Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
His eyes roll in the back of his head and he drops to the ground, out cold.
“Mine!” I call out, cradling his face in my hands. His blood is everywhere, staining my hands and making me hyperventilate.
I’ve never been one to shrink at the sight of blood, but it’s never been the blood of someone I care about.
His entire body is a mess of cuts and slashes that bleed profusely.
My heart in my throat, I try to ground myself and find a way to help him.
Even my brief training as a nurse fails me as I realize I have nothing around that could help him. There are no human medicines around, nothing that could help fight an infection if he happens to get one due to his open wounds. But perhaps I can use my powers to get some… I’m not sure if I still have enough energy to move things from one world to another, but I must try.
Knowing time is of the essence, I hold tightly onto him and teleport him to the inner bath house.
The bath house is cold and bare. The pool in the middle is dusty and devoid of any water.
Briefly leaving him on the floor, I hurry to start the heating system and clean the pool before activating the runes that control the water supply.
Steam soon wafts around the room, the wood crackling as it gets warmer and warmer.
While the pool fills with hot water, I get back to Mine and start undressing him. He’s unconscious, but every touch of my hands seems to pain him as he lets out low groans of pain.
Pursing my lips, I manifest a blade and cut through his tunic and underclothes, revealing more of the deep gashes that run along the right side of his body.
Before, the scars had been mostly focused on his left side. Now, new ones will mar the other side of his body.
My heart weeps for him and the pain he must be going through. But more than anything, I am terrified that I won’t be able to help him—that whatever’s happening to him might be fatal. He said not to worry, but seeing this much blood, this much mangled flesh, how can I not worry?
I remove the scraps of material from his body and gently lead him to the steaming pool.
“Minnie…” he groans in pain as his skin makes contact with the hot water.
Discarding my own tattered clothing, I join him inside, modesty be damned.
Manifesting a soft sponge and some iodine from Anthropa, I start slowly cleaning his wounds.
“It will be all right. I’ll take care of you,” I whisper, pressing the sponge against his ravaged cheek.
He squeezes his eyes shut as he pushes against the pain.
I wish my words would turn into reality, but the more blood I wipe from his skin, more pools to the surface. His wounds are angry and nothing seems to appease them.
Leaning forward, I wrap my arms around his neck and drag my tongue against his cheek, hoping that my saliva would help. His blood flows into my mouth, harsh and metallic but surprisingly addictive.
A shudder goes down his body, and slowly, but certainly, his arms come to rest against my midriff, holding me close.
That gives me hope that his strength is slowly returning. Yet as I pull back to regard him, I note that nothing has improved.
My lips flatten into a tight line. Perhaps it’s because my energy is so low that my saliva is not working as before. But there is one thing that is more potent and that is…
I still at my train of thought.
As an Aperite, blood exchanges are strictly forbidden for us—it’s one of the things that sets us apart from the dangerously reckless demons. But even though I am low on energy, my body still possesses remarkable healing abilities far beyond those of humans. Perhaps I can use this to help ease his suffering.
Swallowing hard, I know that what I am about to do could potentially lead to my downfall if anyone were to find out…but the sight of his pain-ridden face pushes all hesitation aside.
His eyes slowly flutter open, filled with so much agony that my own heart constricts in sympathy. His mouth curves up slightly in a futile attempt to comfort me, despite being the one in excruciating agony. And in that moment, I make up my mind.
The chance to alleviate Mine’s suffering is worth any potential consequences that may come my way.
“Mine,” I whisper, my voice barely audible. “Look at me.”
With great effort, he focuses on me through his hazy pain-induced daze.
Gently retrieving my blade, I press its sharp tip against my sternum.
His eyes widen in shock.
“Minnie—”
Without hesitation, I slice into my skin and allow the blood to flow freely.
Guiding his head forward, I thread my fingers through his hair and I urge him to drink from the wound.
He hesitates for a split second, his nostrils flaring as he takes in my scent.
“Drink,” I command softly, determination evident in my tone.
“You know what this means,” he rasps out hoarsely.
“None of that matters,” I counter firmly, “as long as you get better. Drink.”
