Chapter 12 #2
Whatever it was, it wasn’t done with me yet.
By the time we made it back to the clearing, I needed help getting out of the cart.
My legs felt like hot Jell-o, ready to melt and drop me to the ground.
I stumbled away and threw up again behind a tree.
Gods, I felt like shit. My head swam and shivers racked my body in waves.
I barely made out the conversation taking place around me.
“Are you sure? I would do it, but Pasliegh is being a bitch and wants me on clean up.”
“I’m sure.” That was Kaiden. “I’ll take care of her.”
Then I was being lifted, and it all went black.
Kaiden
I knew tonight was a bad fucking idea. Ezra raced ahead to open the back door of my truck.
Moving as swiftly, but gently as I could, I lay my bond across the back seat.
She looked so weak. Vulnerable. Her forehead was beaded with sweat, and her scrunched face told me she was in pain.
Fuck. I hopped behind the wheel and slammed the door shut.
Ezra barely had enough time to climb in the back with my bond before I tore out of the lot.
“I don’t like the look of this, cuz.” He placed partially frozen fingers on Eryn’s skin, trying to cool her. “The fever is rising too fast, and she’s starting to twitch.”
“Check her pupils,” I ordered, and floored it through a red light.
The apartment was in view when Ezra cursed.
“Blown,” he shouted. “This isn't the stomach flu.”
No. It was poison, and I had a pretty good idea of what kind.
Gathering my bond back in my arms, I took the stairs two at a time and nearly broke my own door down rushing to get her inside.
Antidote. I needed the antidote. But first, I needed to bring her body temperature down.
Nothing would do shit for her if her brain fried inside her skull first.
“Ez!” I shouted from the bathroom.
I ran the faucets lukewarm and laid Eryn inside the tub fully clothed.
The second she was out of my arms, her eyes flicked open, and she leaned over the side.
I jumped out of the way as she was sick once again and growled when she slumped unconscious the second the heaving stopped.
Ezra slid into the bathroom, his arms laden with supplies.
“I wasn’t sure what we needed,” he panted. “Fuck, she doesn’t look good.”
“Save your opinions for when I ask,” I snapped. “Go into the kitchen and boil the following: moon water, kola leaf, St. Mary’s thistle, and a clear quartz.”
He ran to do as I asked while I lifted my bond from the water.
She seemed almost peaceful now, but I knew the worst was yet to come.
Carrying her across the hall, I placed her on my bed, not caring if she soaked the sheets.
The wet cotton would help keep her cool, and that would further stave off the other symptoms. For now.
Nightshade poisoning was no joke. That had to be what this was.
Nothing else affected a nightmare as strongly.
How the fuck was she poisoned? I had my eyes on her the entire night.
Ezra returned with a vial in hand—magically cooled for immediate use.
I thanked him with a nod and uncorked it.
Pushing a knee into the mattress, I leaned over my bond to gently lift her head enough for the antidote to trickle into her mouth.
The second the vial touched her lips, it all went to hell.
“Shit. Ez!” I shouted over my shoulder. “Get over here and help me.”
Half the antidote soaked the pillow beside Eryn’s head, and I worked hard to protect the rest as she thrashed beneath me. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and the rest of her face was contorted in fear. Fuck. The poison was progressing faster than I anticipated. How much of it did she ingest?
“Quick, get her legs!” I instructed, then narrowly dodged a heel to the ribs.
“What the fuck is happening to her?” Ezra panted. He pinned both her legs to the mattress with genuine concern.
I wasn’t the only one disturbed by this new development. I hated seeing her like this. Hopefully, once the antidote kicked in, she would calm down and her body could rest.
“My guess is hallucinations,” I responded and barely missed a clawed hand coming for my face. I wasn’t fast enough, though, and her nails raked the skin of my neck, drawing blood. “I’m sorry for this, princess.”
I released my shadows, and they leaped to do my bidding.
Like gentle restraints, I bound them across her chest and shoulders, pinning her arms to her sides in the process.
Without wasting another precious moment, I forcefully gripped her chin with one hand and poured the antidote down her throat with the other.
She sputtered and coughed, but the cool liquid went down, and I breathed a sigh of relief as it took root. The thrashing stopped, and Eryn’s brow smoothed out in the first look of peace I’d seen on her face since we carried her from the party.
“Was it enough?” Ez asked.
He gently released her legs, and I called my shadows back. I sat above her for a few more minutes, just in case, but the worst of it seemed to have passed.
I sighed. “I think so, but let’s brew another batch just in case. She shouldn’t have reached the hallucination stage so swiftly.”
“You’re worried she’s ingested too much.”
I nodded. “Or she’s having an adverse reaction to the poison on top of everything else.”
Fuck. My bond was poisoned. My guilt ate at me through the night while I kept watch.
Ezra easily brewed another batch of the antidote while I scryed Mother to fill her in on all that had happened.
To say she was disappointed in me would be an understatement.
My failure to protect my bond was glaringly obvious, and no one felt its repercussions more than me. Or Eryn.
After turning down my mother's offer to send the family physician and her multiple attempts at getting me to come home, I did concede on one thing: my bond was to live here, with me and Ezra, for as long we remained at this school.
I sank into my plush two-seater on the opposite side of the room, head throbbing.
She would hate me even more after this, but at least she’d be alive.
Her soft rustling on the bed grew more frantic, and I worked to ease my anxieties.
I wasn’t sure how much of it could leak down the bond with her defenses down like this.
She needed peace, not the burden of my stress.
More rustling and quiet murmurs broke through the darkness of the room.
A night terror? I easily made my way toward the bed, familiar with my room even with the low visibility.
