Deviation: Altera Realm Trilogy Book 2 (46 page)

Syney opened her mouth and took a deep breath. “Maybe.”

Helen sighed and placed a hand on Syney’s arm, but Syney brushed it away. Hopefully talking would help, because Helen was now out of ideas.

Leaf sat Adam on his bed and went to his dresser. He pulled out the bottle of vinum his mother had given to him when he made head guard. It was made in his hometown and had aged since the day he was born. He held on to it for a special occasion, but right now it was needed. He popped the cork off and poured a glass for each of them. Then he pulled a chair up across from Adam and handed him a glass.

“You need to be prepared for what’s going to happen,” Leaf said, as Adam downed his glass. He poured him some more. “She’s not going to be the Syney you know right away or maybe even for a while.”

Adam looked at him, his eyes glassy. “You’ve seen this before.”

Leaf nodded. “This…and worse. It’s actually common out in the wall towns. Magic Users and Lycin men seem to think they can do whatever they want to the women who live there.”

“I’m sorry,” Adam said quietly.

“Any of the ones we actually caught were definitely sorry. My mother helped with medicines when she was younger, so she took care of most of the women it happened to. It was never…pleasant.” He paused. “Syney was violated in a way that’s meant to be intimate.”

“Is she going to…um…”

“I’ve seen both ways,” Leaf said, knowing exactly what Adam couldn’t bring himself to ask. “You may be the last person she wants to see, or you could be the only one she opens up to. But you need to be prepared for both.”

Adam nodded and drank his second glass. He stared at it for a moment before it shattered in his tight grip. He cursed and shook his hand. “Sorry.”

“It’s OK. I would have done worse if…it had been Helen,” Leaf said. Actually saying her name out loud was a risk, he knew. But after the attack on Adam and now this, he knew that being open with Adam and Syney was the only way they would let him in, and he needed to be in so he could help them.

“You know, I grew up without ties. It was the way I wanted it,” Adam said. “Mostly because I wanted to avoid this feeling. This helpless feeling. Syney’s falling apart, and I can’t do anything.”

“Right now you just need to be there for her. Whether she wants you to be or not. And when we find out who they are…we’ll do more than just break a glass.”

Adam nodded. “Thank you.”

Leaf filled his glass and handed it to Adam. “You almost ready to go back?”

He drank the glass and shook his head.

“That’s OK. We can stay here for as long as you need.”

They stayed silent for a while before Adam sighed. “Do you like being a guard?”

Leaf stared at him for a moment. No one had ever asked him that question. Being a guard was something a Lycin did. Feelings didn’t really come into it. He frowned. “No, not particularly.”

Adam shook his head. “I hate this place. At least in the neutral territories, I knew who was bad and good. Here everyone wears the same face, and you have no idea until they strike.”

“Where did you grow up?”

“Everywhere,” Adam said, gesturing with his hands. “Mostly in the Human Realm, though.”

“That would be the best place for someone from two races,” Leaf said carefully.

Adam nodded. “Thank you for not telling anyone.”

“It’s not my place.”

He eyed him for a moment. “You’re a good guy.”

“From what I can tell, so are you.”

Adam took a very deep breath and stood. “OK, let’s go.”

Leaf nodded and led the way out of the room. He wasn’t sure Adam was ready for this, but at this point, everyone needed to be in support mode and follow Syney’s lead.

When they reached her door, Leaf held up his hand. “We should knock.”

Adam sighed, not looking happy about it but doing it anyway. After a moment Reed opened the door and let them in. Syney was sitting up in bed under the covers, her injured leg the only thing not covered, with Helen sitting next to her but not really touching her. Her jaw looked swollen and bruised, as her wrists.

Leaf slowly walked to the bed. “Syney, I’d like to talk with you about what happened, but I think Adam should take a look at your injuries first.”

She looked up at him for a moment before nodding.

He looked at Adam, who was staring at Syney, his eyes filling with anger. “Adam,” he prompted.

He nodded and grabbed the bag and book from the couch. Then he placed them on the bed and flipped through the book until he found what he wanted. He mixed a few things together in a bowl to create a light-brown paste. “I’m going to need some cloths I can use to wrap her face,” he said.

“I can get some from the infirmary,” Helen told him.

“No, stay. I’ll go,” Reed said, heading toward the door.

Adam stirred the mixture a few more times before taking a deep breath and holding his hands over it. “
Sana vulnera. Ligatis cute. Curarent quid est aegritudo
,” he recited from the book. He sighed and lowered his hands.

“Something wrong?” Helen asked.

“It’s just…I’m…I may need your help.”

Helen’s mouth opened, and she glanced at Leaf. “I don’t…I can’t do magic.”

“Everyone can do magic,” Adam said, holding out his hand.

She reached out hesitantly and took his hand. He placed her hand over the bowl and his over the top. He repeated the spell, and this time the bowl lit up for a moment.

Helen cried out softly. “That was amazing. Was that the magic I felt?”

Adam nodded. “Mostly. Magic is connected to life forces, so it was a little bit of both.” He picked up the bowl and walked over to Syney. “I think you should lie down.”

Without looking at him, she shifted down and settled into the pillows behind her.

“This won’t hurt, but it’ll take about an hour to work, so you might want to try to sleep,” he said, picking up some of the mixture with his fingers. She flinched as he spread it onto her chin and wrist, but Leaf was pretty sure it wasn’t because of pain. He pulled the makeshift bandages from Syney’s leg and applied the mixture there as well. By the time he had finished, Reed had returned with more cloths than they’d ever need. Adam took a few and placed them on top of the mixture, which glowed like little red jewels. He stepped back and gave Leaf a nod. “About an hour.”

