Genesis Lost - Books 1 - 6, page 127
Rowan cupped her cheek, leaving smears of half-dried blood across her face. “There’s no saving me. I know, because I’ve been close to it many times. But there is saving all of you: the Clans, the Districts, the people.”
River kneeled down, his head tilted and his lips pursed for another moment before he spoke. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“You’re going to challenge me out there,” Rowan said, ignoring his wife’s sobs and the gasps of shock from all of us. The flow of blood seemed to stall in my veins for a moment, as we all continued to listen to his increasingly slurred words. “A fair one-on-one. And you will k-kill me and give yourself a rightful claim to both Clans. Bring the Clans together. Unite them. Then help the rest.”
“You’re asking me to kill you?” River’s body swayed, and he reached behind to sturdy himself as he let gravity pull him to sit on the ground. “They’ll never accept it if they see you were already injured.”
While Darya’s head pressed against her husband’s palm, the rest of us exchanged horrified glances. I pulled Kim in front of me and wrapped my arms around her tight, ignoring the scent of another man on her as I breathed in what lay underneath. Her body shook, trembled, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if mine did as well.
Eventually, with Rowan’s stare remaining resolved, determined, all eyes went to Max, who still held his son and daughter in one arm each. Then he struggled his head into a curt nod, only saying one thing. “Adrenaline.”
Twenty-Six
Oriel
The small backroom had turned oxygen-deprived with this many people inside, the moisture our breath left behind clinging to my hair, my shirt.
While Max wrapped Rowan in several rolls of bandages, hiding his injuries, I stroked over Kim’s chaffed cheek and scanned each and every scratch and scrape on her body.
“You feeling okay?”
She leaned over and pressed her forehead against my good shoulder, heaviness dragging the tone of her voice low. “No, I’m not okay. But I’m not injured if that’s what you mean.”
I lifted her hand and tapped one of her fingers, where blood had long dried brown around her knuckles. “You split half a nail here. We’ll have to cut it. Make sure it grows back alright. Get the skin out from underneath the others while we’re at it.”
“I fought back.”
I took her into my arm and stroked along her hair, my heart almost exploding over the sheer amount of pride it held. “Yeah, you fought back something fucking fierce, baby. I watched you. Saw how you wouldn’t give up. I’m so proud of you.”
She snorted, the shake of her head making her hair crunch against my collarbone. “If I would have let him, Rowan wouldn’t be…”
Her voice broke, and she swallowed audibly, each one of them filled with tears I knew she refused to shed out of respect for the chieftain and his wife.
“He was already injured, Kim. You should have seen him out there. He didn’t let anybody through the eastern side. Nothing about this is your fault. Nobody knew those two guys had breached, and it caught him off guard is all.”
“But —”
“Your breathing will turn shallow,” Max said to Rowan, but loud enough for all of us to hear so we’d know what to expect. “But your heart rate will pick up, pumping more blood into your stomach cavity and your lungs. It will speed up the process of —”
“Dying,” Rowan grunted. “Yeah, I got it. But nobody will be able to see the blood, right?”
“I wrapped the bullet holes tight, but you’re bleeding internally.”
Rowan slowly rose from his cot, pretending hard there wasn’t a sway in his torso by shaking out his arms, but I saw it regardless. “River, you’ll have to break my nose first thing. Make it look like that’s where the blood’s coming from.”
River let out one, deep, desperate sigh, but it was good enough for Rowan to count as a yes.
“How long until the adrenaline wears off?” I asked.
Max smacked his lips and gave a one-sided shrug. “In his case? Five minutes perhaps. No more than ten.”
Rowan glanced over to his sister, who had remained deep asleep through all this, then he leaned into Darya and whispered something in her ear to which she only responded with a blink of her eyes.
“Where’s little fart?” Rowan asked.
Silas quickly picked up the child and hurried over to his chieftain, holding Rose up high, the baby’s feet dangling high above the ground.
