Always a Wanderer Read online

  What would happen if the nonsupernatural world found out there was another side—a side they would not understand?

  At first, the public would possibly be excited, welcoming even, but the ethics of the situation would make it nearly impossible. A future where her kind was no longer a secret would be difficult to navigate. Who would she save, and when? She could barely understand her power now. Put her on display for the entire world, and many would think she was a fraud, and those who didn’t would come to hate her when she couldn’t give them something they wanted. Regardless of the powers she held, she would never have the power to please everyone.

  And then what would become of her life at the manor? Mr. Shane would be furious.

  She tried to hold back the thoughts of angry mobs bursting through the doors and threatening people’s lives. It hadn’t been that many years since the end of the Troubles. During those days, homes had been burned and bombs had ripped through the countryside—all thanks to self-justified hate and misunderstanding. Irish history was full of bloodshed carried out for a variety of reasons; if the truth of the other side—the supernatural side—came to light, it would most certainly end in social discord and a bloodbath.

  She shuddered and the energy spilled from her fingers, falling back into the ground.

  She couldn’t let her life be dictated by fear. She couldn’t stop herself from helping a person in need because she was terrified of a future that might never come. Yet the needs of one couldn’t outweigh the needs of many.

  She clutched at the dirt, letting the tiny pieces of stone dig into her palms until it hurt. The pain pulled her back as she stared into Neill’s blue eyes.

  She was given this gift to share, not mete out like it was under ration.

  The energy moved back up her arms, warming her from the inside.

  Laying one hand on Neill’s forehead, she gently placed the other on his abdomen. His pain radiated from him, and she forced the energy from her hands, concentrating on the pain and encircling it with her power, pulling it from him. She started at his core and his lungs. Focusing on his breath, she spread wisps of energy through the punctured tissues, knitting them together.

  He gasped for air, and she sat back. Foam bubbled from his lips, dripping down the sides of his face, and she rolled him onto his side. Pain coursed into her hands, but it was muted.

  That was enough healing. He would live. His heart would continue to beat.

  Nature could mend the rest.

  She heard the sounds of footsteps running through the soft dirt of the arena.

  “Is he okay?” a woman asked from the center.

  Helena sat back, wiping off the dirt on the legs of her pants. “Aye, he’ll be okay. I hope,” she added.

  “What in the bloody hell happened?” the woman gave her a look filled with contempt, almost as if she thought Helena was somehow responsible for the horse rolling on the man.

  Thankfully, Graham came running. “The medics are on their way. They should be here any minute.” He looked down at Neill and the woman at his side and then sent Helena a questioning glance.

  “I think he’ll be okay. There are a few broken bones, but nothin’ major,” Helena said, letting the unspoken truth fill the space between them.

  Graham nodded in understanding.

  “No. Don’t...” Neill moaned.

  “What?” Graham asked, kneeling down at the man’s side.

  “Don’t. No hospital. No.”

  “You daft bastards.” The woman turned to Graham. “First you get him hurt and then you go on and call the authorities? He’ll be deported, so it is.”

  “What are ya talkin’ about?” Helena asked.

  The woman stared at her. “Neill,” she started, “Neill has a past. The authorities be lookin’ for him. If he goes to the hospital, they’ll cart him away. He’ll be in the clink—or worse—in no time. We have to sneak him away before the medics get here.”

  Helena remembered her da standing outside Limerick prison, gaunt and tired, aged beyond his years.

  They could take Neill to the Adare hospital and keep him out of the clink. He wasn’t the right kind, but if they kept him separate, maybe they could get him treatment—treatment that didn’t expose Helena’s gifts.

  “Graham,” she said, her tone questioning.

  He chewed on his lip, and she knew what he was thinking. If they took Neill to the hospital and he saw what they were doing there, the kind of people who enlisted their services, they would never be able to explain the place—or why they had it on the manor’s grounds.

  If she had learned anything over the last year, it was that nothing good ever came of lies—the truth always had a way of coming out. If they wanted to stay completely safe, and remain under society’s radar, it would be best to leave the man to pay the consequences of his decisions. Yet if they did nothing, Neill’s freedom would be stripped away—just like Da’s had been.

  She looked down at Neill. He had curled his broken body into a fetal position, and the motion pulled at her heartstrings. Regardless of the man’s sins, he was someone’s child...someone’s lover...maybe even some-one’s father.

  Once again, he was hers to save—or to condemn.

  “Can ya lift him?” she asked, turning to Graham and putting her hand on his arm.

  He glanced at her fingers as if they were the key to everything. With one simple touch, her will would be done.

  “Are you sure? You know the risks.” Graham put his hand on hers, stroking her fingers.

  Maybe he did love her. Maybe they hadn’t lost their connection. Maybe time had simply muted it. Yet their relationship didn’t feel the same as it once had. The first time he had touched her, she had nearly melted under his fingertips. Now her reaction was simply a slow burn, a desire to be near him, to have him touch her again. The raging inferno had cooled.

  “If we give him enough drugs, he won’t notice a thing. We just need to get him the help he needs. We’re the reason he’s hurt,” Helena said, responding to Graham’s unspoken concerns.

