Grace Goodwin - The Virgins - Complete Boxed Set

Cassie dug through my bag and easily found the ReGen wand. Besides some of the food she’d packed, I only had a few items of Earth clothing and a blanket. It was hard to be patient as I lay in the bright sun, waiting as she studied the healing tool.

“Cassie,” I groaned. It wasn’t getting any easier to breathe and I was ready to be free of pain.

Remembering me, she dashed to my side and held the ReGen wand before her like the unfamiliar object she must think it.

I took it from her, our fingers brushing, and shifted the black handle to my hand. I pushed the button and the healing energy of the ReGen coils at its tip burned a bright blue. Groaning with each shift of my body, I moved the wand back and forth over the injured area.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.

“Healing.”

I could feel the bones reknitting and I groaned. It didn’t hurt worse than the stabbing pain of breathing with them broken, but it wasn’t pleasant either.

“I… I don’t understand. You need a doctor. Bedrest.”

“No,” I replied as the pain began to lessen. The ReGen wand would heal me in just a few minutes. Already I could take deeper breaths. “This is a minor wound.”

“Minor?” she countered. “It will take weeks for that to heal, if you don’t puncture a lung. I don’t know how to get you to shelter. There’s no food, no firewood. No water for that duration.”

“Cassie,” I said again, this time my voice didn’t hold the sharp bite of pain. “This is a healing wand. All I need to do is wave it over the injury and it will repair the damage.”

Even angling my head, I couldn’t see the injury well, but by the way her eyes widened, I had to imagine that the bruising she spoke of was quickly fading away.

“How… I… I don’t understand.”

I shifted then and there was no pain, only twinges of discomfort. As I spoke, I kept moving the wand back and forth, then up toward my shoulder. It wasn’t out of joint, but it ached nonetheless.

“It is a normal household item on Everis, on most planets in our universe. It heals minor wounds quickly and easily. For larger, more serious wounds, you need a full submersion pod.”

“A pod? You could have healed Mr. Anderson!”

She looked at me with accusation in her eyes and my hand stilled. “Oh, Cassie, no. We have a ReGen pod on the ship. It will heal major wounds, but it’s not portable. The wand is, but only heals minor wounds, not dire emergencies like what Neron did to your father-in-law. And he was already dead. While our technology does heal—” I held up the wand, “—it does not return life once it has left the body.”

Shoulders drooping, she eyed my injury. “Yet you are better?” she asked, doubtfully.

“Yes, a fall from a horse can be easily remedied. Not that we have horses on Everis, so this is a first for me.”

She sat there listening to me, wide-eyed and curious.

“It’s so small. How can it do all that? And if your people came to Earth, why don’t we have this here?”

“I don’t know what happened to the settlers, although you are their descendant, so some must have survived. Right now, Earth is considered a primitive civilization. Your people don’t know there is anything beyond the height a bird can soar through the air. There are no spaceships, no simple flying crafts yet. Your technology is far behind ours, thousands of years behind. No one would understand this.”

She laughed then, more out of stunned amazement than humor. “I don’t understand it. I barely understand the things you just said.” Her eyes lifted to mine and for the first time I did not see hostility or doubt, but wonder. “You must think me stupid.”

I moved then, pushing up on my elbow, then onto my hand so my eyes met hers. “I don’t think you’re stupid at all. Brave, resilient, loyal. Kind.”

She looked down at my chest, the first time she’d seen my body outside a shared dream. “You’re completely healed then?”

Pushing off my hand, I sat up, moved so I was up on my knees. Pulling my shirttails from my pants, I ran my hand over where my injury had been. There were no bruises, no marks on my skin, no tears to my muscle or breaks in my ribs beneath.

“Want to try it?” I held the wand to her.

She took it in her hands as if it were fragile. “What do I do?”

“Just wave it over an injury.”

She lifted it to my forehead and I frowned.

“You have a small cut here.”

I hadn’t even felt the injury before, but now that my ribs were healed, my forehead did sting a little and I could feel a wet trickle there.

I watched her as she moved the wand back and forth over my head, her eyes following the motions of her hand. Her skin was so pale, yet her cheeks were flushed from the heat and her worry. So similar to an Everian woman, but softer, her eyes rounded with curiosity. She leaned in close, closer than she’d ever been of her own volition and I tried to ignore the way her breasts rose when she lifted her hands to my forehead, or the scent of the damp skin of her neck just inches from my lips. I hungered for her, ached to taste her once more. I wanted her to drop the wand and bury her fingers in my hair, pull me close as I explored her body with my lips.

“Amazing,” she whispered. I knew the wound was healed entirely and I lifted my fingertips to the spot to prevent them traveling to her breasts. My head no longer hurt, but blood tinged my fingertips.

“Thank you, Cassie.” I caught her gaze and reached for her wrists, trapping her hands between us, a barrier I needed. I couldn’t take her yet, not here, not with Neron still out there. But, Divine torture, I wanted to take her mouth, lift her skirts and bury my cock in her wet heat.

I settled for talking. “I know that everything I shared is quite a bit for you to process, to understand and accept. I am telling you the truth, Cassie.”

She held the wand in her lap, lowered her head to look at it. “I’ve never seen an object hold light inside it before. Only a lamp, but that is fire. This blue light is cold. Unexplainable. This wand is unexplainable. You were hurt. I saw it. Saw your pain.” She pointed to my head. “The blood.”

I waited for her to continue.

“I… I believe you, Maddox. It’s a leap for me and it will take me time, but I believe you.”

I didn’t realize how much I wanted to hear those words, but the relief was palpable. It was as if my soul had been healed along with my ribs.

“You talk of leaving on a spaceship and going back to Everis, of taking me with you.”

I reached out and took her hand, touched my mark to hers. I felt the jolt of the connection to my very core.

“I will not leave you.” I was repeating it again and again, but it would not change. Ever.

“I am not asking you to, nor do I wish to begin the debate again. I am at a disadvantage. I know nothing of your world, or any other world for that matter. I know nothing of these healing wands or flying ships. Selby is all I know, all I truly remember.”

Guilt weighed my shoulders down and I lifted my hand to her cheek, needing to touch her. She was correct and it was difficult to remember that while she was from Earth, her own little world was only a small number of miles around. “I know, Cassie. This was a surprise for me as well. But I can’t be sorry. You’re beautiful, mate, and you’re mine. I won’t give you up. You can’t deny our bond. I know you feel it, too.”

“I am not denying you , Maddox. Or us.” She squeezed my hand and stroked my face. “But you have to give me time. A few days ago I didn’t know you existed. Didn’t know my birthmark was something else. Didn’t know about mates. Didn’t know such evil.”