Page 40 of From the Edge

“Will you leave your garden afterward?”

“Maybe.”

He sighed. “This is for your health and cessation of pain.”

“I might need the shield if someone attacks tomorrow. I might need to protect people.”

He paused, and he slid her into his arms. “You are scared.”

“Terrified. I have been fighting what I don’t understand for years. I don’t know what will happen if this little protection comes down.”

He followed the path to her garden, alive and glowing in the night. “You are gathering a community around you. You are no longer fighting alone.”

“No one was here before.” She sniffled.

“But they were; they are simply not instant. Your friend who came. What did she do?”

“Alora helped. She got me help. She has a weird adaptation, though.”

“What is it?” He walked her to the garden, and he breathed deep as he opened the lock to the gate. He steeled himself and walked into the garden.

“She’s a calmer. She keeps alphas calm when they go berserk. She just stands there and makes eye contact, and they shake their heads and ask what is going on. The Omega Centre hires her for first contacts.”

He set her on her feet. “Can you call your blood?”

“What do you want me to call it?”

He shook his head. “Save me from smart-mouthed omegas.”

She snorted. “You don’t have that kind of luck.” She sat on the path and put her hands, palm-up, in the dirt. She asked for her blood to come back to her for a while. The soil under her skin got wet, and the blood filled her hands. She lifted them to the healer. “What now?”

He smiled. “May I use the blood to heal you?”

“Yeah, sure. I am a little backed up, and you may be in the blast zone.”

He nodded. “I understand the warning. Thank you.”

She sat there with her blood on her hands, and he reached for her with those vines and flexible branches. She heard a humming sound, and it was coming from him. His lips were moving, and his eyes had a bright rainbow glow in them. The vines moved and drew lines on her body with the blood. When he had created puzzle pieces, light began to stream along the bloodlines.

She fell back as the shell on her started to crack. She felt her power pushing at the shield, and she hissed, “Here it comes.”

Light blazed around her in all the bright colours that normally resided under her skin. Wave after wave of power came out of her, and it roared in her ears, and she heard triumphant music coming from all around her. It was wild and beautiful, and it was for her.

Chapter Seven

The moon had moved when she sat up. “Well, that was something.”

She looked at the healer and covered her mouth to stifle her laugh. “Sorry about that.”

He smiled wryly. “What?”

“You just opened a glitter bomb. I hope it washes off.”

“That’s what the glamour is for.” He rubbed a hand over his features and grinned. “This is a first for me.”

She looked at her dress, and it was bloody but intact. The plants around them were spectacular and two feet taller than they had been before the healing started. “Oops.”

She shifted to kneel and looked at the jungle that was swaying in no breeze at all. “Aw, babies. You caught it all.”