Ancalagon - 111. Chapter 111

“Are you all right?”

I stopped and stared at Garjah. He sat on the edge of the bed in our quarters, and I was pacing in front of him. “You’re asking me that?”

He still had that look in his eyes at times when he wasn’t talking to someone. It was like the world grew still around him, and he froze. I tried to always be close when that happened, and touch him gently, pulling Garjah back to reality in a way that would soothe him and keep those around us safe.

Deep dents marred one wall where he’d lashed out with two arms and barely missed getting Ases who tucked and rolled out of the way just before the edge of each palm would have impacted a vulnerable spot on his neck and groin. His shifter genetics were the only thing that let him move that fast, but it also made it harder for him not to move quietly and set Garjah off unexpectedly, so Ases was giving him space. The rest of his people looked up to him and simply saw him as the male who protected them and couldn’t fathom what he’d been through and how it’d hurt him.

But I could see it.

I’d seen it before, in animals. Creatures who were taken from their homes and family groups and put into cages to be studied, what amounted to torture in my opinion. It was why I only studied natural wildlife and on-planet studies. No lab work with living specimens; that was just cruel, especially with anything that could potentially be intelligent, much less a sentient being.

With the wildly diverse makeup of beings in the Galactic, that was harder to determine than the average layperson might think. Too many oblivious scientists got it wrong. Trauma crossed so many barriers.

And try as hard as he might to hide it, no matter what clarity our bond had brought back to him, Garjah had experienced trauma that had his nerves jangling and exposed to any perceived threat. We’d been too tired to talk about it when we had some privacy before, but I couldn’t let him hide from me anymore.

“Yes.”

“No. We’re not talking about me. I was scared, but I had Bouncer, and Ases, and Timok came for us. You were alone, you had no idea what was happening, and they were hurting you.”

“I’m fine.” He spread his arms. “Nothing to see.”

I moved into the open space he left between his arms, and he loosely wrapped them around me. “You’re not,” I said softly. I wrapped two arms around his shoulders and cupped his face with my hands. Stroking under his eyes with my thumbs, I looked deep into them. “In here, there’s plenty to see if you know what to look for. They can’t see it, but I can feel it.” I pulled one of his hands up to my chest so it covered my heart. “Here.”

Garjah’s breath hitched. He pressed his lips together, his nostrils flaring. The fear in his eyes, banked since we touched, flared to life. “I c-can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“I don’t want to think about what they did. The things they made me see, what they said. It was so real.” His hand pressed harder against my chest. “I can feel your heart beating, but they… it wasn’t….”

“They cut you off from our bond. All you had left was pain and rage.”

“All I had left was despair,” he corrected. “If I wasn’t sure Timok had gotten away, I would have given up.”

“So hope was all that kept us both sane.”

Garjah closed his eyes, bowing his head. “I wasn’t hoping to find you alive.” His arms tightened convulsively. “I didn’t know those cells could block a bond. I was so sure you were dead.” His chest heaved. “All I knew was that Timok wouldn’t stop until he got me out, and that if they didn’t kill me outright first, I would hide deep inside. I could break, no matter what they did to shatter my mind, because deep inside where your bond owned my soul, they would never be able to touch that part of me. I knew it would let me rise up and destroy them as soon as they turned their backs on their broken creature.”

He opened his eyes and leaned his head back to look up at me. “I shouldn’t have given up on you.”

I knew I had to help him put this behind him, but how? I wasn’t trained for it. I just wanted to help ease the pain I could still feel inside him. “You didn’t. Not really. You always trusted the bond inside, even if you weren’t sure of why or what it was fueling. Now you have to let go of everything that happened, and we have to make a new plan. One that still takes down the Kardoval.”

Huffing, Garjah cocked his head. “I assume you have a plan?”

Hesitating, I said, “I have… a thought.”

“You have identified a weakness to exploit?”

“Their weakness is your strength.”

“I’m too tired for cryptic mantras.”

“I guess it did sound that way, kind of.” My cheeks heated. “It’s not their weakness I want to exploit, not really.” Glancing out into the corridor since the small room lacked a door, I asked. “Do you never notice how they all look at you? How they look for your guidance and want your approval?”

“No.”

Of course he didn’t. “They revere you, Garjah.”

“Just because the memories I inherited put me in a place to lead the security officers. I represent safety.”

“Trust takes more than someone being good at their job. Trust is earned.”