Before she had emerged from violence in her full power.
As she stopped in front of him, he said in a low voice, “You have to save him.”
Whether it was her arrival upon their midst or the intense words spoken by her cousin, one by one, the Brothers looked at her. Turned to her. Narrowed their eyes upon her.
“Save him,” Sahvage repeated as that crying continued inside the room.
Rahvyn lowered her head. She would have avoided this revelation as to herself if she could have—and knew once again that she should have left the night after she and Sahvage had been reunited. Once she had reassured him she lived, her reason for being in this place and time had been served.
“There is no going back,” she said quietly. “You know that yourself.”
“I don’t give a shit and neither will they. Just bring him back. If Nate is lost, we lose two others tonight.”
When Rahvyn looked at the door, the Brothers asked no questions and put up no argument, as if they didn’t need to understand to agree with what Sahvage was saying. But she knew without being told that she would be accountable unto them if things went badly.
And mayhap that was the point. This tragedy felt as though it was her fault, and she wanted to make amends. What she had to offer was not without strife, however, and she was not certain what would be harder to live with: Doing nothing… or doing what she could—
Once again, her body made the decision before her mind formed the thought to move. Her feet started forward, step, step, step. And as she passed through the throng of males, she was a willow tree to their towering pines, yet their deference was in the way they wordlessly parted for her.
Rahvyn watched her hand reach out and open the door.
The scene on the other side was a tableau of suffering around a dead body, the living leaning down, Nate lying prone and motionless and spotlit on the steel table. All of the tubes and wires from the transportation were still attached to him, but the machines had been silenced, no beeping, no flashing lights or patterns appearing on their screens. On the floor beneath where he lay, there were tufts of bloodstained gauze and plastic wrappers and puddles of blood.
The healers had tried valiantly to save him, she thought as she took in further details.
Nate’s lower body was draped with blue sheeting. His chest was stained with something orange along with dried blood. His eyes were closed and his mouth open, and his hair… looked as it had when he’d been alive.
The male with the spectacles and the white coat was the first to look at her, and he cleared his throat in an officious manner. “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Murhder, Nate’s adoptive father, glanced over. Wiping his red eyes, he said hoarsely, “It’s all right. She’s a friend of his. Come here and say goodbye—”
His voice choked off at that point so he used his hands to motion her near, waving at her to close in.
The mahmen did not lift her head from her son. She just stood on the far side of Nate, her hands on his shoulder and upper arm, her tears falling onto his cooling skin.
“I am so sorry,” Rahvyn whispered.
“You did everything you could,” the sire said. “You called for help and gave him the best chance he had.”
“Will you allow me to revive him?”
At that, the mahmen raised her head, her face a vision of despair. “What?”
“Whatever is going on here?” the healer demanded. “Shall I call for security—”
“Shh,” Murhder cut in. “Sweetheart… he’s gone. It’s too late.”
“No, it’s not.” The Brother’s brows came down, but before he could argue and break the heart of his shellan even more, Rahvyn said quickly, “Will you allow me to help him.”
Murhder cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. If you’re not going to pay your respects to him, we’d like some privacy—”
The mahmen reached across the body of her dead son and grabbed at Rahvyn’s arm. “Yes, yes… yes.”
Her eyes were wide, and her whole body trembled—and Rahvyn was aware that she herself had been in the same state when she had stood over Sahvage’s arrow-strewn body.
“What can you do?” the female begged.
“I will bring him back for you,” Rahvyn whispered.
“Please, oh, God… I just need him alive.”
As the males started to raise protestations, she and the mahmen locked eyes—and then Rahvyn closed her lids.
Instantly, everything became so crystal clear to her senses that the smells of blood and fear and anguish were like shards of glass in her nose, and the glow of the ceiling lights and the chandelier over the table was a brilliant beam shining right in her face. She could hear the tense, shallow breathing of the mahmen as a scream, and the voices of the father and the healer as booming basses, and even a shuffle of clothing or shift of weight were loud as metal on metal.