  The woman at Neill’s side looked up with a grimace on her face. “I knew you two eejits were having me on. Neill’s too good a rider for something like this to happen. What in the hell did you do?” She stood up and charged at Helena, so they stood nose to nose.

  “Do ya think I wanted him to get hurt? That I wanted this?” Helena said, shocked by the woman’s anger and resentment toward her.

  “I saw the way you were looking at him. You’re nothing but a gypsy whore.” The woman’s spittle sprayed her cheek. “What happened? Did he turn you down?”

  Helena guppied for a moment, her mouth opening and closing as the woman’s verbal blows struck her. Did she really think Helena had tried to hurt Neill because she was an unrepentant whore, or worse—in the woman’s mind—a gypsy?

  “Stop. Right. There. You don’t have a right to talk to her like that.” Graham pushed between them. “Helena didn’t do anything. In fact, she tried to help your...What is he? Your boyfriend?”

  The woman looked away.

  Graham shook his head. “Ach. You have this all arseways, woman. Helena here told your friend to get off the damned horse. He was being an arse and didn’t listen. He was the one at fault, not her.”

  She felt vindicated by Graham’s reproach of the woman, and special because he felt strongly enough for her to stop the woman’s accusation dead. Yet, at the same time, she resented it. She could stand up for herself. She’d lost so much of her identity—she couldn’t lose the strength that made her who she was. But now wasn’t the time or the place to tell him how she felt.

  The woman moved to speak, but Graham stopped her with a wave of his hand. “Save it. Whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Regardless of your gypsy’s role, she admitted you two are the reason Neill’s hurt. You have to help him,” the woman commanded.

  Graham sighed and looked over at Helena.

  She gave him a reaffirming nod
. The woman could say what she wanted about her and the kind of woman she was, but when push came to shove, Helena valued freedom above all other things. If she could save Neill from a fate like Da’s, it had to be done.

  “We’re going to get him out of here.” Graham motioned toward the door and his white Mercedes parked just outside.

  “Where you be takin’ him?” the woman asked, her tone like that of a petulant teenage girl, so much so that it reminded Helena of her sister Rionna. Most times, she missed her sister, but at the sound of the woman’s words, she was reminded of all the reasons to be thankful Rionna was no longer her burden.

  Graham’s face tightened. “Somewhere he will be safe.”

  Even if my kind won’t be.

  “You stay here,” he told the woman. “Take care of the horse. He needs your attention.”

  “What about Neill?” the woman countered. “You can’t expect me to just go along with this, and you not tellin’ me where he’ll be.”

  “Don’t worry, as long as he’s with us, he’ll be fine.” Graham turned away before they could be barraged with any more questions.

  Even though Helena should have believed him and bought into his promise, she couldn’t. Nothing was going to be fine—she could feel it in her bones.

  *.*.*

  Something was wrong with Helena. Her aura was a dark red, Graham noted, the color of stress and indecision. Perhaps it was just because of the man in the backseat, huddled in a hay-scented horse blanket they had found lying in the tack room.

  For so many reasons, it had been a hard decision to help the man, but none made it harder than the fact that Neill had seemed a little too friendly when it came to Helena. It would have been only too easy to leave him lying there to face whatever the world was going to bring his way. But this wasn’t really about Neill. This was about Helena and her need to save people.

  He glanced over to where she sat the passenger seat. She was looking back at Neill, and as she said something to the suffering man, her dark hair caught the light, making it look like it carried bits of copper in its strands. As if she could sense him watching her, she turned and gave him a slight, almost questioning smile.

  “Ya all right?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  Everything was far from all right, but now wasn’t the time to bring up the feelings, the masked moments, or the secrets they shared.

  He pulled the car to a stop at the Adare hospital, a former fortress that rested just off the bank of the River Maigue on the corner of the Adare estate. Over the last century, the place had fallen into ill repair, its stony walls crumbling and collapsing in upon themselves, leaving sentinels as a reminder of the many battles fought there. However, over the last few months, they had rebuilt the place. It had been a mammoth undertaking. They had strengthened everything, from the walls to the water lines to the roofing, even as the bond between the two of them weakened.

  Sure, she had made the choice to stay here, at this place, with him. They had told one another they loved each other, but the moment her mother and sister disappeared and she made the choice to stay, everything changed. It was like she was an entirely different person. She was more reserved and serious. She poured herself into their work, but it was almost as if he had caused a bit of her to disappear—and he hated himself for it.

  He eased Neill out of the car, careful to avoid bumping the man’s chest. Helena’s touch had knit some of the skin over the bones, but from the dark bruising on Neill’s arm and wrist, Graham doubted she had been able to fix everything that had been broken.

  Neill moaned, the sound rife with agony at the sudden movement.

  “You’ll be fine,” Helena offered.

  Graham looked at her. She was giving off a light rainbow aura, her normal glow, the glow of a healer.

  “Where...where are we?” Neill said between pained breaths as they walked to the hospital’s front doors.

  “It’s...uh...” Graham stammered, trying to come up with the right words.

