Page 58 of Healer’s Betrayal

I lift my head and face him down, refusing to let my terror show. “Uncle.”

He stops a foot from my chair. “Looks like you made some enemies.” He makes a tsking noise, and the sound of it amps up my terror. He always makes that sound when he’s disappointed. It was always followed by a beating. I’m prepared for his attack, but it still comes as a surprise when he hits me hard on the side of my face. My head jerks to the side, and pain explodes in my face. I keep my head down a moment, refusing to let him see me furiously blink back tears. Before I’m in control, he yanks my ponytail and jerks my head up so I’m staring into his face. I may be restrained, but I’m not helpless. I will never be again. I slam my forehead forward and hear an audible crack that makes me almost feel regret. He screams in pain and lifts his head, rage filling his dead eyes. He lifts his heavy black boot and sends it into my stomach. I hear something crack, and I can’t breathe or catch myself when my chair crashes to the floor. I close my eyes, trying to get the room to stop spinning and catch my breath. Hope floors me when I realize the ziptie on my hands came free in the fall. I pull at the ones on my feet and realize those are free as well. I pull my hands free and then work the zip ties off my feet. Then I’m running for the door. I reach out, the handle almost in my hand, when he crashes into me. We hit the floor hard, and I’m dazed a moment. I try to push off the floor, but his hands dig into my sides. “I’m going to kill you,” he says. He rolls me over and uses his weight to hold me down. He hits me again, and darkness dances at the corners of my vision. He reaches his hands out and squeezes my throat. I push against him, but I’m weak. Black dots line my vision, and I try with all my might to fight against him. Fear for Noah floods my mind. Surprisingly, my mind goes to Jackson; and I will him to find Noah and keep him safe. Something about that thought gives me the smallest amount of peace. The room around me starts to fade, and I feel my body getting sluggish.

Suddenly, the door to the room crashes open. I hear the sound of a wild animal; it’s so loud and harsh, I want to cover my ears. My uncle is pulled off me, and the hands around my neck disappear. I close my eyes and focus on sucking in oxygen. I hear a low, harsh voice and then a thud. “Kayla.” There’s a command in that voice, and I force my eyes open. Bright blue eyes, so bright they almost hurt to look at, meet mine. “I’m going to get you help.” His words are hard to understand; I close my eyes again. “No. Keep your eyes open,” he says in a gruff voice. “Kayla.” That command is back, and I force my eyes open. This time when he talks, he talks to someone else. “I need the healer now. Downstairs.” I hear footsteps, and my entire body tenses up. Adrenaline shoots through me. “Easy; it’s just Ransom.”

I hear more footsteps. “What the—” Ransom’s voice stops suddenly as he sucks in a breath. “Kayla.”

A growl shakes the room, and I force my eyes to stay open. Jackson's painfully bright eyes are locked on me, but he speaks to Ransom. “Stay back.”

“Noah,” I whisper with what little strength I have. But the word seems to get stuck, and I cough. Pain explodes in my ribs, and I cry out in agony. But I can’t stop coughing, and I can’t catch my breath. My panic grows, and I can’t catch my breath. Pain courses through my body.

“Kayla,” I hear someone say. “Jackson, let me help! She can’t breathe.”

I hear another growl, but I can’t focus on it. “We need the healer!”

The world around me seems to shrink as the pain inside me grows. It feels like fire is consuming my very bones. The pain grows, and I scream. I feel like I’m being skinned alive. Somebody touches me, but that makes it so much worse. I hear shouts, but I don’t know what’s being said. My body goes stiff, and I scream as the pain intensifies. There’s a roar, but it sounds so far away. Somebody touches me again, and I cry out in agony. I hear voices, but they mean nothing to me. Everything around me loses its focus as the pain inside me consumes my every thought and steals the air from my lungs. “Kayla,” I hear the voice from far away. “Kayla, I'm going to try to help you; but you’ve got to stop fighting against me.” I feel hands on me and scream and push them away; each touch feels like torture. “You have to hold her!” a voice shouts. There are more shouts, a growl that rocks the very ground I’m lying on. Somebody touches me again, and I scream in pain. “Hold her!” The pain intensifies, and I arch my back. I try to scream but can’t. It’s like I’m trapped in this world where the only thing that’s real is the pain I’m in. Memories start to assail me. The memory of the day Noah was born. I was eleven, almost twelve and old enough to not be sure I wanted a baby brother. But the day I went to the hospital to meet him for the first time changed my life forever.

“Kayla,” my mom says softly. “Come meet your little brother.” I walk over to where she’s sitting on the bed, looking healthy and whole. She hadn’t been feeling well in so long, it’s a relief to see her okay now.

My dad’s hands drop to my shoulders. “Go,” he says softly.

