The Shadows(26)

“Okay.” He nodded toward his brother. “But iAm. I want him to stay.”

His brother nodded and brought over a chair—but not for himself, as it turned out. He shoved it under the backs of Trez’s knees, and functioning joints being what they were, a total collapse of the vertical happened but quick. As his ass smacked into the seat, he thought, yeah, he had been feeling a little light-headed. Probably a good idea to get off his feet.

With not a single word, iAm took a load off on the floor beside him, and it was incredible how just having the male in the room calmed him.

Trez refocused on Selena. She still had not moved from the position he’d found her in, and all those hard angles of her body were a total nightmare.

In fact, this whole thing just seemed so … devastating.

From what Cormia had said, the Arrest was a disease that struck a tiny minority of Chosen females. In all of history, there had been only a dozen, maybe fewer, who had suffered from it—which meant the statistical chance of getting the disorder was very small. Unfortunately, the condition had been uniformly fatal.

Goddamn it, he didn’t want any of those females to be sick, but why her?

Of all of them, in the entire history of the Race, why did Selena have to be one of the ones cut short like this?

And it was a horrible way to die. Frozen in your own body, unable to communicate, trapped in a fading prison until everything went dark and you …

He closed his eyes.

Shit, what if she didn’t want him here? He had bonded, yes—and everyone else was treating him with the respect that a bonded male would have in this situation, even as they wondered how it had happened without them knowing.

The problem was, he and Selena weren’t mated. In a relationship. Even dating.

Hell, they hadn’t even spent two minutes together in months—

“Trez?”

With a jerk, he popped his lids. Doc Jane was in front of him, her forest-green eyes alert and grave. “I’ve looked at the X-rays.”

He cleared his throat. “Maybe the others would like to be here for this?”

Shit, should he step aside so Cormia or someone could hold her hand? Would that be better? His body would hate that and so would his soul. But this was not about him.

A lot of people came in, more than there had been, and he nodded at Tohr, Qhuinn and Blay—and was glad that Layla was there, along with Cormia and Phury. Forcing himself to his feet, he went to step back, but the Primale came over and eased him down into that chair again.

“You stay where you are,” Phury said, squeezing his shoulder. “You’re right where you need to be.”

Trez let out some kind of croak. It was the best he could do.

Doc Jane cleared her throat. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” She called something up on the big computer screen by the desk. “It’s as if the joints themselves have turned to solid bone.”

The black-and-white image was of what appeared to be Selena’s knee and Doc Jane indicated different areas with the head of a silver pen. “On X-ray, bones register white and pale gray, whereas connective tissue like ligaments and tendons don’t offer that kind of contrast. Here”—she drew a circle around the joint—“there should be dark patches in between the cap and the socket. Instead it’s just … solid bone. The same is true for the joints in her feet, her elbow, her…”

More of those images flashed up on the screen, one after another, and all he could do was shake his head. It was as if someone had poured cement into all the junctures.

“What’s particularly worrisome is this.” A new picture became visible. “This is her arm. Unlike the other joints, the bone growth appears to be spreading and invading into the musculature. If this continues, her entire body—”

“Stone,” Trez whispered.

Oh, God, those marble statues in that place he’d found her.

That wasn’t a courtyard—that was a cemetery. Full of the females who had suffered and died from this.

“The only thing I’m aware of that is remotely like this is a human disease called fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva. It’s an extremely rare genetic condition that causes bone to form where muscles, tendons, and ligaments are, and it results, over time, in a total restriction of movement—to the point where patients must choose the position they want to be locked into. The growth of the bone happens sporadically and can be triggered by trauma or viruses, or can be spontaneous. There are no treatments for the disease, and surgical removal of the growth just triggers further genesis. What Selena’s going through is like that—only it seems to have occurred all over her body at once.”