Drink of Me. Jacquelyn Frank

had been Reule’s way of dodging his inquisition about his emotional well-being. In truth, Shadow realized, this was Reule’s way of answering without answering. Reule knew Darcio’s ability would allow the Prime Shadow to have a front-row seat to the memory of his disturbance.

      Five seconds later, Darcio became intimate with what had disturbed Reule so deeply. He recalled everything the nameless girl had experienced in that pool; every wave of heat and every touch of Reule’s ministrations. She hadn’t been awake, but her body remembered, and therefore Darcio remembered.

      Shadow knew that his Prime was sharing the experience, using his telepathy to observe as he read the outlander. Had it been any of the rest of the Pack, Darcio might have been embarrassed, witnessing acts that were by turns tender and seductive. However, Reule and he had walked as Prime and Prime’s Shadow together for eighty-five years now. They’d trained and warred, aged and whored, and seen many things, both good and evil, in the world. At ninety-one and ninety-eight years old, they were in the prime of a Sánge’s life cycle. Darcio anticipated that, though they were no longer wild with youth, he and Reule would experience much more of life together before all was done.

      While learning of Reule’s sexual interest didn’t make him blush, it did worry him. He’d withhold judgment until after he completed his scan, but even so, outlanders didn’t welcome Sánge, and Sánge didn’t welcome outlanders. Reule would be a fool to think otherwise, no matter how unusual her attachment to him was. It seemed to Darcio that she was merely clinging to her rescuer in the wake of a great trauma and…

      …and then the trauma itself began to burn into life, searing across his mind and body until he felt as though he were on fire. He threw back his head and gasped in a harsh breath as agony pummeled him from head to toe. He swallowed, gritting his teeth at the confusing and brutal abuse, tears pricking behind his lids as he tried to hold on. If she can endure this, so can I, he commanded himself.

      Within his mind, he was far from the bath and Reule, yet he knew his Prime was now physically by his side, watching him steadily, ready to end the pain he’d asked his friend to suffer if necessary.

      Mildew, must, and terrible cold. Every inch of his skin was throbbing and burning with open, fresh, and barely healed wounds. There was something strange about what he felt, even as sadness overwhelmed him again and again, a despair that tightened his lungs, forcing tears to fall even when he was too thirsty, too hungry, and too tired to weep. There was sleep in short, taunting snatches, but always the cold. Then that strange vibration again, humming the length and breadth of his—her—body. Weak, but growing stronger as time continued to reverse her condition.

      Jakals. He sensed them, was aware of them, but she could hide herself from the Jakals dancing gleefully right beneath her. Then he (she) felt her arms and legs exploding in horrible agony.

      Darcio leaped forward, roaring in pain as he fell before the bench onto his knees, Reule’s hands guiding him and now holding him as he yelled and shook. Alone, but not? Alone, but being tortured? No marks, only the pain of it. Driving, driving deep. And still they didn’t know of her, even though she wept and shuddered with the emotions the Jakals so desired to devour. Days rotated further into the past, hunger easing so it was sharp but not agonizing, as did thirst, the presence of the Jakals fading within forty-eight hours until she was alone in truth.

      Splinters rammed under skin disappeared, mildew and mold rashes faded, cold gave way to warmth as her body slid to the third floor, the second…the first. Slow, the trip taking most of a day to make because she’d crawled up while in ferocious agony. There was the burn, the raw scorching along her hips, spine, and shoulders. Hair tangled, scalp torn and bloodied. Every inch bruised, bones even broken. Some twice over.

      Since the scenario was running backward, Darcio was confused. Three days ago she’d had broken bones, today she didn’t. How was that possible? He wasn’t required to seek the answer. Reule had only wanted to know if the Jakals had raped her. They hadn’t. They hadn’t even realized she was there, though he knew not how. Still, what trauma had left her alone in such a state? A fight? Had she been attacked after all, only by a different assailant?

      Confusion swept through him as his body ached and throbbed in sympathy with the plight and pain of a small woman who turned out to have the stamina and fortitude of the most seasoned warrior. Experiencing the trauma she’d undergone secondhand, Darcio wasn’t so sure he would’ve been so persistent or resourceful. Then again, she wasn’t Sánge, and his natural defenses would’ve made this a much altered experience for him.

      “Darc, stay focused,” he heard Reule encourage him gently, his Prime’s voice concerned but firm.

      So it continued. Dampness and the stench of the swamps and bogs of the damplands. Earth. Grass. Beneath his hands and knees. Crawling inch by inch over changing terrain, every movement exquisite agony, yet the only thing keeping him warm in the pre-winter chill. A fall, brutal, snapped his arm in two. Then soreness between his legs, hard aches in his thighs.

      Shadow felt Reule tense next to him, but his Prime mistook the cause of the discomfort. Darcio had been an accomplished horseman for far too long not to recognize a saddle-sore backside. The fall had been from a horse. She’d broken her arm falling from a high-set saddle. She’d fallen from pure exhaustion.

      Then there was riding, the speed breakneck. He could tell by the windburn on his face, the whipping of hair that pulled at a scalp already beaten raw. How? How had it come to be, the battering that caused pain to worsen as time drew nearer to the origination? He was close to the cause. Darcio could feel it, and he dreaded it. He dreaded it because he knew it would be worse than all the other pain he felt through her body’s memory.

      He had braced for it, yet still was blindsided. There was screaming oblivion and then vicious nausea. Blood from his mouth, his nose…everywhere. Shadow lurched forward and vomited violently.

      “Enough! Darcio, it’s enough!”

      Reule’s command was followed by the feel of his Prime’s hands gripping his shoulders. Shadow was sick again, caught up in the cycle of body memory and suddenly unable to let go.

      But as always, Reule was there for him. He felt the instant his ruler unleashed his own power. Reule used it to seize control of Darcio’s thoughts and emotions, jerking him into the present, into the steam and heat of the private bath.

      Forgive me, old friend. I asked too much. Reule’s regret weighed heavily in the telepathic sentence, but Darcio waved it off as he focused on his Packleader. Reule had pulled on a robe after leaving the tub, he realized, and the small detail centered him, pulling him even further away from the horrifying memories of what a small female body had endured these past few days.

      “I didn’t find out how she was originally injured,” he said apologetically. “I fear that was only half the hell she’s been through.”

      “You did enough.” Reule frowned darkly, lines of disturbed emotion etching into his forehead. “I’m sorry I even asked. Now I’m left with still more questions.”

      Darcio nodded, his body aching with the ghosts of pain and brutalization.

      Reule had one answer that he’d not had at the start of this, however.

      He now knew why she felt such sorrow.