I walk over to the side of my mom’s bed and take the precious bundle in my arms. “Be careful; support his head.” I do as she says, and she smiles softly at me. “Good job.” Her eyes meet mine. “Take good care of him.” She puts her head back and closes her eyes to rest. I sit in the chair next to her bed, holding my little brother. I didn’t know that was the last time my mom would speak to me; it was the last time she would open her eyes. Minutes later, the monitor she’s still hooked up to starts beeping. A nurse comes in to check, and soon another nurse comes as well. Then a louder alarm sounds. Noah starts to cry at the loud noises. I stand up and back into the corner trying to get out of the way of the doctors and nurses and the chaotic scene. Above the wails of my newborn brother, I hear the sound of my dad’s cry.

“No!” His cry reverberates through my bones as I sink to the floor against the wall. Nobody notices; nobody comes to check on me. They’re all too busy. I didn’t know it at the time, but I would lose two parents that day. My dad will never recover from losing my mom and will turn to pills. One day, the pills he’s taking will take him. That’s when we’ll be given to my uncle, the source of my greatest nightmares.

But I don’t know any of that yet. All I know is that my baby brother is in my arms right now. “I’ll keep you safe,” I whisper to him. "I won’t let anything happen to you ever.”

Chapter 24

Jackson

“We’re losing her.”

Those words wrap around my heart and squeeze the air from my lungs. “Do something!” I demand of the healer. I’m barely hanging on to my control; my wolf is thrashing wildly inside of me. It’s taking all my focus to keep him locked away because I know in this moment, I can’t let him free; but seeing our mate in pain, broken and beaten and struggling to stay alive is more than the man or the wolf can bear. So much has happened in the last few minutes since I killed the man that hurt her. My wolf growls in my chest, and I force my gaze away from the corpse on the ground. I have to focus.

“Sage, she’s not responding to anything I do; I don’t know what to do. I haven’t healed someone this bad off before all by myself,” Ava says in a full-blown panic.

There are too many people in this room, and I want them all gone. My claws are out, and I don’t dare touch my mate. She’s unconscious now but still breathing; I'm watching her chest rise and drop and listening simultaneously to her breathing. It's too labored and too slow; I don’t have to be a doctor to diagnose that. “Do something!” I growl again.

“Jackson!”

It takes me a moment to realize somebody’s been calling my name. I jerk my head to the healer. “You have to do it,” she says. I shake my head, but she’s adamant. “It’s the only way.”

We’ve already had this argument. “I’m not taking her choice from her.” My words are barely distinguishable.

“Listen to me,” she snaps at me. “I don’t want you to either. But if you don’t, she’s going to die. She's going to die, Jackson!”

I snarl at her, and her mate moves so that he’s in between the two of us. He gives me a look that I know means I would be dead if they didn’t need me to spare my mate’s life. “It’s the only way, Jackson.” That voice comes through the phone; I don’t even know who it is that’s talking.

I take in every detail of my mate’s battered frame, knowing this is only what I can see. She could have more injuries under her clothes and who knows what injuries internally. Still, to take away her choice to become my mate...to tie herself to me for all of eternity. “I can’t do that to her,” I rasp out. I continue to count her heartbeats; they’re slower now.

“We’ve seen this before,” that voice on the phone says.

The healer turns to me. “They injected her with vampire serum; I would bet my life on it. That’s what’s killing her. Every time I try to heal her; I’m met with a dark force. It gets stronger every time. She has no strength to fight against it; her healing power is trying and failing. It’s overtaking her healing power; and then there will be nothing to fight against it. This is the only way to save her.”

“Do it, Jackson,” Ransom says from wherever he’s standing in the room. We'll deal with the ramifications of it later. I stare down at her and count her heartbeats. The voices are all still talking, making me feel like I’m losing my mind.

And then her heartbeat stalls. I jerk my head to her chest. The voices continue; no one realizes it. But I do. I don’t have any other choice. I bend over my broken mate, hating what I’m about to do. The room goes eerily silent. “Try not to move her,” I hear a male voice say through the phone. “She likely has internal injuries. When you bite, bite deep and hold. The power will fight against you. Fight against it until it releases completely.” The non-emotional male voice guides me, and I do as he says. I don’t think; I don’t allow myself the luxury. I bite her neck deeper than I would have normally; I’m grateful she’s not awake to feel it. I feel my wolf’s joy, but all I can feel is sorrow and fear for my mate. This was never how it was supposed to be. She was never supposed to be unconscious, fighting for her life when I claimed her. I feel the dark force rise up to fight against me. If I hadn’t braced for it, it would have thrown me back. But I hold on and use my strength to push against the force trying to push me away from my mate. I bite deeper and force the bite to remain, and the dark force tries and fails to push me away. Slowly, the power begins to recede. Only when it’s completely gone, do I relax my mouth and release my hold on her. I lick her bite wound and try not to think about how good her skin tastes. I lean back, more tired than I want to admit.