Tyson threaded his fingers through his wife’s, and she smiled up at him before once more turning her attention to Savage.
“My talent works much the same as yours. It’s a compulsion I can’t stop. If Seychelle is like I am, she can’t stop any more than I am able to or you can. I imagine yours started at a very young age. You’ve been shouldering the anger and rage for the others, as much as you could manage, for years, right? You can’t stop yourself now, even if you wanted to. It’s too ingrained in you. Whenever the people you love most are too close to their limit of pain with anger at betrayal or whatever, and you’re with them, you just take it on. That’s what happens with a healer’s gift. At least our kind of gift. Tyson has to keep me in check. My sisters did before him.”
“Wait.” Czar surged to his feet. “What the hell did you just say, Libby? Does she mean us? Torpedo Ink? What do you mean, Savage takes on our pain? What does she mean by that, Savage?” There was pure shock in his voice. On his face.
Blythe put a restraining hand on Czar’s wrist, but there was nothing that was going to stop him as he paced across the room, every step portraying hurt, guilt and bewilderment. “I need someone to tell me right now what that means.” He swung around to face Savage. “You’ve been shouldering that for me all this time and I didn’t know?”
Libby looked confused. Her eyes met Savage’s. “I’m so sorry. I thought everyone knew about your ability.”
“What ability? Apparently, the president of your club, your brother, doesn’t know about your ability, Savage,” Czar bit out. His incomprehension began to give way to temper, the one thing that allowed him to cover up his real feelings. “Maybe you want to enlighten me.”
“Not at this time,” Savage said calmly. “Right now, Libby is going to tell me what I can do to help Seychelle. After that, Czar, I’ll be happy to fill you in, if you really think it’s necessary.”
“Yeah, Savage. I really think it’s necessary.” Czar stood for a few moments staring out the window, and then he sank into the chair beside Blythe. She took his hand, her fingers sliding over his soothingly.
Once Czar was seated, Savage continued, “If you explain how it actually works, Libby, and I understand it, then maybe Tyson can explain how he stops you.”
“That’s easy enough.” Tyson grinned at him, kissed Libby’s hand and brought it to his chest. “Caveman style is sometimes the only way. Other times I just say her name and she knows that’s the only warning she’s going to get before the caveman appears. We try to have code words. Signals.”
Libby nodded. “I take on the actual illness. If your Seychelle is attempting to help someone with a heart condition, she’s actually taking on that heart condition. Potentially, that can kill her. I’m a doctor. I’ve learned that I can’t do certain things. I know going into things I have to say no, and if the compulsion is overwhelming, I can’t even enter the room unless I have backup with me to stop me from doing it. Seychelle is going in blind. She has no training. She may not know what she’s taking on. From what you just told me, she had very sick parents, and she must have prolonged their lives by exchanging her own health without even knowing it.”
Libby leaned toward Savage. “She is very lucky to be alive. More than once, even with my sisters aiding me—and they are extremely powerful—I nearly died. This type of exchange can be deadly. What you do is violent and deadly. Any gift of this magnitude has consequences. We pay a price, all of us. It’s an exchange, Savage. When we use our gifts, we’re agreeing to pay that price. She is probably becoming aware now that she’s trading her life for those she’s helping, but she can’t stop what she’s doing because it’s too late. She doesn’t know how any more than you do, or I do.”
Savage scrubbed his hands over his face. Seychelle was in her house right now, wide open, unprotected, because he’d fucked up. He should have laid it all out. Still, he’d been at the end of a cycle. He wouldn’t have had time to prepare her for what she would have to go through with him, even if she agreed to belong to him. He’d been at his worst. No matter what, it would have been too dangerous to be with him. In that moment he despised what and who he was more than he ever had. He thought he’d come to terms with it long ago, but now, all over again, he loathed himself.
“Can she recover? Is there a way I can keep her safe?”