“She came, Mari,” Briony said softly. “Hopefully, she can help. She’s just going to take a look and see.”
“Cami.” Marigold breathed her nickname more than spoke it. “I never thought you would come after what I did.”
Camellia waved her hand as if dismissing the past. She walked briskly across the room, extending her hand to Ken. “I’m Camellia Mist. We just missed meeting one another a few years back. Thank you for what you did. Getting us out of that hellish place. I certainly hope I can help. Let me take a look. I’ll need to put my hands on you, Mari. Jonas will have to as well. Does it hurt to be touched?”
There were bruises all over Marigold’s skin. Marigold hadn’t taken her eyes from Camellia. She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Do whatever you have to do. I can’t even hold my babies anymore, Cami. I can’t hold them when they cry. I can’t feed them.” Tears welled up. “I promised I wouldn’t cry if you came. I don’t want to put pressure on you. No one has been able to help. If this is my punishment for what happened to Ivy...”
“Stop it, Mari,” Camellia said decisively. “Whitney is responsible for what happened to Ivy. Not you. Not me. Whitney.”
Jonas knew that long fall just got longer. He loved her. There was no getting around it. Loving someone was grounded in who they were. Their character. The traits that made them who they were. He admired and respected Camellia Mist the more he spent time with her, not just in her mind, where he could see how she thought, but in the way she conducted herself and the way she dealt with other people.
“They’ve tried all the therapies available for von Willebrand disease,” Ken volunteered. “None of them have worked. They diagnosed her with VWD type 3, said it was rare and they couldn’t cure it.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “Lily has stuck with us, doing everything she could. She was the one who sent word to the other teams, asking them to send us one of their healers. When Tansy called Briony and said there was a chance you might be able to help, we grabbed at it with both hands.”
Camellia nodded as if she understood. “I won’t know until I see what’s going on. Please don’t think I’m a miracle worker, because I’m not. Jonas, you’ll need to stand on the other side of the bed. Kyle? I’ll need a bottle of water and a cloth of some kind. Jeff, you might need the same for Jonas. The rest of you, this might take some time if I can help. If I can’t, I should know fairly quickly.”
Jack gathered the things she requested and gave them to Kyle and Jeff. Camellia took a deep breath and looked across the bed atJonas. For the first time, he realized she hadn’t once really met Marigold’s eyes.
Are you all right, baby?
Don’t be nice to me. I can’t fall apart. This is much more difficult than I expected. She looks as if she’s at death’s door. It’s bad, Jonas. Whatever is happening inside her body, it’s bad. All this time, I’ve been just miles away, holding a grudge, and she’s been dying slowly, inch by inch.
He clenched his teeth. She was ashamed and feeling guilty, not hurt and angry at Marigold. He should have known that would be her reaction when Mari was so ill. Camellia had that enormous soft spot he needed to protect.
I’m looking at death, we both are. I had so much to say to her. If I had just let go of the hurt and come down the mountain, I would have been able to talk to her. Say things. Tell her I love her. That nothing else really matters.
She made his heart hurt. She also made him so damn proud.
All right, honey, let’s get this done. She isn’t going to die. Take a breath and let’s go see what Whitney did with his crap drug.Deliberately, he brought up their nemesis to steady her.
Camellia squared her shoulders and nodded at him. “All right, Mari, why don’t you lie down and get comfortable. We’ll both just rest our hands very gently on your arms. Hopefully that won’t hurt you.”
Ken stood up to help his wife lie back down. He was very gentle, but it was obvious, even with his hands touching her around her waist, shifting her down along the mattress with care, it still hurt her. She was stoic, looking up into Ken’s eyes and doing her best to smile at him, but there was pain etched on her face, whether she knew it or not. Stark love was on Ken’s scarred face, so much love that just seeing it made Jonas feel like he’d intruded on something profoundly intimate. He quickly glanced away and fixed his gaze on Camellia.