This time, he needs no further persuasion as his lips eagerly latch onto the wound, his tongue lapping up the droplets of blood. My body arches instinctively and I encourage him to take as much as he needs, willing to give everything to ease his suffering.
His hot breath against my skin causes me to break out in goose bumps. The feel of his tongue as he laps up my blood makes my body hum with unreleased tension. I recognize how wrong it is for me to feel like this when he’s suffering, but I never realized that sharing blood would be so erotic, so fulfilling.
My breath catches in my throat. He lets out a low moan before he wrenches himself away from me. His lips are red and smeared with blood. His eyes swirl a deep green as he stares at me intently.
The gashes on his body slowly stop bleeding, but they don’t heal. They close up, still red and angry, turning into harsh scars.
My eyes widen. That’s… That shouldn’t happen. My blood should heal him completely, not merely make the wounds turn to scars.
“Mine… Your wounds.”
“They don’t hurt anymore,” he adds in a low voice. “Thank you, Minnie.”
“But they haven’t healed. They’re…”
They look like injuries that have been healing for a few weeks, but the scar tissue still remains.
He lifts a hand to his cheek, tracing the new bumpy scar tissue.
He closes his eyes and sighs in resignation.
“That does not matter. If you hadn’t…” He takes a deep breath. “If you hadn’t given me your blood, I would have likely suffered for days on end. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.” I shake my head. “I would do anything to take away your pain,” I say as I cover his hand with mine.
“Ah, Minnie mine, you’re too sweet.” There is a sad lilt to his voice as he regards me. “I must look like a fright. As if I weren’t already scarred enough,” he adds bitterly under his breath.
“It doesn’t matter to me. It only matters that you’re alive.”
His face lights up.
“Are you uncomfortable in any way? Is there anything else I can do to help?” I ask.
He shakes his head, a small smile still on his lips.
“I will be weak for a while, but I should be fine now. Thank you,” he repeats.
“Oh, Mine, you scared me so much,” I confess. I cup his face between my hands and get closer to him, then press my lips against the bumpy scar tissue and lay feather-like kisses against his flesh.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before. Your entire body…” I trail off as I let my hands roam lower, down his neck and chest. The scar tissue is pronounced there, too, but at least it’s not bleeding anymore.
What type of illness could have caused something like this? Something so painful and insidious? Something with no cure in sight?
“I know. The scars will fade a little over time, but this happened before, too.” He scrubs a hand over his left side. “The first time it affected only my left side. But as you can see, with time, it’s not so bad,” he adds, almost self-consciously.
“I don’t care about your scars. I never did. I just want to make sure you won’t get ill again. Are you sure there is no cure? Nothing I can do? Perhaps get some information from Aperion?”
“No,” he states. “You cannot meddle with fate, can you?”
“But—”
“Curing my disease is akin to meddling with my fate, Minnie,” he advises darkly.
“The punishment would be worth it. So what if I get another few months without my powers?” I grumble.
“You forget something. That was your first infraction. I doubt they would be lenient the second time.”
“I don’t care. If I can help, I will.”
“No.” His tone is firm. “I don’t want you to put yourself in danger for me. Ever.”
“But, Mine. If I can do something?—”
“No,” he repeats. “This is enough for me.” He wraps his hands around my midriff and pulls me flush against his body. “Just being with you like this is more than enough.”
I gulp down.
Since he’s no longer unconscious, I suddenly become aware of our proximity and the fact that we are…naked. It didn’t seem to matter before when the main purpose was tending to him. But now…
The hot water surrounds us, but there is no mistaking the heat coming off his body and transferring onto my own.
His eyes too, blaze with desire, and it’s getting harder and harder to ignore his growing male part poking against my belly.
“Perhaps we should get out. You need rest,” I stammer as I avert my gaze.
“Not yet,” he whispers. “Let me hold you a few moments longer.”
“I’m sure you can surmise this isn’t exactly proper and?—”
“Fuck propriety.”
I raise my eyes to look at him.
“I’m not going to ravage you, Minnie. No matter how much I’d like to, I am too worn out to do anything but hold you. So please…”
Something in his voice makes me waver.
“All right. I suppose we can stay like this a bit longer,” I acquiesce.
