” I sigh. “I wish I could give you all the answers, my Brooks. But I can give you one, and I hope you take some comfort from it. The blood in the corridor of the base - it is not from your team. There was a tribe living in the base before we discovered it. A bad tribe. The kinds of males who think only of themselves. The blood you have seen - it is all theirs, all raskarran, and much deserved to be spilled.”

At first, her reaction to this is only slight, the barest tremble of her lip, but then she nods, and I see relief in her eyes.

“Raskarran? That’s what you are? Like I’m human?”

“Yes.”

“And these other raskarrans - you think they found the base when my team was still there. Maybe that guy in my memory was one of them?”

I shake my head. She still does not fully grasp the length of time that has passed for her while she slept.

---