He took her hand, and when she could sense neither warmth nor touch, she became downright o’erwrought. But he was there for her: “Shh . . . no, no, you’re okay. It’s just the pain medications. You’re okay and I’m here. Shh . . .”
His voice soothed her as surely as a stroking palm would have.
“Tell me,” she demanded, her voice reedy. “What . . . transpired?”
“Things went satisfactorily in the OR,” he said slowly. “I reset the vertebrae, and the spinal cord wasn’t completely compromised.”
Payne hitched her shoulders up and tried to resettle her heavy, aching head, but the contraption about her kept her right where she was. “Your tone . . . speaks more than your words.”
She got no immediate reply to that. He just kept soothing her with his hands that she could not feel. His eyes conversed with her own, however—and the news was not good.
“Tell. Me,” she bit out. “I deserve naught else.”
“It was not a failure, but I don’t know where you’ll end up. Time is going to tell us more than anything else.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, but the darkness terrified her. Throwing her lids open, she clung to the sight of her healer . . . and hated the self-blame in his handsome, grim face.
“’Tis not your fault,” she said roughly. “It is what is meant to be.”
Of that, at least, she was sure. He had tried to save her and done his level best—the frustration at himself was so very clear.
“What is your name?” he said. “I don’t know your name.”
“Payne. I am Payne.”
When he frowned again, she was fairly sure that the nomenclature did not please him, and she found herself wishing she had been birthed to other syllables. But there was another reason for his displeasure, wasn’t there. He had seen her from the inside and had to know she was different from him.
He had to know she was an “other.”
“What you suppose to be true,” she murmured, “is not wrong.” Her healer drew in a vast breath and seemed to hold it for a day. “What goeth on in your mind? Speak to me.”
He smiled a bit, and ah, how lovely that was. So lovely. ’Twas a shame it was not from humor, however.
“Right now . . .” He drew a hand through his thick, dark hair. “I’m wondering whether I should just let it all go and play dumb like I don’t know what’s going. Or get real.”
“Real,” she said. “I do not have the luxury of even a moment of falsity.”
“Fair enough.” His eyes locked on her. “I think that you—”
The door to the room opened a bit and a fully draped figure peered inside. Going by the delicate, pleasing scent, it was Jane, hidden beneath blue robing and a mask.
“It’s almost time,” she said.
Payne’s healer’s face became positively volcanic. “I do not agree with this.”
Jane came inside and shut them all in. “Payne, you’re awake.”
“Indeed.” She tried to smile and hoped that her lips moved. “I am.”
Her healer put his body betwixt them, as if he sought to protect her. “You can’t move her. It’s about a week too soon for that.”
Payne glanced over at the curtains that hung from the ceiling to the floor. She was nearly certain there were glass windows on the other side of the pale bolts of fabric, and very sure that if that were the case, every one of the sun’s rays would pierce through when dawn came.
Now her heart pounded and she did feel it behind her ribs. “I must go. How long?”
Jane checked a timepiece on her wrist. “About an hour. And Wrath is on his way here. Which will help.”
Perhaps that was why she felt so weak. She needed to feed.