Balanced Chaos (The Void Series Book 3) Read online

  Sam nodded along with his speech, perfectly understanding his concern.

  “Let me explain something to you, Major. Every fae develops their gifting, their magical power, during puberty. As their power develops another fae with a similar power comes along and mentors them, helps them understand their power. So an older healer will mentor a younger healer.”

  Halstead nodded, perfectly grasping what she was describing.

  “When my power developed and my parents realized I was a Void, no one mentored me. Even though my powers are extremely dangerous, no one was willing to be seen near me. I am a pariah to my own people.”

  “You still don’t think that…”

  “Sir, until yesterday I didn’t realize the man who raised me wasn’t even my biological father. The only man to pursue me as a spouse did so because his parents wanted an alliance with my family who are high ranking members of the Harcos Clan. I realize that means nothing to you. Imagine the only woman who ever seemed to want you only wanted you for that little thing on your chest.”

  She pointed to the oak leaf embroidered onto his uniform.

  The major nodded.

  “I have nothing left to lose.”

  “Okay, just making sure you understood what the consequences might be.”

  “I understand. This isn’t the first time they’ve been asked of me.”

  The major’s brows pulled together before he nodded again. “All right. The colonel wants you to move into the administration building permanently. I’ll have a guard escort you back to your old residence to retrieve your gear.”

  Sam followed the major across the large room, limping as fast as she could to keep up. After a few quick steps, Halstead turned to see what was keeping her. He frowned down at her unlaced boot.

  “You need to lace that up.”

  “The ankle is too burned for me to lace it up.”

  “You get burned during that attack?”

  Sam shook her head. “No, the attack back in December.”

  “Change of plans. To the doctor.”

  Halstead hesitated for a moment before turning and squatting down.

  “Hop on.”

  “You’re joking, right?” Sam asked.

  “Nope, c’mon.”

  Sam hesitated for a long moment.

  “Oh, c’mon. Free piggy back I’m offering here!”

  “All right,” she said, drawing out the word.

  She hopped on, hissing as the movement pulled on her shredded shoulder and fractured ribs.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Broken ribs and hurt shoulder.”

  “Anything else I don’t know about?” he asked as he turned around and headed for the central room.

  “Well, you don’t think the side of my face is always yellow.”

  “Thought it might be a fae thing.”

  “Ha!” she barked into his ear.

  “Loud.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Very dignified,” said a voice from behind them as they entered the central room.

  Halstead turned to find the colonel staring at them from the doorway of his office.

  “Uh, Lieutenant Colonel, sir,” said the major, trying his best to stand up right and not drop Sam.

  “Ow!”

  “Her ankle’s hurt. I’m taking her to the doctor.”

  “Dude, just put me down,” Sam said, ignoring the major’s dignity as he continued to struggle between keeping her off her ankle and eying his superior.

  “Glad to see you two getting along so well. As you were,” the colonel added, fatherly annoyance apparent on his features as he turned around and shut his door.

  The major nearly wilted as he tilted forward and started walking again.

  “I’m never going to live that one down,” he mumbled.

  Sam noticed the other soldiers trying their best not to stare at their superior or his baggage.

  “You go around carrying injured girls often?” Sam asked, hinting at their audience.

  “Only when they’re as cute as yo-” the major said, dropping off his last word as though he couldn’t believe what he had just said.

  Sam felt her own cheeks burn with a dark blush. She stayed silent until they reached the National Guard doctor, set up within the admin building. Sam knocked for Halstead, whose hands were still fully supporting her legs. He still wouldn’t put her down.

  “Major Halstead?” asked the doctor upon opening the door. “Who is…? I mean, what can I do for you?”

  The doctor stepped aside and ushered them into the small room. Halstead set her down onto the exam table.

  “This is one of the fae who will be working directly for the lieutenant colonel. She was hurt about a month ago but is still healing. I was hoping you could take a look at her. We need her fighting fit.”

  “I can see what I can do, but I know nothing of fae anatomy.”

  Sam fought to keep herself from rolling her eyes. She wanted to point out that she was half human, but the truth was she didn’t know what her second half consisted of.

  “Where all are you hurt?” the doctor asked, his voice sounding extremely formal.

  “My ankle, my shoulder, and I’m positive I have a couple cracked ribs.”

  “Well, let’s just get that shirt off,” the doctor said.

  “I’ll just… um… I’ll wait out… Call when you…” Halstead stuttered as he disappeared into the hallway.

  Sam winced with every movement, but finally got her jacket and t-shirt off.

  “What did this to you?” asked the doctor.

  “A cougar.”

  “Inside the reservation?”

  “Yeah. A beast conjurer brought him forth and attacked me.”

  “A what?” demanded the doctor.

  Sam let out a long sigh and slowly explained the basic powers of the fae, the seven clans, and some of the most common powers. From there, she explained again how she had been attacked. The doctor stood a few feet away, his tools in his hands and his eyes double their natural size.

  “Can you bandage the wound, Doc?” she asked after a few silent minutes.

  “Um… yes…yes I can,” he stuttered.

  After twenty minutes of agony, the doctor had finished slathering the wound with an antibiotic salve and wrapping her shoulder in sterile dressing.