My reward is a beaming smile and a tight hug as he presses a kiss on my forehead.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this,” he whispers. “To have you in my arms, to breathe you in and hold you…”
“A few months?” I offer jokingly.
“A lifetime,” he answers. I expect him to laugh it off, but as I tilt my head to look at him, I realize he’s serious about it.
“A lifetime?” I echo.
He takes my hands in his, threading our fingers together and staring at the tight link.
“It was all worth it,” he continues, disregarding my previous question. “Everything was worth it,” he mumbles, more to himself.
“What do you mean?” I frown.
He gives me a tight smile.
“I knew you’d come along, my very own Minnie.” He tightens his hold on me. “I knew I’d find you and that you’d be mine and mine alone.”
“That’s…very nice of you?”
“You will understand. At some point, you will understand. But for now just know that you were the one I was waiting for all along, the one for whom I was glad to go through hell and suffering as long as I knew I’d one day have your lovely hands take the pain away.”
I bite my lip, unable to ignore the giddiness building inside of me. My stomach is in knots, and though this feeling coursing through me is similar to fear, it is not fear. It’s something new, something that makes me want to take a step forward instead of backward.
I may not understand very well what he’s talking about—these are the ramblings of an ill man after all—but I do know something. His words are sincere.
“I’m glad you waited for me,” I say shyly. “I love knowing I’m the only one for you just like you’re the only one for me. It’s…special.”
He nuzzles his face against my hair before placing his chin on my shoulder.
“Then you must take responsibility for me,” he whispers mischievously in my ear.
“W-what?”
“You must take responsibility for making me wait this long, Minnie. Why couldn’t you come earlier to Anthropa?” he muses, almost to himself.
“You wouldn’t have been born,” I stammer.
His dark chuckle echoes in the steam-filled room.
“Maybe for you, I would have.”
“What are you talking about? You’re not making any sense,” I say, struggling to get out of his embrace and take a look at his features. Is he getting more ill? Is that it? Because his words confuse me to no end.
He hugs me tighter. For someone who was on the brink of collapse just moments ago, his strength is rather remarkable.
“You have to thank my mother for this. I got my patience from her,” he adds.
“What do you mean?” I ask, frowning. He’s never mentioned his parents much before.
“I probably inherited my love sickness from her too,” he continues, once more not making any sense. “She is the type to love with all her heart and to only love once. One male. Her entire life, she’s only loved one male, even though it brought her far too much heartache.” He slides his lips across my shoulders in the lightest kiss.
“Your father?”
He nods.
“I wouldn’t be here if my mother didn’t have endless patience and too much forgiveness in her heart for everything my father put her through.”
“You sound as if you don’t like him,” I add warily.
For some reason, I’m curious about his family. No matter how many deep talks we’ve had, whenever the subject of family came up, he was always tight-lipped. Perhaps I’m taking advantage of the situation by probing, but I can’t help myself. I want to know everything about Mine.
Everything.
“I like him well enough.” He laughs. “I just don’t agree with some of the things he’s done and the choices he’s made in the past. If it were me… I would never allow anything or anyone to stand between me and my beloved,” he rasps. He emphasizes the word beloved in such a way that I know he’s talking about me.
He trails up my neck until he reaches my ear. He parts his lips over my flesh and uses his teeth to nibble at the most sensitive part.
A shiver travels down my back, and I instinctively lean into his touch, seeking more of it.
“What happened?” I ask in a strangled voice.
Yes, please talk . If you continue this, I don’t think I’ll meet the next day with my virtue intact. And he won’t even have to ask for it. I’ll likely offer it on a platter as long as he can touch me more like this, elicit more of these foreign sensations from my body.
“My mother was very sheltered growing up. She was sent to an all-girls boarding school, but her education was mostly on how to be a good wife for her future husband. Her parents had a match for her already and they were waiting for her to reach her majority so they could announce it to the public.
“I think it happened some time before her graduation. My father ended up in the vicinity and they met. He was older, wiser, and I think that appealed to her at the time. She started sneaking around to meet him every time she could.”
“How old are we talking about?” I interrupt, not liking where this is going if she was still a schoolgirl.
“Old enough.” He lets out a dry laugh. “He might not look it, but he’s lived more than anyone I know.”
“Oh, all right.”