  “It’s a pop-up clinic. The manor wanted to do somethin’ for the locals. You’re a right lucky man, Neill. Who knows where the clinic’ll be next week,” Helena said, covering up for his stammering.

  Neill glanced at Helena, his features tight with pain, hiding anything that would tell Graham whether or not the man actually believed the story they were trying to sell.

  Graham opened the door to the infirmary. The place wasn’t even officially open—the ceremony wasn’t for a few days—yet it already carried the pungent aroma of antiseptic and commodes. The scent reminded him of tired flesh and thinly stretched minds.

  He thought of the former infirmary under the manor, which had always smelled like a dungeon—dank and earthy. Perhaps, as bad as this place smelled, it was better. In the dungeon, even though the patients were still alive, it was as if they were already buried.

  The new infirmary was going to be a place where he and Helena could carry out real healing—instead of tucking the patients, people like them, away in an early grave.

  He moved Neill to the nearest open chair in the lobby and helped him sit down. At the desk sat a receptionist dressed in a crisp, pinstriped suit, similar to those worn by the manor staff.

  “Hello, sir.” The receptionist looked at Neill. She closed her eyes and drew in the scent of the man. “Sir, the man...he’s not...” She frowned as she looked to Graham.

  “He’s not like the rest of our patients. I’m aware,” he said, stressing the words. “However, it was an emergency. Is one of the private rooms open?”

  The former infirmary had been ward style, open beds, like something out of an earlier century, but thanks to the money they had raised, they had been able to afford to create several private rooms in addition to the four-person wards. After what had happened with Herb and his mother, rooms in which patients could be heavily monitored seemed to have been a long time coming.

  “I’ll need to talk to the charge nurse,” the receptionist said, motioning to the nurses’ station that sat on the other side of the locked doors behind her. She stood and disappeared into the main infirmary.

  He walked over to Neill. “Mind if I take a look at what we’re gonna be working with?”

  Neill shook his head.

  He pulled at Neill’s shirt, lifting the man away from Helena as Neill grunted in pain.

  “Ach...Gentle,” Neill grumbled.

  “Aye,” Graham said. Helena moved closer, offering with a tip of her hand to help him, but he waved her off. “I got him.”

  He carefully pulled up the edge of Neill’s shirt. His stomach was covered in lines of bruises where the saddle and his clothing must have pressed into his flesh. There was a red patch on his chest that looked as though it was freshly healed skin—almost as if a rib had protruded and, thanks to Helena’s gift, had been fixed.

  He sucked in a breath as he looked at her work. Without a doubt, she had saved the man’s life.

  She really was amazing. And it was no wonder Neill wanted to lean on her. Whether he realized it or not, she was his savior.

  If only their relationship were as easy to fix as flesh and bone.

  The receptionist came back out, followed by two nurses, one of whom was pushing a wheelchair.

  “We’ll take him back. The doctor is waiting,” the blond nurse said with a gentle smile. They lifted Neill and helped him into the wheelchair.

  “Aye, good. Let us know what they find,” Helena said with a nod.

  The nurses and the receptionist pushed the broken man through the doors and out of sight.

  “We need to talk,” Graham said, but as the words fell from his lips and a look of terror filled Helena’s face, he wished he hadn’t spoken.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he said, trying to make his voice light. “I just think we haven’t gotten a chance to really spend time together. We’ve been so busy lately, with everything going on around this place.”

  “We couldn’t even get our dat
e right, could we?” she said with a little laugh.

  It sounded so good, hearing her laugh. It had been a long time since he could remember her making that sound. He’d missed it.

  The front door swung open, hitting the wall with a metallic thump.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Mr. Shane threw the door shut behind him. “Did you really think you were going to get away with this?”

  They looked at one another. Had Mr. Shane heard about the intruder in their midst? How had he found out so quickly?

  “I can’t believe you went behind my back and let a non-super anywhere near the hospital. Could you two be more stupid?”

  “Who called you?” Graham asked, going toe-to-toe with his angry stepfather.

  “It doesn’t matter who called me. You know how much I disagreed with you moving the infirmary, and now, before the official ceremony to celebrate the opening of the place, you are putting us all in danger. What if someone finds out about this? There are people out there, hate groups, who are looking for any reason to come after us. They are salivating, eager to get their teeth into any supernaturals they find. Do I need to remind you of the consequences that would arise if the manor were associated with something like this? Every life here could be at risk if they find out what we’re doing. Think about what the press would make of it. It could cost me everything.”

  Graham cringed at the word “me.” Everything was always about the business and Mr. Shane’s own needs. It was never about the people.

  “You know as well as I do that this place needed to happen. I’m not having this argument with you again, John,” Graham said, using his stepfather’s first name in an effort to equalize the fight.

  His stepfather grimaced. “That’s not what I was saying, Graham. Though I disagreed, I let you move forward because you promised that you would keep this place quiet. And yet, you are attempting to screw us all. You have no concept of the position you are putting not only me in but everyone else as well. You are more than aware there are hate groups out there—groups that would love nothing more than to find a place like this...full of people like you and your brother...and burn it to the ground.”