“My life started the moment aunty Autumn dropped you on my doorstep and yelled at me to cut the shit,” he said and took her into his arms. He let her hands dig into his beard, taking in each pore on her face, each hair, each speck of color, his gaze was that thorough. “You were thirteen pounds and two ounces, and you used it all to make me grow beside you.” He placed a kiss onto her forehead, detangled her from his beard, and handed her back to Silas. Then he turned to River, but his gaze wandered over each one of us. “My family —”
“Always cared for,” River said quickly, his voice tense. “They will be safe, and they will be loved. One day, Rose will hear how her dad sacrificed himself for the good of the people.”
A stuttered breath escaped the chieftain, but he continued to speak before he would show any weakness. “A minute with my wife, please. I’ll be right out after that, so please be ready.”
We all left the room and joined the rest of the Clan in the main hall, where injured men were spread across the floor on cots, tended to by two of our remaining medics and their wives if they were lucky enough.
The room reeked of vomit and blood, but the hint of seared flesh was what made bile roil at the bottom of my stomach. We had taken a bad hit, and it was hard to tell just what kind of dent we left among Xavier’s men. Could have been significant. Could have been nothing. Who knew?
Our holo-bands had started working again the moment they left and took the interrupter with them, but we thought it best not to alarm Adair and the others. If they were still alive and unharmed, we figured our silence might keep it that way until they returned. If they returned.
“Pain killer?” Max asked and pointed at my arm. “We might have to open up that shoulder again. Or at least put you on another round of antibiotics. Once… well, I’d like to put another brace on you, and make sure you won’t use that arm for at least three weeks.”
“I’m good. There’s so much pain around me; I barely noticed mine ever since I got back.”
He gazed over at Kim, who tended to the wounded, supporting their heads and offering them tiny sips of water. “Is she okay? I noticed the tear in her pants, and the blood under her nails.”
“She’s fine.”
And she was. Now more than ever.
Something about her had changed when she fought off that guy, I could see it in the way her spine had straightened, and her features had softened into something more open, more honest.
Max checked his holo-band. “Alright. I’ll go back there and get him ready. Tell River.”
I didn’t need to tell River.
He stood across from us on the other side of the room, giving me a quick nod before he turned around and kissed Ayanna on the forehead. Then he gave a pat against Silas’ shoulder, the young man holding on to Rose as if he’d fight everyone to the death who wanted to come near that child.
As soon as Kim noticed the movement, she hurried over to me and flung herself into my arms, sending a stabbing pain down my arm, making me regret I had turned down those pain killers.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, gazing up at me from red-rimmed eyes. “I forgot.”
“It’s alright, baby. Feel free to shoot me again if you ever fall out of love with me. It’s a weird kink for sure, but I won’t mind some lead in my body if it means you’ll stay.”
She caressed my cheek, staring up at me from those dark eyes of hers. “I’ll try to do it without shooting from now on.”
We both turned and watched as the door to the back room opened, and Rowan stepped outside seemingly unharmed and as strong and intimidating as ever.
If it weren’t for his shallow breath and the way his eyes darted restless about the room, I wouldn’t have been able to tell something was off. Though the paleness of his face spoke of his loss of blood.
And as everyone watched our chieftain, the main hall resonated in claps and cheers over the man who had fought off the attack, who had brought safety for the women, and who had given us seventeen months of rest after years of uncertainty.
But the joy quickly died down as River stepped up in the center of the room, squared his chest, and spit on the ground in front of him. “I challenge you, chieftain Rowan.”
Rowan walked up in front of River, then tried to remain still though there was a constant jitter in one of his legs.
“This isn’t right,” someone yelled from the crowd, the strain in the man’s voice, leaving no doubt he had fought tonight. “The chieftain has fought off the attack, and the challenge —”
Rowan silenced him with a wave of his hand. “Yeah, I fought. But so did he! We’re both exhausted, which only makes it… f-fair.”
