Soulwalker (13 page)

Tarris’s mind was awash with sensation. Asher had obviously figured out how to make use of Rya as she sent out a mixture of sensations to her that she had never experienced before. Love, lust, sex, abandon, and adrenaline all merged in her head. It gave her a good idea of what passion was, and it was a heady mixture. She could easily give into its intoxicating allure. And she did. If only this once, she would experience it all.

Tarris was barely aware of what Rya did. She knew her shadow was flying, and like a hungry child she was greedily absorbing all the new sights, sounds, emotions, and thoughts.

Tarris rolled Asher over and clumsily tried to follow. Instead, she rested herself on her elbow. Her other hand explored, and her lips and tongue followed. She took her time as she absorbed both the external and internal indications of what Asher was feeling. It was truly extraordinary. So much pleasure was nearly too much. Her hand slipped down to dark curls, and her gaze rose to meet the dark eyes watching her.

“Touch me.” The words were so soft they were nearly inaudible. As if to illustrate what Asher wanted, an image popped into Tarris’s head and she followed. Almost immediately a soft moan floated in the air. She repeated the action again with the same result, this time accompanied by a gentle sway of the hips. Lust swept through her, and an overwhelming urge to reach completion rushed through her mind.

She looked down at Asher and watched her breathing accelerate. Asher’s delicate fingers grabbed handfuls of sheet as the sweet torture continued, and her swaying hips picked up momentum as her excitement grew. Tarris could feel it all.

She had been so wrapped up in her own pleasure that she didn’t keep track of Rya. The spirit found Asher’s soul and gently touched the essence that was her. It was a sweet meeting of souls, a delicate dance of introduction. As Asher reached her peak, her soul burst into a blinding flash, pulsing wildly in response to the passion felt.

Tarris was overcome with Asher’s orgasm as she herself twitched uncontrollably. Well, at least the top half of her. It was like a phantom twitch. Her mind knew it was there, even if her body didn’t. Her resolve to get her legs back just doubled. If that was what it felt like, there was no way anyone was going to stop her.

An unearthly scream filled the air as Rya tore herself from Asher and flew around the room like a tornado. Glass shattered and electrical equipment exploded. Tarris instinctively threw herself across Asher as glass and hot metal flew everywhere. “What the—” Rya slammed into Tarris at great speed, and her back exploded. “Arrgghhh!”

“What just happened?” Asher asked. “Oh God, I feel like my heart was just ripped out.” But Tarris didn’t answer. Dark eyes looked up at her. “What? Tarris? Oh God, honey, what’s wrong?”

“My…” Tarris’s voice was ripped from her throat at the pain “My back. It… it… Christ… it feels like someone stabbed me in the back.” She was barely able to breathe with the agony. With difficulty she spoke to Rya,
What’s going on?

It hurts! It hurts!

Talk to me Rya. What happened?

It hurts.

You could say that again.
Tarris’s mind shifted back to the pain while she tried to make sense of the myriad of images that flooded her mind’s eye.

“Can you move at all?”

“I don’t know.” But she didn’t want to try. Any movement was going to hurt. She was barely able to lift herself up for Asher to wriggle out from underneath her before the pain became too unbearable. She collapsed to the bed and mentally tried to dampen the pain she felt.

“Light!” Asher called. “Oh God, Tarris.”

“What is it?” She breathed rapidly as shock and adrenaline mixed to hold her in their grasp.

“It… I’m not sure… there’s…”

Tarris reached out for Asher’s arm. “Wait.”

“I’ve got to do something,” Asher said.

“Camera.”

“You’re injured and you’re worried about a damned camera?” Asher whispered.

“Please… check.”

The bed dipped as Asher got up and looked for the scanner. “Where is it?” It sat on the table, a smoldering piece of useless equipment. “Damn it!”

“What?” Tarris hadn’t moved from her position facedown on the bed.

“It’s broken.” Asher approached the wall and could see a small wisp of smoke from the tiny hole. She returned to the bed and gently rested her ass on the edge. “It looks like the camera’s gone, too.”

“Got to check.”

“I have to do something about this, Tarris, and to hell with your peeping toms. There’s a piece of metal sticking out of your back. It looks like a piece of that ring around your spine.” Tarris could hear the concern in Asher’s voice.

