markings the butchers at the base had left on him.
Fury darkened every face.
Amiriska continued to gently comb her brother’s hair back from his face as she met Seth’s gaze. A muscle twitched in her cheek. “I want to kill the bastards who did this.”
“We already did,” Seth said.
“Then bring them back so I can kill them again.”
“Would that I could,” he muttered.
Melanie cut the rest of Taelon’s clothing away, then draped a towel across his hips.
Amiriska bent and pressed a kiss to Taelon’s forehead—tears still streaming down her cheeks, nose red—and backed away a step.
Everyone else took a step back, too.
Everyone save Seth. “Lisa,” he said.
Her whole body trembling, she looked up at him.
“You’ll have to release him.”
Incapable of speech, she shook her head.
“Please. It will make healing him easier if you aren’t touching him.”
She wanted to comply but couldn’t seem to make her hand let go of his. Tears welled in her eyes.
Amiriska rounded the table. Covering Lisa and Taelon’s clasped hands, she gently disengaged Lisa’s grasp, then twined her own fingers through Lisa’s and held on tight. “It’s okay. Seth is going to help him.”
Lisa forced a nod but didn’t step back.
Amiriska stood close, her shoulder and arm brushing Lisa’s. “Go ahead.”
Seth rested one hand on Taelon’s chest and the other on Taelon’s forehead.
Amiriska frowned. “He received these wounds at the base?”
“Yes,” Lisa responded.
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. They should’ve healed by now.”
Lisa swallowed past the lump in her throat. “He said the same thing. He’s worried that… whatever the doctors at the base did to him may have permanently damaged his ability to regenerate.” Lisa’s attention remained fastened on Taelon and Seth. Her breath caught when Seth’s hands acquired a golden glow.
She felt more than saw Amiriska look at her. “You know what my brother is?”
“Yes.” Astonishment rippled through Lisa as the incision in Taelon’s chest lost the angry red coloring and began to shrink, the flesh miraculously knitting itself back together. Her eyes widened. Another of those painful cramps ripped through her abdomen. The baby kicked hard and shifted, as though she felt it, too. Wincing, Lisa leaned forward slightly and rubbed her belly with her free hand.
Taelon’s wounds continued to heal. Every burn, every raw patch of missing skin, every cut, every bruise, every scar faded as Seth’s hands glowed brighter.
Someone touched her back.
“Are you okay?” Melanie asked.
Lisa hadn’t even seen her approach. “Yes,” she managed to whisper as she struggled to breathe through the cramp.
Melanie pressed gloved fingers to Lisa’s wrist. “Are you in labor?”
“I don’t think so.” She breathed a sigh of relief when the pain eased.
Seth’s hands ceased glowing. When he withdrew them, Taelon’s body was free of wounds, the only reminder of his torture the dark stitches that now decorated healthy flesh. “It’s the baby.”
Melanie shot him a quick look. “What do you mean?”
“The baby feels Taelon’s pain and inadvertently transfers it to her mother.”
Lisa cupped her belly. “What?” The baby felt Taelon’s pain?
Amiriska frowned. “How is that possible? Is the baby an empath?”
“No.” Seth lowered his hands to his sides. “It’s Taelon’s baby.”
Chapter Thirteen
Amiriska gasped and focused wide eyes on Lisa. “You’re carrying Taelon’s baby?”
She nodded absently. Why was everyone standing around as if Seth hadn’t just performed a freaking miracle? He had laid hands on Taelon’s wounds, and now all of them were gone.
Amiriska’s face lit up with a wide smile. “Oh my goodness! Congratulations!” Releasing Lisa’s hand, she wrapped her arms around Lisa and gave her an exuberant hug.
Caught off guard, Lisa hugged her back.
“Ami,” Seth cautioned softly.
Backing away, Amiriska reclaimed Lisa’s hand, her face wreathed with a grin. “I’m going to be an aunt! I can’t believe it! How long have you two been together? How did you meet? Why didn’t he come to me as soon as he arrived? How did the assholes at the base get their hands on him?”
“Ami,” Seth said again.
She glanced up at him. “Yes?”
“It isn’t like that. It isn’t what you think.”
Her smile lost some of its brightness as she looked from Seth to Lisa and back again. “What do you mean?”
Seth kept his somber gaze on Amiriska. “They didn’t meet until the night we blitzed the military base that held them both.”
Amiriska’s smile vanished as she looked at Lisa’s large, protruding belly. “I don’t understand. She must be at least eight months along and—”
“The military captured your brother while you were pregnant with Adira and have held him ever since.”
Amiriska’s face paled. “They’ve had him for three years?”
“A