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Jory Strong: Healer's Choice

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Jory Strong Healer's Choice

Healer's Choice: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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The author of and continues her tale of a postapocalyptic world where the afterlife has come to life... Born into a world of violence and paid-for sex, Rebekka longs for a family of her own and dreams of freeing those trapped in the shapeshifter brothels of the red zone. A witch's prophecy claims she'll one day use her gift to heal the Weres made outcast by their mixed human-animal forms. But Rebekka knows that everything comes at a cost. A plea to save five children sends her into the arms of Aryck, a Jaguar enforcer—and into territory controlled by pure Weres. It's a place where humans and outcasts aren't welcomed, where plague threatens and the fate of the Weres hangs in the balance. And where the choices Rebekka and Aryck make are paid for with their hearts...if not their souls.

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Numbers and letters rearranged themselves like a divine gift for the worthy, giving up the details of the government-sponsored project being conducted in a separate lab.

A thrill swept through Radek, followed by a chill. The scientists had known about the existence of Weres. They’d anticipated their emergence and thought they would one day attempt to rule over humans. They’d made plans for that day, to wipe them out using viruses tailored to individual species and tied to nanites.

Fear nearly woke Radek. He’d grown up viewing the stark images of plague and anarchy, the nightmare masterpieces hanging on the walls of every Founding Family to glorify their part in restoring order to Oakland and reclaiming it for mankind.

Before icy horror could force him from the dream, the dark, hungry place in his soul pulled at him, and he was once again in the jeep. Next to him, his father murmured, “Nothing can bring your sister back, but by freeing us forever from the threat the Weres present, you’re a hero to the human race.”

It was a golden dream of power and wealth and glory, a temptation so sublime there was no turning away from it. “I did what needed to be done,” Radek said, drinking in the sound of the crowds calling his name.

Three

REBEKKA climbed the brothel staircase. There was nothing she could do but wait, and hope Levi remained safe. Even with her gift she wouldn’t be welcomed in Were territory. No humans were.

Levi would be accepted only long enough to tell his pride family what happened to his brother and to him in Oakland; then he would be forced to leave. Or he would die there. Trapped in a man’s form, he was viewed as outcast.

Early on in their friendship, she’d been certain if they managed to free Cyrin from the maze, Levi would choose death among his kind over life in the red zone. Worry he would change his mind about coming back gripped her. He was her closest friend and the thought of never seeing him again was intolerable.

At the top of the stairs she punched in a code allowing her access to the second floor. Along the length of the hallway the doors were all closed. As she passed by them she could hear music coming from some of the rooms, but most were empty.

Those prostitutes who worked during the day and had somewhere else to go would be off the premises so they couldn’t be called upon to service clients. Those who worked during the night would be downstairs or in one of the other houses.

The vice lord Allende owned them all—buildings and outcast Weres alike. He’d taken control, killing the previous vice lord, a Wolf, the year before she approached Dorrit about working as a healer in the brothels.

Rebekka couldn’t suppress a shiver at the thought of being bound by contract to Allende. Some said his animal form was Hyena. Others Jackal. Levi said Allende smelled like Leopard. She’d met the vice lord only once, but she’d heard tales of what he did to those who tried to flee without fulfilling the terms of their agreements—even when those terms were dictated by someone else, a debt-holder or a family member or a court of human law.

For room and board and safety she healed those who worked in the brothels owned by him. She was free to come and go as she pleased, yet she couldn’t escape this world of prostitutes or the red zone where they plied their trade. She felt bound by her gift, by her upbringing, by the tattoo marking her as a prostitute though she’d never given herself to a man.

Rebekka reached the end of the walkway and once again entered codes allowing her to pass. Unlike the building she’d just left, serving only Weres, this one held rooms for hosting parties of sexual excess.

The walkway continued, a bridge built on top of the hallway separating the three front rooms from the three back rooms. Weres patrolled it, walking back and forth, a leap away from preventing trouble or delivering punishment, a menacing presence there to ensure patrons got what they paid for, no more and no less.

All of those supervising the activities were pure, able to shift between human and animal forms. Their presence in the red zone made Rebekka assume they were outcasts forced from Were lands by their deeds.

She barely glanced at scenes playing out in the six rooms. The only difference between these and the ones that had taken place in the brothels she’d grown up in was that here men—and sometimes women—played out their fantasies with prostitutes they considered little more than animals.

Oakland was a port town and the red zone thrived as a result of it. The Were brothels provided something humans who lived elsewhere couldn’t easily experience.

She passed into the next building, going down to the first floor. Plush carpet and walls painted in erotic murals created a feeling of luxury and entitlement. A higher class of client was served here but not an exclusive one like the three brothels on the other side of the street.

It was too early in the night for her services to be needed in this building, but they would be. Just as they would be needed in the one she entered next, a place dedicated to those who thrived on giving and receiving pain.

The sounds of screams and growls, of whips and paddles, dominated. There were few private rooms, as those who found sexual satisfaction in the dungeonlike setting enjoyed an audience.

Rebekka hurried through, the flash of wedding bands glinting as hands rose and fell, delivering blows. Once again she climbed stairs and entered a walkway. Relief came at reaching the last building, and then the small room that was hers.

She sat on the bed, legs suddenly wobbly, and wished she could stay. She couldn’t.

She’d already been away too long. There’d be those who needed her, and she had a message to pass on for Levi. This was the worst of the brothels Allende owned. It served the dregs, the humans who were that in name only.

Rebekka forced herself to stand. She allowed herself the luxury of a hot shower and a change of clothes before going downstairs.

In the alcove just beyond the parlor where Dorrit negotiated with clients, Feliss waited. She was delicate and beautiful, doe-eyed with a timidness attracting both the best and the worst of the men who visited the brothel.

Like the other prostitutes, she wore little in the way of clothing. From the front she could pass for human, hiding the black, horn-tough finger- and toenails underneath polish. But when she turned around, her shoulders, back, and buttocks revealed her Deer heritage.

Because they were friends, Rebekka knew Feliss’s story. Her mother was a Deer trapped by a hunter who rarely left the woods. Rather than accept death, she shifted into human form, erroneously thinking it would be easy to escape.

The trapper never dropped his guard. He kept her chained or caged, used her as whore and wife and ultimately the mother of his child.

When the opportunity arose, and Feliss managed to free her mother, her mother changed and returned to the forest. If Feliss had been able to shift between forms, instead of being born in a mixed one, then her mother wouldn’t have abandoned her.

But because Feliss wasn’t pure, she was left behind. And when she hit puberty, she was forced to take her mother’s place as whore and wife until the hunter who’d fathered her came to Oakland to sell the pelts he’d taken years to gather, and sold Feliss as well to the vice lord before Allende.

Rebekka’s stomach turned thinking about it. She raged at the horror, the injustice.

It shouldn’t be possible to hold a woman against her will, human or Were. It shouldn’t be possible to sell someone into prostitution.

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