“My wrist,” Tarris whispered. Asher grabbed Tarris’s wrist and found the meditab under the skin. She rubbed it briskly to release the medication that would flow through her strongly.

“My equipment. How do I get to it?”

“Cupboard… bottom shelf… emergency switch.” The analgesics were finally working and took the edge off the stabbing pain in her back. She had never felt such agony as she did then, even after the accident which caused it. Thank goodness whatever had ruined the scanner and the camera hadn’t damaged the circuitry inside her.

Unaware of her nakedness, Asher ran to the bathroom and found the mirror cracked in two. She dropped to the cold floor to find and activate the switch that would release her equipment.

The platform slowly lowered. She grabbed the suitcases before the lift had stopped. What was she doing? She should call for transport to the hospital not look for her own equipment. But secrecy was important to them both at this point. If they knew that Tarris’s metal ring was broken, it could change everything. Could she do this? It wasn’t a good place to do something this delicate, but she could see no other option.

She dragged her suitcases to the bed and flung them open. She loaded her medispray. “What’s that for?” The gentle mumble told her that the meds had started to take effect.

“It’s anesthetic. If I’m going to take this out, I need you perfectly still.”

“No anesthetic,” Tarris said.

“But—”

“Rya was so panicked, I don’t know what she would do if I was out cold. No anesthetic.”

“How about a local?”

“Fine. Just do it quickly… please.” Pale eyes closed as Tarris succumbed to the pain and discomfort. She waited quietly for Asher’s ministrations.

“I don’t know… maybe we should take this to the hospital.” Asher had a sudden stab of indecision. Any operation that involved the spine was tricky, but under these conditions, it was downright stupid.

“No!” Tarris barked. “Oh God… No.” She lowered her voice and her anxiety in an effort to take the strain off the injury. “You have to do this, Asher. You…” She blew out a deep breath. Asher could see the strain on Tarris’s face as she tried to ride over the back spasm.

Asher gave her the local anesthetic. The medispray absorbed through the skin to deaden the area underneath it. She gave Tarris’s hair a gentle stroke before she stood. “Let me get ready.” Drug-laden eyes looked up at her. Would she ever be ready to do this?

While the drugs did their work, Asher got out her instruments and set up a powerful light to illuminate where she was working. She activated a small portable generator on her sterilization unit, which emitted a pulsed UV light to give her a clean environment to work in.

She dug around in her suitcases for what she would need and found a gown to cover her nakedness. How could she forget something like that? It wasn’t like she was naked on a regular basis. Idly, she shrugged. It was a thought for another time.

Finally, she was ready. It had been awhile since she had done any surgery. These days her time was committed to her theories. Asher looked to the heavens in a brief prayer, not that she had considered religion in any depth. However, at this point, a little help from above would be appreciated.

She laid out everything she would use under the sterilization unit, giving it the allotted time for proper treatment. “Are you okay?” Her heart went out to Tarris. Life was just not giving her a break.

“Hmmm?” It seemed that the anesthetic had begun to work. “Yeah, I’m still here.”

“And what is Rya doing?”

“She…” Tarris’s brow creased. “I don’t know what you did, but you sure scared her.”

Asher thought for a moment as she idly caressed Tarris's strands of hair. Tarris’s eyes closed at the touch and a smile crossed her lips.

“Are you okay?” Had she given Tarris too much medication?

“Yeah… that’s nice.”

Asher felt a tug at her heart as she watched Tarris greedily absorb her attention. The timer went off on the unit, and she withdrew her hand to start the operation. “Try to relax, okay?”

“Any more relaxed and I’d be asleep.”

“See? I should have given you the general anesthetic.”

“Well, Rya’s behaving at the moment. We’ll see.”

Asher tried to be as gentle as she could, as much for her own sensibilities as for Tarris. Maybe she was too close to Tarris to be doing this. The laser cut through skin to reveal the carnage below. Whatever had happened had shattered the metal ring around the spine. It certainly solved the problem of trying to remove it. She had been worried about how to cut it without damage to the spine below.