Kim and I exchanged a concerned look over the way Rowan tried to control his limbs, his voice, and even his face over the effects of the adrenaline. His foot tapped the floor relentlessly, and sweat had already started to bead along his forehead. Rapidly blinking, his eyes gave away the fake energy spreading, carrying through his blood, yet his posture remained otherwise still, strong.
River took a deep breath and gazed up at our chieftain, not saying another word until Rowan sent a punch toward his stomach. He evaded it and sidestepped, then snarled. “I am the son of chieftain Olaf and rightful heir to the Clan of the Mountains. There’s proof. Witnesses.”
“You’re far from home then,” Rowan snarled. “This ain’t the mountains, River.”
“No, but this is where I’ll start to reinstate the honor of my family.”
Rowan gave the hint of a nod, barely visible to the eyes of the bystanders unless you expected it. From the corner of my eyes, I watched how Darya collapsed against one of the wooden columns, where Ayanna and Max reached out for her.
Gasps resonated the room like a wave of shock.
By the time my eyes flicked back to the center, River must have punched Rowan straight in the face.
The chieftain held a hand to his mouth, his nose already spilling blood. People had shrunk back, watching the fight unfold in front of them.
Nobody paid attention to the way bright red blood mixed with the dark, old one he coughed up from his lungs, his stomach. Even from feet away, I could see how thick it was, how it had started to clot inside his ragged organs.
There was no attention to detail here. Only the people of our Clan.
Staring.
Sitting tight.
Nobody got involved in a fair challenge, no matter in which high esteem everyone held the chieftain. There was no shock. No shame. Just the rules laid out for our Clan almost two centuries ago, when everything went to shit, establishing Darwin’s theory of evolution.
This was the survival of the fittest, and no matter how banged up Rowan was, he sure put up a fucking fight — and not only for show.
He slammed his fists into River’s chest, making that man in his prime look like a teenager who hadn’t found his strength yet.
River stumbled backward, his ribcage expanding wide as he cocked his head and threw our chieftain a what-the-fuck kind of glance.
“Did you expect me to go down easily?” Rowan asked, his voice submerged in blood, and his red teeth leaving no doubt the warrior suffocated faster with each punch he threw.
River took a deep breath, his lips sealed tight, his eyes filled with premature grief, and launched himself forward.
He lowered his head and rammed his shoulders into Rowan’s chest, making a swell of blood ooze out of the chieftain’s mouth and run down his back.
Rowan lay on the ground, his eyes rolling around in their sockets unchecked as River towered over him. And just as River approached, Rowan brought him to the ground with a swift hook of his leg.
Then our chieftain laughed, the notion not audible anymore, yet I could see it in his face. The wide grin, that superiority that man still held even seconds from his death.
Kim pressed her head against my chest, and I held her, both of us equally tense, equally suppressing the quiver in our bodies.
She didn’t watch how River fucking crawled over and wrapped his hands around Rowan’s neck, fighting back those tears I knew he couldn’t let go as he squeezed. His arms trembled from more than just exhaustion. And slowly, so fucking slowly, it made the life fade from Rowan.
We all stared at his corpse for several minutes, as if none of us could believe he wouldn’t get up at any moment now, throwing another punch, another kick.
But he didn’t.
His body never twitched, never jerked. He just lay there motionless, bloodless. A man who had sacrificed himself for the people, yet the people would never know of it.
To them, it was a challenge like we had them hundreds of times before. Rowan was another chieftain come and gone, with only a handful of people knowing just how great he was.
The longhouse went still after that for what felt like lifetimes, the only noise the sobs and wails coming from Darya who had collapsed onto the ground, comforted by the wife of the man who had killed her husband.
And then, Max stepped forward, speaking in little more than a whisper. “All hail chieftain River.”
Whoever had the strength to stand did, but everyone left with breath in his lungs joined in the communal hum. “All hail chieftain River.”