  “What next? You said something about your ankle?”

  Sam let out another long sigh, dreading showing him the gnarled flesh on her ankle. He helped her slip off the boot and yelped at the sight.

  “What! What’s wrong?” asked Halstead as he barged in.

  The major’s face turned beat red at the sight of her in her sports bra and white bandaging, but his eyes quickly ran to her propped up ankle, the flesh looking as though it had just been in a fire and coated with green slime.

  “What did that?” asked the doctor.

  “A type of acid fog produced by a fae. A mage has been trying to heal it with herbs, but it hasn’t gone well so far.”

  The doctor’s wide eyes turned toward the major.

  “I-I-I’ll do what I can, but I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  Sam started to shrug, but stopped when the bandaging on her shoulder pinched her skin.

  “Can’t be worse than what’s been done so far.”

  “I’ll give you something for the pain, but even with it this will hurt. Major, you’ll need to hold her.”

  Thirty minutes later, Sam lie panting across the small exam table, her entire vocabulary of curse words exhausted. Halstead mopped sweat from her brow and the doctor began bandaging her ankle.

  “I’ll want to see you again tomorrow.”

  “Ah hell no!” Sam said.

  “Too bad. You’ve got to get this ankle healed properly,” Halstead said.

  “I think I hate you,” Sam complained.

  Chapter Five

  Sam glanced over her shoulder at the man in her wake. She stuffed her annoyance down to where it wouldn�
��t show, or at least it wouldn’t show completely. It wasn’t his fault he had been assigned to guard the annoying little fae.

  Just like her, the man trailing her hadn’t been pleased when Major Halstead assigned him to escort her back to Jason’s ruined apartment. She hadn’t caught all of his official title, but she had caught the word “corporal” somewhere in the litany of formal words. Like most of the other soldiers, Corporal Werner appeared to be a muscular man with little sense of humor. Or maybe he just didn’t bring it to work.

  Sam tried not to glance back at him again, and failed as a morning shift let out of the slaughter house. The enormous doors opened out just as she and her shadow reached the street. The stench of the slaughtered cattle swept across the street, stopping Sam in her tracks and quickly fading away.

  Sam’s feet squished in the wet liquid. She looked down, the soles of her shoes stained red. How could there be so much blood?

  You’re the professional. You have to look, her mind told her.

  She ran her eyes up to the bodies hanging from the meat hooks. They weren’t cows, as were intended to hang from the meat hooks. They were fae. So many fae had died, and she still hadn’t solved the mystery. And now at least four more were dead.

  Her eyes ran to the masses standing in the large puddle of blood, waiting for her to see some hidden clue. But she couldn’t see anything other than blood. It was everywhere.

  “Miss Gollet?” asked a professional voice.

  Sam flinched, blinking her dry eyes. The masses from the slaughter house had cleared and scattered. Corporal Werner stared down at her, a look of polite concern spread across his features.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled before stepping off the sidewalk and into the street, leading him away from the administration building.

  Corporal Werner walked a step behind her. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like her shadow. But most of all, she didn’t like her momentary lapse into her past nightmare.

  Sam closed her mind off to the memories.

  One foot in front of the other.

  A few minutes later, they stood in front of the gaping hole. Charred circles dotted the sidewalk around the shipping crate, and Sam spotted numerous spots on the walls where the fire fae’s powers had melted the plastic. Compared to other battles, it had been a fairly tame experience.

  Sam felt surprised to find so much damage to Jason’s old home beyond the enormous hole created by the fae with the powerful fists of stone. During the assault it felt as though they had taken the brunt of the attack, not the building.

  She frowned. What happened to him? Sam couldn’t remember taking the stone-fisted fae out.

  “Sam?” asked Jason as he emerged from the apartment next to his destroyed home.

  “Hey. You okay?”

  “Yes. I haven’t moved your stuff yet. Sorry.”

  Sam shook her head. “It’s fine. I’m moving into the admin building.”

  “What? No. How do you expect to train if you’re living in the ad…” Jason asked, trailing off as he took in the hovering soldier. “Are you in some sort of trouble?”

  “No, nothing like that. I needed a job. I’m working for the National Guard.”

  “Are you nuts?” demanded Jason, reaching out and grabbing her arm.

  Before Sam could respond, Corporal Werner’s hand snaked out and clamped down on Jason’s wrist, his fingers gripping tendon to bone. The seconds ticked by as the tension rose. Sam wanted to intervene, but she didn’t know how. The soldier stared at Jason until the mage slowly removed his hand from Sam’s arm. Sam let out a surreptitious breath as the two men backed away.

  “Do not touch Miss Gollet,” said the corporal in a surprisingly calm voice.

  Jason stared at the corporal, slowly drawing his eyes over to Sam. His gaze shifted from cautious to accusatory as he looked at her. She had brought this soldier to his home, and he blamed her for their current situation.

  “You don’t want to be trained anymore?” he asked, trying to match his own tone to the corporal’s and failing miserably.

  “No, of course I do. And I’ll find the time, I promise. I just have to find out what my duties will be first.”

