Breathe, Jaxon. My brother is not dead. He needs you now. You will have to heal him quickly. He will need blood.
Tell me what to do. I don’t have very much time. Drake will be making his way here. I don’t know how long it will take him. Tell me now.
You have to make yourself light and energy. Concentrate on nothing else; your body must fall away. Enter Lucian’s body and find the damage. Repair it from the inside out. You must have had some medic training. Francesca, my lifemate, is a healer. Describe what you see to me, and she will instruct you. I know this is far beyond your capabilities, but you have no choice.
I can do this, Gabriel. Lucian won’t die! She meant it. If she ever did anything in her life right, this would be it. She would save him, whatever it took.
Allow me to hold the mind merge between us. You will
need all your strength to heal my brother. I will be with you. You are not alone.
There was no time for conversation. She had to hurry. She blocked out the knowledge that Drake would be stalking her, even now covering the distance between them as rapidly as possible. Jaxon followed the instructions Gabriel had given her, took the images from his mind. She closed her eyes and stilled the chaos and panic, the silent screaming, the horror of seeing Lucian lying pale and lifeless on the deck. She blocked out the blood in her hair and on her clothes. Her world narrowed to a tranquil, calm pool where she became as light as air. Bright. White. Pure energy. She moved slowly in her bodiless state, merging with Lucian, moving through his body until she found the entry wound at the base of his skull. The bullet had severed the spinal cord, a clean path in and out, sheering off everything in its way. Jaxon’s heart pounded, her breath coming in gasps at the extent of the damage. She had no idea how to repair such a terrible wound.
Francesca will guide you. Keep the image in your head. Trust her, no matter how difficult it gets.
There were so many veins and arteries and pieces of flesh she couldn’t identify. She had to force her mind to remain calm when she knew her body was shaking and every fiber of her being was terrified. This could not happen. Lucian was her life. After her lonely existence, afraid to have a friend, let alone a family, he had turned her world into something beautiful again. He had given her back her dreams, treated her as if she were the most wonderful woman on the planet. He was a great man, a man who fought demons and protected others without any thought of reward. He would not die.
You will not die. Her command was every bit as strong and authoritative as any Lucian had ever delivered.
Steeling herself, she began the grim business of putting his insides back together. It was like a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces tiny fragments. She couldn’t think she might be making a mistake; she had to believe that voice whispering in her mind, telling her what to do. She had to trust that Lucian’s brother loved him the way she did and would do anything to save him. She worked meticulously, unhurriedly, keeping the knowledge that Drake was stalking her in the back of her mind, where it belonged. She could only concentrate on what she was doing.
You will live, Lucian. She whispered it over and over in her head like a litany. Wherever he was, she would be there with him. The idea of being without him was intolerable.
She was not a doctor, not a nurse. She had little knowledge to aid her. The paramedic training she had received had covered wounds, but nothing like this. She was in awe of the unknown Francesca, her ability to know exactly what to do, how to repair such devastation. Carpathians worked on wounds from the inside out, aligning, rejoining, cauterizing, inspecting to ensure infection could not set in.
In her bodiless state, Jaxon was completely unaware of the passage of time, of anything other than the task at hand. You will live, she whispered fiercely in her mind. I won’t let you die on me, you arrogant jerk. I told you he was trouble, but, oh, no, you couldn’t listen to a woman, could you, big shot? She recited words in her mind even as she worked at a steady pace, following Gabriel’s voice. It was a weird method: relaying to Gabriel what she saw, Francesca sharing his mind and relaying back to Jaxon through her lifemate exactly what to do.