Bast turned his back on the man, not caring if he lived or died right now. Not wanting to be a vampire for the first time in his life. His one focus, his only concern was the woman before him. “Did you hear that, princess? We’re free.” Was it his imagination, or did there seem to be less activity now? “So come back to me. Whole. Come back to me so that we can do so many things. Remember what I said? I’ll give you everything you’ve ever dreamed. Anything at all. Just come back to me.”
He gritted his teeth as stabbing pins prickled up his arm, wiping away the scales and remainder of his dragon features. Alice continued to jerk, each movement soliciting a soft moan from her. He would have loved to dream she knew what was happening to her and was on her way back, fighting and clawing her way back to him. Struggling to survive. But so far, she hadn’t done anything or said a word. And he was desperate. So very desperate for one little sign. Just one.
“You figured it out, why you and I were meant to be. You’re a princess, and princesses and dragons have always been together. Our true natures knew we belonged with each other. So see, you can’t leave. You can’t defy nature.” The contractions began to slow, and Bast watched every unnatural movement, willing it to be the last. “If you love me, Alice, you’ll stop now,” he whispered. “Stop, please...please.”
And it worked. For whatever reason, and he didn’t care how or why, she stopped. There was no more clenching and unclenching. No more uncoordinated jerks that rattled her entire body. Alice lay in his arms, her mouth pressed tightly together, the skin around her eyes pinched. There wasn’t peace in her expression, but all of the tension he’d just witnessed from her illness settled into a single place.
She only now had to wake up.
Bast got to his feet, carrying her in his arms. He held on tightly, almost too timid to believe the seizure had stopped. Some irrational part of his brain insisted that if he took a single step, she would begin to seize again and it would be the last thing she did. That he’d never hear her laugh again. Never look into those beautiful blue eyes. Paralyzed with fear, he looked to the door, wanting with every heartbeat to take her through it and to the other side. To get her medical help. But he couldn’t do it. “Alice,” he groaned. Oh, God. Please help.
A voice called to him. “Bast.”
He blinked through the blur to find Drew waiting. He stood in the doorway, watching Bast. Watching Alice.
“I—I can’t. She’ll die.”
“She won’t die,” Drew reassured. “She’s just sleeping. Look at her. Look at her chest. She’s breathing and just sleeping.”
Like he said, there was a slow rise and fall to her chest. But it wasn’t enough. Not nearly. “Will she wake up?”
“I don’t know, old friend. Let’s take her to the hospital, and we’ll wait and see, okay?”
Bast nodded and took a single step forward. Then another. And then another.
* * *
His eyes burned, but Bast forced them open, wincing as fluorescent lighting filled his vision. The monotonous beep-beep-beep almost didn’t register anymore, but he had a feeling that if it stopped, it would have snapped him to attention, even as fatigued as he felt. His muscles, stiff from constant vigil, protested as he sat up, but Bast ignored them.
Forty-eight hours of no sleep. Forty-eight hours of waiting at her side as she slept beneath starched sheets and machines monitored her continuously from the bedside. He made sure to speak to her every hour. To make sure she knew he waited for her and had no intention of going anywhere. Not without her. Not until she woke up for him.
One more day and he’d transfer her to the care of a vampire physician, but for now, the humans seemed to be doing a commendable job. They scanned her brain, surprised that the tumor seemed to be smaller than only a few days previous. They chalked the difference up to human error, but Bast knew differently. He just hoped that the other anatomical changes she was undergoing while unconscious had occurred quickly enough. That she’d begun to transition before having a seizure could do permanent harm. There was just no way to tell until she woke up.