Page 32 of Planet Wolf

Carl stepped further into the room. “Sadness, yes. But also, longing? And confusion.”

“General distress.” Jadon closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “Hard to make anything out under the sadness. You’d never get past that, Alfie. You have to fix it. The healer needs to know why. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

He lowered his head. “I can fix so many things but not this right now. Can we take her with us?”

Jadon opened his lids. “We’re in no condition to do so. We don’t have the means to break a patient out of here, and I doubt they’d just let us take her, regardless of your status as her daughter. We’d have to get a court order.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’ll send back a group when we get home to steal her. Using stealth, they’ll get it done, if that’s what our mate wants. Do you? It’s okay to say no.”

Alfie widened his eyes. It might destroy him if I said no. They had plans, but he still had to make my mother well and to fix me. He wanted to do those two things so much more than following the outline they’d made to fix things. I blinked. That had happened in the woods, too. All of a sudden, I could hear in my head what they thought. Or maybe what I thought they were thinking?

“What’s that face?” Alfie rose and took my cheeks in his hands. I loved when they did that. I could melt into them. Yep… I had it bad.

“I had the sensation that I could hear your thoughts for a second. I had the same thing happen with Carl in the woods before. Just… weird. I’m clearly crazy. We can’t hear each other’s thoughts, right?”

Alfie slowly grinned at me. “I can’t believe the small things you’re getting from this mating. Traditionally, the female partner of the mating can in fact read some of the male’s thoughts. Not constant. But she’s able to hear big thoughts that he sends to her. Maybe I was doing that. Maybe Carl did it without thinking. Of course, Jadon doesn’t, he’s always been so controlled.”

Jadon shook his head. “I’d like her to hear my thoughts, too. I can try pushing my stuff out to her. I’m going to do that. I’m not… controlled when it comes to my mate.”

Alfie didn’t seem to particularly care what Jadon had to say at that moment as he held my gaze. “What did you hear me think? What am I projecting?”

Carl rubbed my back. “What did I think in the woods?”

“Well, actually there was a running theme between the two of you but also different. It had to do with a plan you’re both concerned with, but then, Carl, the rest of your thoughts were about me. Wanting me. With Alfie, it was health things, about my mom and me. Wanting to make us better more than you wanted the plan.” I paused. “Is there a plan I should know about? If this all turns out to be some game I need to know about…”

Jadon kissed my cheek. “We can talk about that on the ship, okay? Yes, there’s a plan. No, it’s absolutely not a game, although I like games. I’d love to chase you and catch you.”

Alfie groaned. “No one is chasing her anywhere until I get her fixed up, but we can figure out other games. Yes, I want to make you better more than anything, and now I also want to fix your mom. I don’t think you have the same thing by the way. Not at all. Yours is physical while hers seems to be coming from an emotional state. Do you want us to send someone to get her?”

I slipped from his embrace to touch my mother’s hair. “Could we take care of her there? Obviously, she needs full time help.”

Alfie nodded. “Better than they are here, yes, so this is up to you, sweetheart. I might even be able to fix her. Really, our medical facilities dwarf what they can do here.”

“Okay.” I kissed my mother’s cheek. “I’m going to do better, Mom. They’re going to send some people here to get you and bring you to me and then Alfie. He is very smart and good at his job, and he’s going to help us both.”

I hugged her, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, her arms came around me, holding onto me tightly. She tried to say something but then stopped. I wished I could know what she was saying. I’d do anything for her. We’d never known each other, other than when I was an infant.

She’d come home wrecked, that was all I ever heard. They wouldn’t say what happened to her, she had me, and then eventually had to be taken here. For four years, they tried to take care of her at home, but she kept vanishing in the middle of the night. As she also became more and more uncommunicative, they got scared.

Could we have done better? I didn’t know, not really. No one had asked me. I was four at the time, but I’d been embraced in the love of my big, loud, rich family, and it seemed disloyal to the people who loved me as their own to complain because I didn’t have my mother. It had been me who had stopped asking to go visit. That was on me. Maybe I could be forgiven for ignoring her as a teenager. I’d been battling my natural teenage narcissism at the same time as I’d been trying to come to terms with the fact that I was never going to not be sick.

I’d been a grown up long enough to have done better, and I hadn’t.

“I’m sorry, Mom.” I kissed her cheek again. “See you soon.”

Tears leaked from my eyes as I walked away. When we were past the guards at the entrance, Carl picked me up into his arms. “You’re with us. Your people are ours. All will be well.”

I wished I could believe him about that last part. “Things don’t tend to be well for me, not for very long.”

We got back on their beautiful shuttle.

“Jadon, I think you should remove me from my position as healer.” Alfie rushed past me to the kitchen area. “We’ve not fed her, not taken care of her. We were more attentive in the woods.”

I waved my hand. “I’m rarely hungry.”

Alfie came out holding a container. “That’s not better. Do you remember in the woods when we fed you that meat that you liked? It didn’t make you sick like the other things did.”

Yes, I absolutely did remember. “Oh, yum. It made me feel full but not ill. It’s so hard to do that with me.”

With a grin, Alfie lifted the container he held. “I brought it for you.”