Leaf placed a hand on his back and led him to the couch, where he sat down next to him. Helen and Reed sat across from them, both looking just as grave. “I know you’ve been running around, but I think I know someone Syney might benefit from talking to. Would you mind going to one of the wall towns, Reed?”

The young wolf shook his head. “Anything that will help.”

Leaf nodded and grabbed a piece of paper from the table in front of him. He wrote out the directions and the name of a woman, one of the many his mother had helped over the years and who had become almost part of the family. Reed left right away as the remaining three tried as much as they could to relax into the couches.

“Do you think she’s sleeping?” Helen asked, just above a whisper.

Adam shook his head. “She’s a little more relaxed, though.”

“How do you know?”

He looked at her. “I can hear her heartbeat and breathing.”

Leaf watched as Helen’s eyes grew a little wide for a moment before she looked at Leaf. He knew she had a host of questions to ask, but in true Helen style, she remained silent. He loved the fact that she just knew when to talk and when to stay silent. He could almost hear the gears in her head turning, however.

They all remained silent for a while as they waited for the spells to take hold. Leaf took the time to contemplate his next move. If he found the Lycins who had done this, he wasn’t sure he could keep his calm composure. His men were responsible for this, which meant something else entirely for him. There were wolves under him who didn’t follow his rules, including Poppy and possibly Birch and Posey. He couldn’t be sure if Birch or Posey played a part in anything that had happened but they spent enough time together for him to suspect them and that was enough to relieve them of their duties. That was a blow. He didn’t take assigning Protectors to Syney lightly. Birch, Posey, and Poppy all had been chosen because they were loyal and the strongest candidates out of all of the guards. He didn’t like the fact that his judgment had been off. There was also a fissure in his guards. They were listening to another voice of authority, and he had a bad feeling regarding who it was. It could only be another Lycin, and there was only one who had any kind of authority beyond him.

After a while Adam abruptly walked over to the bed and gently pulled off the cloths from Syney’s wounds. Helen joined him while Leaf stood back but kept an eye on them. Her skin looked unscathed. It was the first time Leaf had seen real magic, and it truly amazed him.

“How do you feel?” Helen asked, as Syney sat up in bed.

“Fine,” she said, flexing her jaw down and around.

“Good,” Adam said as he walked back toward the couch and sat down.

Leaf watched him, happy that he chose to keep a distance. The questions he needed to ask weren’t things he needed Adam hearing. He looked back at Syney and sat on the edge of the bed so he could face her. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Syney picked at her fingernails and bit her lip. “I went with Poppy down to the small meeting room where Mellisandrianna had told me to meet her.”

“Was it a verbal request?”

She shook her head. “It was written. Delivered through Birch.”

Leaf nodded. “When you got there, Poppy stayed outside?”

“Yeah. The door…it shut behind me, and the room was black. I couldn’t see a thing.” She stopped with a hitch in her breath. She still had yet to cry. She took a deep breath and continued. “Someone grabbed me from behind and threw me across the room. And then he grabbed my arms and legs.”

“How many?”

“Just one. He grabbed me and—”

“You don’t have to tell me everything.”

Syney let out a breath. “Thank you.”

“I just need to know if anything happened that might help me identify him. A smell or a voice.”

She swallowed. “I recognized his voice, but I can’t place it.”

“But if you heard him again?”

She nodded. “Probably.”

“Is there anything else?” Leaf asked calmly.

Syney picked at her thumbnail to the point where it started to bleed and shook her head.

“OK.”

“Wait. I bit his hand. He had it over my mouth,” she said, gesturing with her hand. “His grip loosened, and I bit him.”

“Here?” Leaf asked, pointing to the area between his thumb and index finger. “How hard?”

“Hard. I tasted blood.”

“That’s good. That had to have left a mark,” Leaf said. He stood up just as a knock came at the door. “That’s probably Reed. I sent him to get someone for you to talk to. I’ll be outside with him and Adam.”

“OK.”

Leaf motioned for Adam to follow him out. He complied with less hesitation than he’d anticipated. Leaf nodded a hello to Clover, the woman Leaf had sent for, and held Reed outside the room. Once the door shut, he looked at the younger wolf. “Go get some sleep now while you can.”

“No, I’m fine.”

He put a hand on Reed’s arm. “Take the sleep. Adam and I will be here all night.”

Reed finally nodded and walked away, his shoulders visibly relaxing as he walked away.

“How are you doing?” Leaf asked Adam.

He shook his head. “I want to hold her and tell her everything will be OK, but she didn’t even look at me.”

Leaf stretched before sitting on the floor. “Let her talk to Clover.”

Adam sighed and took a seat next to him. He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. Leaf felt for him. He had meant it when he’d said he wasn’t sure what he would have done if it had been Helen. The physical and emotional pain of the victim was unimaginable. And her partner wasn’t spared some of the pain. Adam felt helpless and carried some of her pain with him. Leaf shook his head. This was the one thing he wished no one had to deal with.

After a while, Clover and Helen appeared in the hallway. Both men jumped to their feet. “Syney’s trying to process everything that happened right now,” Clover said. “She’s not blaming herself, which is good. But the feeling of being violated is going to stick around for a while.”

“Thank you for coming,” Leaf said, taking her hand.

She smiled up at him. “Of course. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.” She squeezed his hand.

“I’ll walk you out,” Helen told her.

“Shouldn’t you stay?” Leaf asked.

“Syney wants to talk to you actually,” Helen said, giving him a small smile.

Leaf nodded and shot Adam one more look before heading into the bedroom. Syney looked up at him as he came in. He wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted to talk about, but he sat in the same spot as before and gave her as much of a smile as he could muster.

“Thank you for getting Clover,” she said. “She said your mother helped with women this has happened to.”

He nodded.

“I like your mother even more now, if that’s possible.” She rubbed her wrists, and he noticed thick bruising in the shape of fingers.