Gently, Asher picked away the pieces. She scanned the area with her monitor once or twice to check for errant shards of metal. At one point, she thought Tarris hummed and it brought a smile to her covered lips. Was she humming for herself or for Rya? Did it really matter? Asher turned her attention back to the operation, rechecking a number of times for metal. Satisfied that she had all the pieces, she bathed the area with a liquid solution and sealed the jagged wound with the laser.

“There. I think that’s it.” Now it was in the hands of a higher power. Tarris’s biggest hurdle would be infection.

“What…” Tarris smacked her dry lips. A moment later Asher held a cup to her mouth and dripped a few drops onto her lips. “Thanks. What… was… that you put in my back?” She barely put the words together. Apparently Tarris’s drowsiness had caught up with her as the adrenaline wore off.

“It’s a concoction of mine. It’s a mixture of enzymes, electrolytes, steroids, antibiotics, and anti-inflammatories. It should help to fight infection and stimulate the nerves in your back.” Before Asher had finished, a gentle snore came from Tarris. Asher brushed Tarris's face and hair with a slow, gentle motion.

“Rya,” she whispered, “I’m sorry for whatever happened. I didn’t mean it.” Asher thought about those moments before all hell had broken loose. Tarris had… oh God, what a feeling that was. It was… it was… She closed her eyes to feel that rush again. That was when Rya broke away from her. Maybe it was the surge of passion? She would have to ask Tarris in the morning.

Chapter 6

Tarris slowly regained consciousness, but as soon as her senses touched reality, she wanted to crawl back into a blissful comatose state. Rya’s escapade had taken every bit of energy she had and left her weak and disoriented.

“How are you feeling?”

It took Tarris a moment to remember who belonged to that voice. She lifted her head off the pillow and rolled it to the other side. Asher lay there in a skimpy shift. A woman she had barely known two days was sleeping in her bed. Had she lost her mind? Was she so intent on self-destruction that she was doing things that were totally out of the ordinary for her?

“Wehrearelmeu mmptutptp.” Tarris smacked her dry lips.

“A moment.” Asher rose from the bed and moved to the kitchen, seemingly confident in her state of undress and her place in the apartment. She returned with a drink flask and lowered the top to Tarris’s waiting lips. “Try again.”

“Wehrearelmeu mmptutptp.”

“Huh?”

“That’s how I feel.”

“Oh. Let me take a look at your back.”

“Do you have to?” Tarris wasn’t ready for Asher's pushing and prodding, especially first thing after she woke up.

“I’m the mediprac here, Trooper. Don’t tell me my job.” Asher sounded stern.

Tarris turned her head back to its original position and just lay there.

Asher peeled back the dressing to study the incision. “Considering the carnage that was there last night, it’s healing nicely. The wound closed by the laser is clean, and the swelling underneath is only minimal. It looks like the complications that I feared aren’t going to happen, and for that I’m grateful. You should stay in bed today.”

“No, that’s not an option.”

“You’re not going anywhere.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. It’s my life, dammit.” Tarris struggled to roll over and took stock of her body. While the wound site was sore, the rest of her body was in reasonable shape. However, her most fervent wish would not be granted. The lower half of her was still in darkness. She felt as much in her legs today as she had yesterday… nothing. The operation didn’t work, and she was shattered. All hope was gone.

“I’m your physician—”

“But not my mother.” Tarris touched the button to raise her bed and threw her arm over her eyes. No one, least of all the woman next to her, would witness her dream slowly die. Rya was the only one who truly understood what it meant to her, and the two of them would mourn the failure in silence. When the bed didn’t move, Tarris touched the button again. “Damn it!” The circuitry in the bed frame was one of the casualties from Rya’s explosive re-entry into her. “Fuck!” Her fist slammed into the mattress in frustration.

“This is foolish.” Asher rose from the bed and shook her head.

“This isn’t some sort of joke. The operation didn’t work,” Tarris snapped.

“Were you expecting some sort of miracle? Surely, you know it’s not that easy.”

“A miracle was all I had left, Asher.” She took an unsteady breath before she continued. “Now I don’t even have that. Maybe you should just go.”

“But…”

“Please.” She just wanted to be alone. “I’ll arrange to have your luggage delivered to your apartment.”

“So that’s it, huh?” Asher said flatly. “You do realize that it’s only a matter of hours since the operation. Something could still happen, Tarris.”