He hoped to God Camellia would be able to help Marigold. Because if she couldn’t, there was no doubt in his mind that Mari was going to die. Ken was well aware of it. Jack and Briony knew it too. As did Logan and probably all of Team Two. It was no wonder Briony had made her impassioned plea. Camellia was their last-ditch effort. Tansy had called Briony in spite of Kaden’s directive not to because she knew Marigold was dying.
Jonas wasn’t certain anymore that things were all black or white. Lines were blurred. Each of the women had done things none of them would have chosen to do because it went against what the men considered right. The women made their decisions partially based on compassion. Hell, maybe wholly based on compassion.
Jonas. I need you with me.
Camellia’s soft call yanked his full attention back to her. She was afraid of what she was going to find. He nodded his head, and Camellia placed her palms very lightly on Marigold’s skin. Jonas didn’t need to put his hands on the woman. Camellia’s body’s reaction was so strong he felt the explosion of chemicals bursting through her. A million neurons reacted to what felt like an archenemy as she connected Mari’s body to hers through the pads of her fingers and the pores of her skin. The jolt was so strong, she staggered, her body unable to stand with the amount of adrenaline and weapons it was marshaling to fight off the molecular warfare taking place in Mari’s body. Already Camellia’s body was forming the necessary antioxidants and proteins Marigold lacked in her cells in order to provide normal clotting.
Kyle caught her around the waist and stood behind her, allowing her to lean against him. Briony gasped and covered her mouth. To the side of Jonas, Jeff waved his hand toward the door, clearly signaling to Briony to leave the room if she couldn’t be quiet. Camellia required every bit of concentration she could possibly muster. There couldn’t be any distractions. Jack put his arms aroundBriony to steady her and leaned against the wall. Only then did Jonas put his hands on their patient.
He was more prepared for what he saw after the jolt he felt when Camellia had connected with Mari. His vision changed dramatically, just as it did when he called on the eyes of an eagle or a wolf. This time, his healer vision was sharper than it had been with Kaden. The heat was still white-hot and silvery when he looked at Mari’s body, but he guessed that allowed him to penetrate through skin to see organs inside.
His hands didn’t possess the surface sensitivity Camellia’s did, but his pores in the pads of his fingers and palms wept clear liquid into Mari’s pores, and the moment that happened, his veins and arteries, already connected with Camellia, were attached to Marigold’s. There was blood everywhere there shouldn’t be. Her internal organs dripped blood like leaky faucets.
Jonas marveled at the vast network of star-shaped neurons pulsing with energy and information throughout her body. There were so many of them, galaxies of them.
Somewhere around eighty-six billion,Camellia murmured absently. Her eyes were pure silver, the blue gone.Look for something that seems off in color. It wouldn’t be in her blood. It’s going to be hiding in her bone marrow, where the blood is made.
Everything looked off in color to him. Her bone marrow? What the hell was Camellia talking about? He turned his peculiar vision to Marigold’s marrow to inspect it, not that he’d ever looked at anyone’s bone marrow. He wasn’t a doctor. He had no aspirations to be a doctor.
Think of the bone marrow as a factory, Jonas. We need red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma. The bone marrow is where that’s produced. Something is going wrong with Marigold’s platelets, with the clotting process. If she developed von Willebrand’s disease from prolonged use of Zenith, then the damage would have to be in the bone marrow.
She was musing aloud, like she did. Well, not aloud, only to him, but she was talking to herself really, puzzling it out, trying to figure out what was wrong. He remained silent, allowing her to use him as a sounding board. He couldn’t help her, but he did begin scanning the bone marrow in the hopes of seeing something that might be an odd color. He didn’t hold out much hope he would, considering that it all looked odd to him, but he kept looking, determined to try to be of some help.
Jonas, look at this mess. It’s like an army is attacking her. Or a bomb went off. This isn’t cancer. It’s a reaction to the Zenith. You can see where it starts, and then it just grows.
