The Beastkeeper's Bride

32: The Descent

32: The Descent

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It was the uneven sound of Blayne's breathing that invoked the tensing of her brows as she pulled them together, studying him from where she sat tersely on a chair by his side.

The room was eerily still except for the sound of his breath, ragged and sharp, with an occasional tight gasp that would pull him from his slumber with a flinch. Grey light angled through the panes of the window adjacent to the bed where Blayne reposed on his back in their chambers, the time indicative that it was somewhere around mid-morning- and Millie had not slept since he had been moved to their quarters.

She had tended to his wound as best she knew how- through sterilization and suturing- but a deep-rooted concern lingered heavily upon her chest, ringing nervous twinges from her heart, with each breath that expelled and hung in the still air of the room.

She considered him in pregnant silence, as she had been for the last several hours, and pulled her knees up to her chest to rest her chin upon them. Though she longed for nothing more than to crawl to his side and slide under the heavy coverlet that draped across the lower half of his body, Millie feared that any movement may cause further damage to the would at his side. Already, he had lost a substantial amount of blood and his bouts of lucidness were infrequent at best, yet whenever those molten eyes did flip open he would seek her out, his fingers stretching across the fine fabric towards her, her name whispered upon his lips. In those moments she did go to him, but only to soothe. She would squeeze his fingers, stroke his brow, coaxing him with gentle words and soft kisses back into unconsciousness.

The wound disturbed her- it seemed deeper than she could thoroughly assess. Spots of blood bloomed against the gauze pressed to his flank whenever it was changed, and though she had sutured the wound and stemmed the flow as well as she could, Millie suspected it wasn't enough.

Yet until a physician or doctor arrived, she could do little else. Her experience was limited, and any attempt to further assess the severity of his injury would be unwise on her part lest she cause him yet more harm. She had sent for her family's doctor, the man she trusted above all else to tend to these matters, yet she knew that London was some time away and his arrival would be delayed. 

A sense of quiet, steady rage had been building within her throughout the evening- rage that the simple means of healing her husband could potentially be at her fingertips yet was denied her for bureaucratic reasons that made little sense. She could hardly contrive of the thought that the man she loved beyond all reason, that some foreign god saw fit to mark her physically to signify that fate alone had brought them across two worlds to find each other, could ever be snatched from her almost as suddenly as he had been thrust upon her.

She shook her head, compelling the notion away as easily as it had entered.

Blayne was virile and strong- he would fight hard to remain on this plane of existence.

And so would she, even if meant-

The door to her chamber opening drew Millie's gaze and she studied her sister as she entered quietly.

Lillian's gaze lingered over Blayne as she moved towards Millie, a line between her brows the only suggestion of her outward concern. Then her vivid eyes found her sibling curled upon the chair, somewhat shadowed as Millie lingered near her husband's side. At the sight of her hunched over her knees, Lillian's eyes widened slightly.

"Have you washed? Eaten?" she demanded, her voice straining above a whisper so as to not disturb the thick and poignant silence that surrounded them.

Millie's lips pulled tight for a moment and she ran her hand over the side of her face, considering. She still wore the dress she had deigned to attend the ball in- now spattered and smeared with the blood of her heartmate- and her hand shook slightly from fatigue as she ran it through her tousled locks. "No," she said slowly. At length. "It does not matter."