Chapter 24 #2
He got the bra on.
He pulled the T-shirt down over her head, carefully working her arms through the sleeves. He paused twice to apologize for jostling her. He paused once to readjust her hair, which had become tangled in the collar.
When he reached for the panties, she made a small sound that was almost a giggle.
He looked at her face.
Her eyes were closed, but the corner of her mouth had turned up.
"Did you laugh?"
"Mm."
"Are you laughing at me?"
"You are so serious."
He was so relieved to hear her voice that he felt dizzy for a moment.
"This is a serious job. I don't want to hurt you or ruin your clothes."
"You're doing great. I love you."
Her voice was barely a thread. Her eyes did not open. But the small smile stayed at the corner of her mouth, and her hand twitched, perhaps trying to find his or just moving randomly, but he laced his fingers with hers anyway and held her hand for a moment.
Even her fingers felt hot to the touch.
Then he took a deep breath and continued to slide the panties up over her hips. He got the pants on and pulled them up to her waist. The whole operation took no more than five minutes, but it had felt like hours because it had been so stressful.
He drew the duvet back up over her and tucked it around her, then sat on the edge to look at his beautiful wife.
The doorbell rang.
He started and stood up too fast.
"The doctor is here, sweetheart." He leaned to kiss Arezoo's forehead. "I'm going to let him in."
"Mm."
He walked down the hallway and opened the front door.
Julian was standing on the porch with an old-fashioned leather doctor's bag in his hand that Ruvon hadn't seen in years. Behind him, a golf cart was parked on the path.
"Morning," Julian said.
"Thank you so much for coming. I didn't know that you made house calls."
"Neither did I." Julian smiled. "How is she? Any change?"
Ruvon shook his head. "I put some clothes on her, and she was responsive but barely." He opened the door wider and motioned for the doctor to come in.
Julian nodded. "Sounds like the transition to me. The fever onset, the lethargy, the slurred coherence. Three days after the bite. The timing is right. I called Hildegard to prepare the clinic to receive Arezoo in case we need to bring her in."
"Thank you."
Did the entire village know that he and Arezoo had waited for their wedding night to become intimate?
Otherwise, Julian wouldn't have done the math from their wedding night.
The village was such a hive. Everyone was in everyone else's business.
"Through here." Ruvon stepped aside to let Julian in.
The doctor walked into the room, set his bag down on the nightstand, unfastened the clasp, and turned to look at Arezoo.
"You can stay, if you want," Julian said. "I know how it is when the bond settles in. You can't tolerate the thought of being away from her, especially alone with another male in the room."
"It's not just that. Arezoo had a bad experience with someone who pretended to be a doctor. I'm afraid that in her state, she might mistake you for a threat."
"I see. Then perhaps you want to sit on her other side and hold her hand."
That was a great suggestion, and Ruvon was grateful to Julian for understanding.
"Thank you."
He did as the doctor said.
"I have a lot of experience with trauma. I work with rescued victims of trafficking," Julian said quietly. "I get them when they are at the last stage of their rehabilitation, so they are not as frightened anymore, but they are still very skittish around men."
Julian took her temperature with an ear thermometer. He frowned slightly at the reading and made a note. He listened to her heart with a stethoscope. He took her blood pressure. He even drew a small vial of blood from the inside of her elbow, which Arezoo did not seem to register at all.
He then shone a small light into each of her eyes and watched the pupils respond, which they did, but slowly. He pressed gently on her abdomen in three places and noted her responses, which were weak.
The whole examination took less than ten minutes.
"I don't think it's a virus," Julian said.
"But I won't know until I test her blood.
I'm reasonably confident that it's the transition, though.
The good news is that her temperature is high but not dangerously so, and her vitals are stable, but I want to move her to the clinic so we can hook her up to the equipment and monitor her properly. "
Ruvon nodded.
"Pack her a bag."
"Yes, of course." Ruvon rubbed the back of his neck. "What should I pack?"
Julian smiled. "We will supply her with hospital gowns, but she will need slippers and a pair of socks if her feet get cold. Toothbrush, her face cream, a hairbrush, and a change of clothes for when it's time to go home, including underwear. Her phone and charger. Leave all jewelry here."
Ruvon was grateful for the comprehensive list because he was having a hard time concentrating.
"Thank you," he said. "I can do that."
He found the duffel bag Arezoo had used to transport her things from her family home to here and went to the bathroom.
He gathered her toothbrush, her hairbrush, the small array of glass bottles and jars on her side of the counter that she had brought over before the wedding.
He took her slippers from beside her side of the bed, took the poetry book she had left on the nightstand, and put everything in the duffel bag.
Then he went into the closet and collected a few pieces of comfortable clothing.
"I think I have everything she'll need." He zipped up the bag.
"Phone?" Julian asked.
"Oh, yes. Forgot about that."
Ruvon went back to the bedside table, retrieved her phone and her charger, and added them to the bag.
"All right." Julian rose to his feet and lifted his doctor's bag off the nightstand. "Give me the duffel bag. You carry your wife to the cart."
Ruvon handed him the bag.
"I'll be in the cart," Julian said.
Ruvon bent and slid one arm under Arezoo's shoulders, the other one under her knees, and he lifted her the same way he'd lifted her over the threshold three nights earlier.
He straightened and held her against his chest.
Arezoo's head settled into the place at his shoulder that she favored, her arms hung loose, and her cheek pressed against his collarbone.
She was warmer than she'd been only minutes ago.
Her eyes fluttered open.
"What's happening?" she asked.
"You are transitioning, sweetheart. We are taking you to the clinic. Doctor Julian will look after you there together with the nurse."
"Transitioning?"
"Yes."
"That's good."
"Yes. It's very good, my love."
She smiled, the same small soft smile she had been smiling since she had floated away on the wings of the euphoric venom, the smile of a loved woman.
"Good," she murmured again.
Her eyes closed.
Ruvon was not sure she'd understood what he'd told her. He suspected she'd understood the parts that mattered to her, that he was with her, and that she was going to a place where she would be taken care of. She was safe.
He held her close and carried his bride out of their home.
As he climbed with her into the cart, he realized that he hadn't called Soraya yet.
He would call her from the clinic after Arezoo was hooked up to the monitors.