“It’s actually not what you’re thinking about. It was my mother who kept seeking him out, wanting to spend more time with him. From what she tells me, he was quite reluctant in the beginning. But he eventually fell in love with her too.”
“And that’s when you came to be?”
“No. Not yet. You’re quite the impatient little minx, aren’t you?” He chuckles.
“Fine, fine, go on.”
“He knew she was engaged, but he still slept with her. She soon got pregnant, but before she could tell him, he was gone.”
“What?” I burst out in shock.
“I know. That was my reaction too,” he adds wryly. “In his defense, he did not think he could father biological children, so he didn’t think that was a risk.”
“But it happened. What next?”
“My mother had the child while she was still at the boarding school. By the time everyone realized she was with child, she was already in labor.”
I wait for him to continue.
“The baby was taken away from her,” he adds quietly.
I gasp loudly.
“What? They took the baby from her? How? Why?”
He nuzzles his face against the crook of my neck. “Her parents still wanted her to go on with the match. They couldn’t have rumors going around about her pregnancy, so they made the baby disappear.
“And no, that was not me. It was my older brother.”
My mouth falls open in shock. This is the first time he’s mentioned an older brother.
“Where is he now?” I dare ask.
He stills. “No one knows. They couldn’t find him,” he adds, his tone sad.
“Your mother married the other male?”
“Yes and no. She kept hoping my father would come back for her—she was sure of it. She waited until her wedding day, and she waited even as she was forced to marry the male her parents decreed. But she would never betray her beloved and…”
“And?” I repeat, trying to temper my excitement at the story.
“She took matters into her own hands and almost killed her husband on the wedding night.”
“She what?”
“She was lucky she didn’t kill him, otherwise she would have been executed for it. But she did injure him enough that he repudiated her. She was shunned by her entire family and exiled to live far away from them, with no money, nothing.”
“Mine, that’s horrible.”
“And yet she kept hoping my father would come back. Year after year, she didn’t lose hope. Year after year he didn’t return. She doesn’t speak much about that time she spent on her own, barely surviving, but I think it was hard on her. Everyone knew her as a fallen woman, and she had to fight to protect herself.”
His voice is full of respect as he talks about his mother and it’s evident how much he loves her. Now I’m even more curious about her. Maybe at some point I can meet her?
“Eventually, my father did return. He searched for her until he found her living in a small cottage, subsiding on an even smaller vegetable garden because the soil was so barren in that area.”
“Please tell me she didn’t take him back immediately.”
He smiles.
“In her heart, I do believe she did. But she also made him work for it, and she told him that she would only take him back once he managed to make the ground fertile again.”
“Oh my.” I laugh. “That sounds rather hard.”
“It was,” he agrees. “It took him a long time to do it, but he never stopped trying. I think my mother needed to see that he was committed to her and that he wouldn’t leave again. On the day of the first harvest, she took him back. And that’s when I appeared.”
“Did your father find out about your older brother.”
“He did, and he couldn’t find him either, which can only mean one thing…” he trails off.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“It’s fine. I never knew him. But I don’t think my mother ever moved on from it.”
“And she never blamed your father for that?”
“Strangely, no. But I think he blames himself for it. If only he’d come sooner. If only he’d taken her with him. So many ifs…”
I ponder over his words for a moment.
“I get now why you don’t want to be like your father. He let your mother down when she needed him the most.”
“I would never let you down, Minnie. I hope you know that. No matter where you are or what separates us, I will always find you.”
“Ah, Mine, that’s so sweet of you to say.” I don’t add that it’s likely impossible for him to stay true to his promise due to the fact that he’s human and I’m…not.
“It’s not just a platitude. I mean it. There might be a time when you are alone and afraid. When that time comes, please remember my words. I will find you. I will be there for you. Be like my mother and never lose hope.”
I lean into him, soaking in his words.
Yet as I blink, the world starts spinning, the image in front of me flashing in and out. Instead of the bright light of the bath house, darkness glides over my eyes.
There’s something there. Something that isn’t quite right.
A sharp pain erupts in my head.
“Go back, Minerva. Show me what happened next,” a dark, unfeeling voice commands me. The compulsion is so strong I can only obey.