“GhostWalker,” he murmured without opening his eyes. His hand landed on the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her hair again. “You’re a GhostWalker.”
The words weren’t entirely distinct, but he said them like he meant them. A declaration he wanted her to understand. To him it made a difference and it did to her as well. She wasn’t just a frightened little girl no one wanted. She was a GhostWalker. They might have flaws, but they had unbelievable enhancements and they had formed family units and were fiercely loyal to one another.
“Yes, honey, that I was a GhostWalker like you. You had the courage to tell me you loved me . . .”
“I do love you. So much, baby. Can’t think of a life without you.”
Her heart beat so hard at what she was going to say. At what she was going to do. That leap of faith she’d never taken in her life. She closed her eyes tight, squeezing them shut like a little child, inside, holding herself still, while her blood pounded wildly through her veins.
“I love you when I’ve never loved anyone else like this. With everything in me, so much it truly terrifies me.” She lifted her head inches off his chest and found herself looking into his glittering golden eyes.
7
Those eyes of his. Malichai Fortunes had the most unusual, beautiful golden eyes. They could be amber, or whiskey colored, or like now, a glittering gold that shone through the dark like a cat’s predatory eyes. They focused wholly on her. Instead of feeling frightened by his nonblinking stare, she returned it steadily.
“You don’t have to say that to me, Amaryllis.”
His voice was low, burning with passion or fever, she couldn’t decide which. Only that he was so ill and yet all he thought of was her. Never himself. Malichai was the most unselfish person in the world. She wanted to be like him. She wanted to be a woman who deserved to be his partner.
“I know I don’t, Malichai.” She lifted her chin and looked him straight in the eye, gathering her courage. He was courageous in everything he did. Everything he said. “I told you I loved you because I do. Absolutely I do. Every minute I spend in your company, I find I love you more.”
A slow smile curved his mouth and he lay back against the pillows. “I knew you’d fall for me, woman. It’s the way I wash dishes, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I can’t lie about that.” His eyes were already closing, scaring her. She wanted him talking to her, staying alert.
The phone rang again. She snatched it up the moment she saw it was from Ezekiel. He didn’t bother with a greeting. “Can you map out the cracks? That will help. You look at them now and draw them out? That will help show him what you’re seeing. He’s getting there as fast as possible. We’ll be on a plane in about fifteen minutes and I’ll be bringing a psychic surgeon with us.”
Relief swept through her so that her legs shook so much she had to sink completely down onto the bed beside Malichai. “Yes, I can do that.” She had no idea if she could, but she’d try. She was fairly good at drawing.
Ezekiel ended the call just as abruptly as he’d started it. She was beginning to see a pattern and was glad she wasn’t a woman who took offense easily. Amaryllis sat on the bed, pushed the sheet from Malichai’s leg and wrapped both hands around his calf. It was very hot to the touch. She could feel his muscles so defined and developed beneath the skin, but that didn’t stop the deterioration of the bone beneath.
When she looked up, his gaze was fixed on her face. Watching her. Looking for her to give him a sign everything was okay. Everything was not okay. Her world had crumpled around her. Her sweet Malichai. He’d turned her inside out with his frank confession. He moved her with everything he said or did. Everything he was. He had to live. He had to be saved.
She was terrified for him. Absolutely terrified. She had no idea what to do, how to wield all that power that was inside of her. She felt the power rising the moment she touched his damaged leg, the way it did when she was around anyone hurt. There was only Amaryllis Johnson, who didn’t know anything about healing to do it, and she needed to quit stalling and get on with it.
She focused her sight on his calf and allowed her vision to expand out of the narrow confines of what her mind told her she could see. At once, her hands, now hovering around Malichai’s leg, grew warm. Then hot. She could see the glow coming from her palms, a reddish orange light that caused her eyes to swim with tears. She had excellent night vision, thanks to the large cat DNA. She also had the DNA of birds of prey, which further enhanced her sight. She had to get past that and tap into sight beyond even that.
There was fear in her mind. Chaos even. Malichai meant too much to her and she was very afraid for him—very afraid of hurting him—of damaging his leg even further. She needed to quiet her mind and let all fear drop away, a difficult feat when terror for him was nearly paralyzing.
Amaryllis found she was hyperventilating. She wasn’t actually even healing him and yet she was already screwing up.
“Baby, breathe, you got this,” Malichai said gently. “You were born to do this.”
She knew she was. She knew it absolutely. She felt the heat. The power, the rising need to heal, but this was Malichai, the most important person in the world to her and she didn’t have a clue what she was doing. She gave a little shake of her head.
“Look at me, Amaryllis,” Malichai insisted.
She raised her gaze to his. His gold eyes captivated her. She felt as if she just fell into that deep, mysterious well and would drown in all that gold.
“Breathe with me. In and out. Feel your breath moving through your lungs. Concentrate on that. Don’t think about anything else until your mind is calm.”
Of course she knew how to center herself. It was one of the most basic things taught to them when they were children. Still, it felt different, like caring, when she followed Malichai’s lead. It didn’t matter to him that he was feverish, that he could barely understand what was happening to him or what was going on around him, she’d needed him and he’d found a way to come through for her. She had to come through for him—and she would.
She immediately focused on the air moving in and out of his lungs. He breathed slowly and evenly, but deeply, filling his lungs and letting it out slowly. Once she was breathing with him and concentrating on that, the chaos in her mind quieted.
With new determination, she looked at his leg, her palms once again hovering a scant quarter of an inch above it. She was able to let go of fear for him and just become a healing light. Immediately she focused on that. The lantern. What it looked like, what it felt like, how the light slowly turned away from her and into him.
Her vision changed subtly, became almost opaque, as if she were seeing through a dense, cloudy veil. Behind the veil was a map in the form of pure heat. Lines were bright red, so many of them, cracks in the bone running in every direction, with tiny bubbles of liquid boiling up through those cracks. It looked like she’d stumbled onto a volcano, with the magma spreading out under the ground in all directions, looking for veins to the surface.
She mapped out every single spiderweb crack she could see and then blinked rapidly to clear her vision. Sinking back onto her heels, she looked around his room. “I need something to draw on.”