Something scrunchy and dark flew at my face, and I caught it before it made contact.
It was soft, like cotton, and a little damp.
Her shorts? I tossed them to the side and looked up just in time to watch her wrestle with her top.
The few beams of moonlight that reached her from the open window showed my half-dressed bond twisting to try and escape her damp tank top.
She was breathtaking. Pale, unblemished skin nearly shone under the moon’s glow, like it was embedded with crystal.
From the curve of her breasts to the soft roundness of her belly, she radiated beauty.
Much more potent than a siren’s call, nightmares really did bloom at night: like a midnight flower.
Her growls turned frustrated as her top got stuck over her head.
It was enough to break me from my trance.
“Easy. Let me help.”
It was a struggle because she still appeared to be out of it and was fighting rather than working with me.
In the end, one tank top was no match for the two of us, and it joined its companion somewhere on the floor.
Now I had a new problem; Eryn was half-naked.
Wearing only a bra and panties, she sat and stared at the foot of the bed, her eyes glowing softly.
“Eryn?” I slowly reached out to cup her cheek and hissed when I felt how warm she was.
If the antidote were working properly, she wouldn’t have a fever. Godsdammit! At least it wasn’t hallucinations again, and maybe this time, she would take the antidote without fighting. I let out every colorful curse I knew and reached for the new vial on the nightstand.
“Kaiden?” I froze, my hand around the small glass and looked back. Eryn faced me now, her clear gaze finding mine in the dark. “What’s h-happening?”
Her stutter was more from the fever than the surprise of waking up in a strange bed, I hoped, but I still moved cautiously.
“What do you remember?” I asked, then gently settled a little closer, until I could make out more of her features.
“We were at a party,” she started but paused with a frown. “I-I was sick.”
“Bit of an understatement, but keep going, princess.”
“That’s it,” she whined. “I remember being sick, and t-then nothing.”
It wasn’t unheard of for poisoned victims to not remember the aftermath. What I needed was the memories before the symptoms started. Did she still have those?
“You were poisoned,” I told her. “Nightshade. And a lot of it.”
She didn’t answer. The silence stretched between us so long that I wondered if she heard me.
“Eryn?”
“I was poisoned.” It wasn’t a question, more a statement of disbelief. “I was f-fucking poisoned?”
I couldn't help but grin. If she could be angry right now, then things weren’t as bad as I originally thought. She did still have a fever, though, which meant the poison wasn’t done with her yet. We had to stay ahead of it.
“Trust me, I’ve been angry enough for the both of us, but right now, I need you to drink some of this.”
I offered her the vial. and she took it from me without argument. Almost.
“What is it?”
“So little trust in me. And after I just saved your life,” I teased.
“Kaiden,” she warned.
“Kai.”
She growled, but with her shivering it sounded like an irritated kitten. Adorable.
“Kaiden, what is this stuff?”
“The antidote,” I replied with a sigh. “Take half, and it should ease the fever.”
She obediently followed my direction, thankfully, and handed the half-empty vial back to me.
There were a million questions I wanted to ask her about what happened before her symptoms took over but now wasn’t the time.
She’d had a rough night and morning wasn’t far off.
I told her to get some rest and returned to my place on the loveseat before she could comment about me being in bed with her.
Sleep was out of the question, there was too much circling my brain, but it surprised me when an hour later, she hadn’t succumbed to her own exhaustion. Her restless movements and soft groans of discomfort should have eased by now.
“I can hear your teeth chattering from here,” I told her and stood. “Why didn’t you tell me you still had a fever?”
“You gave me the a-antidote,” she replied. “I assumed it needed time to work.”
That shit worked faster than Tylenol. If she hadn’t kicked the poison yet, we needed to try something else. Something I was almost positive would make her want to kill me.
“That was your second dose,” I explained while lifting my T-shirt over my head.
“W-what are you doing?”
The tremble in her voice wasn’t from the fever this time. I stood in front of the window, so I knew she saw me unbutton my jeans and let them fall to the floor. Clad in only my boxer briefs, I stepped toward the empty side of the bed.
“I have only one dose left, and while Ezra can brew some more, I don’t think it will solve our problem.”
“Y-you don’t?”
I picked up the still-cool vial and glanced over at my bond. She looked so small, huddled behind the covers as she was. I didn’t want her to fear me, and pushing our bond was the last thing I wanted to force her into, but I didn’t know what else to do.
“Not by itself,” I admitted. “The antidote needs a little help from our bond.”
I actually heard her gulp, and her fear hit me like a bucket of ice water. I was resigned to the plan, however. Something had to give.
“W-we–” she started, and then went silent. Her breathing picked up when I set a knee on the bed, but she didn’t bolt. “We don’t have a bond.”
She had a point, to a degree. Our bond was nothing more than a seed, but it was there. We just had to convince it to bud a little.
“You know that isn’t true,” I coaxed, still slowly moving closer. “The bond is there. We have to strengthen it…a tiny bit.”
I wasn’t going to force her to complete it; that wasn’t what we needed.
Just a little nudge. Only enough so she could borrow my strength to heal.
It was more than I wanted to push her into.
I’d avoided touching her for the most part because I wanted the bond to grow organically.
I wanted her to want it. Now, I was taking even this small choice from her.
“H-how?”
I was close enough to see the slight tremble in her shoulders, and the way she nervously bit at her lip.
That she wasn’t outright bolting from the room was a good sign.
Then again, I hadn’t told her my plan yet.
Slowly, so I wouldn’t spook her, I brushed a fingertip over her cheek and traced it down to her mouth, where I freed that bottom lip.
“Skin to skin.”