SWNOVELS Chapter 36: Mission Report
Hannibal awoke in his bed twenty hours after passing out in the Healing chamber. He had no idea where he was because the room didn’t look familiar. It was much larger and had two doors in addition to the closets. Rachel’s bed was gone and so was Leila’s. This distressed him because of his concerned about both of them. He didn’t even know what time it was. A groan escaped his lips as he tried to move. His body was very stiff and sore. His head ached as he searched the room in the dim light, which made him conclude it was the middle of the night. He saw a light shining out of the bathroom and heard a voice singing a beautiful Kaitian lullaby there along with the sound of running water. Relaxing a bit, he lifted the blankets and saw that he was dressed in his pajamas. Dag gone, what happened? I don’t remember a thing after seeing Nathanael mangled, Hannibal thought as the sound ceased in the bathroom. Moments later, the door opened.
Selina walked out in a sexy sleeveless thigh-length black silk nightgown with a towel in her hands, drying her long dark brown hair. She seemed in a very good mood as she saw he was awake. “Oh, you’re awake,” she purred pleasantly, walking over to the bed. Upon reaching the bed, she threw the towel aside and sat down on the bed, grabbing a hairbrush to comb her hair.
“You seem to be in a good mood,” Hannibal said weakly. “What’s going on? Why am I here? Where’s Leila, Rachel, and Emily?”
“Shhh. Everything’s all right,” Selina cooed to him as she sat cross-legged on the bed facing him, brushing her long luxurious hair. “Enoch gave us larger living quarters; that’s all. We have a couple of extra bedrooms now. Leila is in one room and Emily and Rachel are in the other just down the hall. Emily and Rachel actually hit it off fairly well when they first met.”
Hannibal was still in a fog of confusion. “What time is it? How long was I out?” he asked as Selina combed the tangles out of her hair.
“You’ve been out almost a day,” Selina replied softly. “It’s about ten in the evening. Everyone’s gone to bed. I just finished taking a bath. What you need to do is relax. You lost a lot of blood yesterday. Fortunately, Enoch’s blood type matched yours close enough for us to give you a transfusion. But you’re still going to be weak for a few days.”
“Enoch gave me a blood transfusion?” Hannibal replied with some surprise. “Because of my evolving genetic structure, I didn’t think anyone would be a match to my blood type.”
“That’s where you would be wrong,” Selina stated. “We all knew about that so Enoch had Josephine check your blood for genetic changes and compatibility. For the moment, your genetic structure is stable, and your blood type is close enough to Enoch’s that Josephine said it was safe to use it. So now you literally have some of Enoch in you.”
A sigh escaped Hannibal’s lips. “Well, if Jo said it was okay, who am I to complain,” he stated softly. “After all, Jo is the resident expert on my genetic structure. She didn’t happen to fix me up, did she?”
“She did,” Selina replied, “Because every Healer was at capacity from the mission, we had to patch you up before you were put into the Healer. Josephine, Naomi, Harry, Arabella, and I put you back together again, but Josephine did most of the work. We cleaned the wounds and she sewed them up. After getting you into the Healer, we discovered how much blood you’d actually lost and both Arabella and Jo insisted on giving you a transfusion. Jo used her cyborg arms to do it too. It was fascinating. She literally transferred Enoch’s blood to you using her organic nano-machine arms, even filtering it before it went into you. I’m amazed at how versatile her cybernetics are.”
“I must thank her for that,” Hannibal murmured, “By the way, how bad were we hurt? Who came back? I vaguely remember Enoch telling me after we watch the core blast Kartoom to dust using the portal hologram, but I don’t quite recall what he told me.”
“That’s not surprising,” Selina replied. “Your blood loss may have caused that lapse in memory. In a day or so your memory should bet back to normal.”
“How bad was it?” Hannibal insisted, sensing Selina was holding back. “You mustn’t hide it from me. I have a right to know what my actions caused.”
Selina sighed deeply. “All right,” she stated solemnly, “If you insist.” With that, she told him the stats on the teams that returned. Of the original team that penetrated the caverns with Hannibal who went on the Kartoom raid, only Cracko and Harry came back uninjured. All the rest who went on the raid were injured, some seriously like Nathanael and Amelia. In all, of two hundred that went in to Kartoom, only thirty came back and of the thirty, only seven were relatively uninjured: Xavier, Enoch, Harry, Cracko, Andrew, and Nemesis. Everyone else was wounded, some severely. “It was very costly, even more so than your raid to rescue me,” Selina stated grimly as she brushed her hair. “But you did it. Beowulf has ripped the demon’s arm off. Now he has to finish him off.”
Hannibal sighed, troubled by the report. She noticed it and sat the brush on the nightstand. She reached out and took his hand, kissing it. “Oh, my precious prince,” she cooed to him, putting his hand to her cheek. “Do not let your heart be troubled by this. They all knew the risks, even dad, and they accepted it. Those that died did so for you, believing that you are the One, the Last Caverias. They loved and believed in you enough to lay down their lives for the cause. Don’t begrudge them that honor.”
Hannibal looked up at her and couldn’t help but smile. Her good mood was rubbing off on him. She was in such a good mood that she looked ten years younger. “How’s your dad?” he asked.
Selina smiled sweetly at him as she pushed her hair off her shoulders so it would spill down her back, saying, “He’s going to be all right, honey. He won’t be pretty but he will live. He’s a tough old cat, just like you.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Hannibal replied as Selina crawled into bed with him.
Snuggling close, Selina purred, “Alone at last; I have a surprise for your birthday.”
Hannibal caressed her face, asking, “Really? What is it?”
Selina giggled, saying, “Oh, no. I can’t tell you. It’s a surprise.”
Hannibal was eager to know and said, “Well, I could just look for myself.”
Selina pushed herself up so she could look in his face, saying, “Now where would the fun in that be? It’s something very special just for you. Please don’t ruin it for me. Promise that you won’t peek. Promise me!”
Hannibal sighed. “If it’s that important, I won’t look,” he said softly, stroking her cheek with his fingers. “I promise. Besides, I’m so weak that even if I wanted to I don’t think I could. I’m drained, as it were.”
Selina looked him in the eye and saw the terrible fatigue that still plagued him. “You just need a little recharge, that’s all,” she said, sliding closer and kissing him on the lips with one of her special kisses. It lit Hannibal up, right down to his toes. He would have responded except that the fatigue was like a vice on him. He barely had strength to speak. She knew that he wouldn’t be able to respond like he wanted, so when she finished, she said, “There. Did that charge you up some?”
Hannibal looked at her dreamily, saying, “God have mercy, how I love you. I can’t even imagine my life without you now. How did I ever survive?”
Selina laid her head on his chest, saying, “The Lord, my prince. The Lord is your life and always has been. He’s why you’re still in one piece.”
Hannibal nodded, saying sleepily as the fatigue began to win against him, “Yes. That’s right. Thanks for reminding me. The Lord is everything.” Before he could say another word, he was out like a light. Selina shifted her position as she pulled the blankets up to their necks. She snuggled and purred for him. Minutes later, she was fast asleep too.