Circle of the Stars

Chapter 4 - Thane

I clamped my free hand against my temple. My brain. Something opened in my head. It was as big as a galaxy and as small as a molecule. It lit me up from the inside out. Flashing colors strobed under my clenched eyelids like I'd rubbed my eyes too hard.

My knees buckled and we both crashed to the ground. Groans punched through my gritted teeth as I tried to breathe. My lungs felt like they were on fire.

"Thane. Make it sthop. Pleasth, make it sthop," Hollyn whispered. Pain feasted at the edge of her voice.

I sucked air greedily into my lungs as the pain vanished as quickly as it had descended. I popped my eyelids wide and stared up at the ceiling of the elevator. I counted the dust motes in the air. Inspected the individual striations in the wood paneling.

I rolled to my side, every bone aching. Muscles felt like they were tearing from tendons. Tendons from bone. Separate nerves fired and I could trace them from body part to brain in a single sweep of neuron transmission.

"Hollyn," I whispered. All of my senses were turned up to full power. My hearing. My taste. My touch. The hardwood floor of the elevator car felt like mountains and valleys of smooth pressure against my legs and back.

I reached out when I didn't hear her reply. "Hollyn?" I called again. My hand landed on her lower leg.

She jerked at the contact. "It hurts, Thane. Why does it hurt?" She whimpered as I followed the line of her leg to her upper thigh.

I grabbed the edge of her hip bone and tugged her flat to the floor. Shaking my head to try to adjust my too-clear vision, I rolled up on an elbow and looked down at her.

Her upper teeth were sunken into her completely healed lip. Her brows pinched together over her nose as it wrinkled in obvious discomfort. The rest of her lower face was still covered in smeared blood, but the skin underneath it was luminous. The golden hue of a true sunworshipper.

Under the brilliant artificial light in the elevator, her hair shone a purple so dark it was almost black. I ran a hand over it, tugged its knotted and tangled lengths from the sticky blood on her throat and chin.

"Hollyn, open your eyes," I said softly. If her hearing and other senses were as heightened as mine, I didn't want to cause her more pain with my voice.

She shook her head slightly from side to side. Honestly, it was more an energy shift from right to left than any actual movement.

"Come on, Stretch. You can do it." I petted a hand over her hair.

She grimaced at me, eyes still closed. "That's funny coming from a giant." She wrinkled her nose.

Without warning, her eyes popped open and she sat up in one swift bone-crunching motion.

Our foreheads cracked together.

My brain swirled around in my skull in sickly waves that reminded me of being on the ocean. "Damnit, Hollyn."

"You were the one leaning over me. How are my teeth fixed?"

I peeked through my lashes to see her running her dirty fingers over her new two front teeth. "I don't know. But what did you do to me?" I leaned back against the wall, held my head steady between my hands. It didn't completely stop the motion sickness, but it made me feel better about it.

"Why didn't you tell me you had magic?" She pushed herself to the far side of the elevator car. "I've only felt one other person with that kind of power."

I snorted. "Magic? Are you kidding me? There's no such thing." This woman doesn't know what cars are and she believes in magic. Maybe bringing her home wasn't the best idea. I turned my head the slightest degree so I could look at her.

Her face was stony. "You're not joking."

She shook her head. Then moaned and grabbed at her temples. "Why won't it stop? Just make it stop," she whimpered low in her throat and slid to her side back down on the floor.

"What's hurting you?" Except for the sickening motion of the elevator, I was feeling a little better.

"Everything. It feels like I have steel wool in my veins. Like someone took an acetylene torch to my muscles. And a small angry gnome is chewing on my bones." She rocked herself as tears slid from her eyes.

Her anguish pulled at something deep inside me.

The elevator rocked to a gentle stop that felt like the ocean was trying to capsize a freighter. I clamped my lips shut and breathed through my nose until my belly settled again. I reached out to Tagan and Toven. It didn't work every time, but it was pretty consistent.

You guys at home yet? I asked them mentally. Hoped whatever allowed us to use it was working today.

Yeah. I've got the med bag. What do you need us for again? Tagan asked.

I'm in the elevator. Come help me, I said. They'd see for themselves soon enough what the problem was.

The doors swished open on a silent sigh. My brothers were standing there, arms crossed. Toven sprang forward for the woman, of course. Tagan stood back and waited to see what the situation was.

"What the f**k happened to her?" Toven asked as he felt for her pulse.

Hollyn shrieked and tried to meld with the wall. She scrabbled back as quickly as possible, her butt and hips already smashed into the paneling. "Get away. Get away. Get away." She slapped at his hands.

There was a whole new kind of terror in her voice. It set my teeth on edge as my thoughts conjured situations that would warrant that exhausted, aggrieved tone.

Toven grabbed his head as he stumbled to his knees. "Thane?" he looked at me before his eyes rolled up in his head.

Tagan darted in, hit the stop button on our private elevator. He pulled Toven from the opening and glared down at Hollyn. "What did she do to him?"

I shook my head as I struggled to my feet. My knees were so weak they were knocking together. "I don't know. It happened to me as well. And her, if I'm not mistaken. Help me get her into the house though." I reached down to grab her, stumbled forward.

Tagan grabbed my shoulder before I could crack my head open against the stainless-steel railing. "Get your ass in the house. Drag Tove if you can. I'll get her."

"Be careful with her, Tag." I lurched forward, shoulder crashing into the elevator door jamb. I leaned down and grabbed Tove's shirt. It stretched to the point of transparency, but it held enough for me to edge him into the foyer.

Tagan walked in behind me. Hollyn draped over his arms. The look on his face...If I hadn't seen it for myself, I wouldn't have believed it. It was soft. His storm cloud gray eyes were gentle as he traced her features with his gaze. "Who is she?" he asked, his voice a low rumble of thunder. Of the three of us, he had the deepest voice. Thunder was a pretty good analogy.

"Says her name is Hollyn. She...I'm pretty sure she's a human unicorn or something." I dropped Tove's shirt and moved to shut the front door. It locked automatically as I turned and slid down to the floor. As my ass hit the ground, my head bobbed and weaved one more time. I couldn't push it off this time. I sank into that void deep in my brain.