I lost a tear in Kim’s soft, black hair, and together we joined the rest in a mumble. “All hail chieftain River.”
Twenty-Seven
… 3 months later
Kim
I pulled the red currants from their twigs and dropped them into the bowl on my lap, working thoroughly through the plant. Some had burst and stained my fingers a light red, their sweetness spreading across my tongue as I licked them.
“Think that’s enough?” Ruth asked and showed me a small heap of black currants rolling around in a metal bowl.
“Yup. It’s just the four of us, after all, but nothing beats pancakes with whipped cream and fresh currants.”
“Those seedlings took off, didn’t they?”
I gave her a wink. “Thanks to your greenhouse.”
“It’s a sunroom, not a greenhouse.”
“Are you girls done over there?” Adair shouted from the corner of the house. “Oriel is about to burn the pancakes if you care to know.”
I got up and walked over, while Ruth followed me with steps that reminded us all of a waddle more and more each day. She still had a bit to go, but her baby bump took no notion of it, seemingly bursting at the seams.
The moment we stepped inside, we were greeted by a blaring fire alarm and two men who jumped up at the ceiling, trying to get it to turn off.
When they finally did, Oriel turned around and threw me a boyish grin. “I don’t care what Adair says. Fact is, I only burned one.”
“Did you manage with the whipped cream?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s already on the table.”
Adair carried over a plate stacked high with pancakes, most of them a bit too brown for my taste, but I only placed a thankful kiss onto my husband’s cheek. “Thanks, baby. Let me wash those and put them in a bowl.”
By the time I served the mix of red and black currants sprinkled with a hint of sugar, everyone had sat down at the table. Without another word spoken, we grabbed pancakes and handed around the bowl with whipped cream, topping it with the berries.
“Thanks for coming,” Oriel said.
“Thanks for having us,” Ruth said with a sincere smile. “Too bad Autumn couldn’t make it.”
“She’s overwhelmed with nursing Nathalie and Rowan,” I said. “But Max also told us she isn’t ready to mingle yet.”
Adair grunted. “It’s bad enough to lose a brother, but I think what bothers her most is that she wasn’t there when it happened. You know, couldn’t say goodbye.”
“Can’t blame her,” Oriel said and served himself another heap of whipped cream. “But I saw Darya up at Wolf Lake two days ago, letting Rose play by the edge of the water. She seems… okay enough, I guess.”
“Was Silas there, too?” Ayanna asked.
“Uh-huh. That young man is taking his new responsibility solemn. He drags Rose around, changes her diaper, reads her books, pushes her in that little baby swing.”
“That’s cute,” Adair said. “She’s lucky she’s a girl, or people might have voiced some complaints by letting her live.”
A clank made us all look up.
Ruth had dropped her fork onto the plate, hauling her ass toward the bathroom in little less than a sprint.
Adair’s lips pulled into a smirk. “I hope she didn’t pee herself again. Baby keeps kicking her bladder.”
Oriel and I exchanged a quick but warm glance, and his hand came searching for mine.
“What about you, guys?” Adair asked. “No baby yet?”
“Kim is still wearing that implant of hers. Like a birth control kind of thing.”
“But Max could take it out, right?”
“Yeah.” Oriel dunked his fork into the bowl with whipped cream without shame and licked it off. “We figured we’d wait a little longer; enjoy time with just the two of us before we expand.”
“Sorry about that,” Ruth said and joined us at the table once more, shoving uncomfortably in her seat.
“Peed yourself?” Adair asked.
“Shut up.”
Adair’s face scrunched up, and his body jerked after Ruth must have kicked him somewhere underneath the table.
We did this once a week now, meeting up for either waffle or pancake breakfast. My garden carried the first fruits thanks to the starters Ruth had given us, and I had enough zucchini to feed the entire village because, well, nobody told me just how much that plant thrived even under my primitive care.