  Jason pursed his lips. “Sure. I’m sure you’ll just have loads of time working for these clowns.”

  “Jason,” Sam warned, glancing back at her armed escort.

  Corporal Werner’s face was a mask of polite disinterest, his eyes casually scanning their cramped surroundings.

  “You brought him here.”

  Sam refrained from informing Jason that the corporal had been forced upon her. She doubted the mage would look on that with any kindness.

  “Tell me, Jason, how long did you know the fae relics were missing?” she asked, changing the subject before Jason could offend Werner any further.

  “What?”

  “You knew, didn’t you? The whole time I was hiding out in your apartment that the relics had never been discovered.”

  “You made it pretty clear you weren’t ready to come out into the world yet.”

  “I still deserved to know,” Sam insisted.

  “Why, because you would have gotten your butt out of bed and into gear if you’d known the relics were gone?”

  Sam glanced around the small space, as though she was missing the point to his question. “Yes! Of course!”

  “But you wouldn’t every time Breena asked you to simply go for a walk.”

  Sam glanced down at the scarred pavement. Breena had been devoted to her since Sam had lost her temper and put her in her place. Like all werewolves, Breena lived to know where she ranked on the food chain, something the other members of the disturbed vampire gang had never bothered to do. When Sam stole her power and showed her preverbal teeth, Breena had become her devoted friend and confidant, even after Heywood—the leader of the vampire gang—had died, dissolving the gang. During the later days of Sam’s convalescence, Breena had begged Sam to try going for short walks to build up her strength, and Sam had refused outright.

  “That’s different,” Sam insisted.

  “Your own friends, who have stayed with you through all of this, asked you to do something for your own health, and you won’t do it. But the second a mystery presents itself, you’re up and at it.”

  Jason shook his head and threw up his hands.

  “Take whatever you want,” he added, waving toward the gaping hole in his old apartment.

  Jason walked away, entering his new home. Sam glanced up at Werner, who stared back.

  “What?” she demanded, annoyed at the way he managed to stare without emotion.

  “Nothing,” he replied, turning away.

  Sam stomped into the ruined crate, gasping in pain having forgotten her own injuries. Cursing under her breath, she limped forward, grabbing up her belongings as she found them discarded amongst the battered and disorderly furniture.

  “You might need this,” Werner said, speaking without prompting for the first time, as he pulled a green duffel bag off his shoulder.

  Sam watched him unhook the top and pull it open. “Umm… thanks.”

  She began dumping her belongings into it, including the old quilt made of scraps. When she was finished, the bag was barely half full.

  “That it?” the corporal asked, barely hiding his disdain.

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Werner slung the bag over his shoulder and stepped through the hole, glancing in both directions as though he expected Jason, or some other hostile, to attack him. Once out of the ruined crate, he motioned for her to proceed him. She obeyed, leading him out of the neighborhood.

  “Sam,” called a recognizable voice at the first intersection.

  Sam took a steadying breath before turning to spot her brother in the every-shifting crowd of the reservation. Like most fae, Ryan looked nothing like Sam. He was the poster child of full-blooded fae and everything their parents might want in a child—everything Sam was not. As a healer, he was highly rev
ered among the fae, making it unusual that he was still unmarried at the age of thirty. Only Sam understood his reasoning for remaining single. As the son of David and Miranda Gollet, it was impossible to know if a woman wanted him for himself or for the connection to the Gollet family. At least Sam knew that anyone interested in her just wanted a connection to her family. Her being a Void made it pretty obvious, but Ryan didn’t have that blessing-slash-curse. He was left to constantly wonder.

  “Hey, Ryan,” she finally responded, suddenly realizing she had remained silent for too long.

  Ryan glanced up at the corporal standing at her shoulder.

  “Don’t mind him. He doesn’t say much,” Sam said, waving at Werner.

  “What’s this all about? You in trouble?”

  “No. Long story.”

  Ryan’s eyes flicked from the corporal and back to Sam’s face in quick succession. “You make friends with the guards?”

  Sam rolled her eyes before linking her arm in with Werner’s. “Yes, we’re planning a June wedding.”

  “Not funny, Sam. People can see you,” Ryan replied, quickly glancing around at the flow of traffic.

  Sure enough, Sam’s playful gesture toward the human had drawn a myriad of stares. Sam unlinked her arm from the corporal’s and glanced up at his face. It was a perfect mask of non-responsiveness, save the small twitch in the muscles lining his jaw.

  Sheesh, what’s got his nickers in a twist, she thought to herself as she dragged her attention back to her brother.

  “So, what’s up with you?” she asked.

  “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since…” he trailed off.

  They both found something else to look at. The last time they had talked had been the day before the massacre. Like everyone else, they didn’t want to bring up the painful topic.

  “How are Mom and Dad?” she asked suddenly, trying desperately to change the topic; she was even willing to talk on the forbidden topic of their parents.

  “Umm… all things considering they’re doing okay.”

  “What do you mean by ‘all things’?” Sam asked, her suspicions peaked.

  “Well… with you… and…” Ryan trailed off, his eyes flicking up to Werner’s face. “I shouldn’t say anything here.”