The Fabrizio Bride

Chapter Six

Hammers pounded her skull and burning daggers poked her eyes.

Sarika dragged the covers over her face to block out the offending sunlight, but the movement caused her stomach to heave and her head to spin. She lay motionless, groaning, waiting for the room to stop whirling.

It did eventually, and she went from Hangover Hell to the edge of Puking Purgatory. If she didn't move, she still felt awful but not as if her stomach and head were in a deadly shootout, the winner getting to eject itself from her body.

She took shallow breaths—in through her nose, out through her mouth—trying to calm the nausea.

"Sarika, are you all right? Can I get you anything?"

Rafe's voice sliced through her temples, and the dip in the bed as he sat on it felt like an earthquake, undoing any progress she'd made.

She groaned in response. After a moment, the mattress lurched again and footsteps walked away from the bed. She squinted past the quilt and saw Rafe at the window, adjusting the heavy, brocade drapes. They'd been closed except for a small section that had caught on a Queen Anne chair, allowing light through. As the piercing glare disappeared, she shut her eyes in relief.

Oblivion. Then a minute later, he yelled at her again. "Sit up, sweetheart. Take these." His arm slipped behind her back and eased her into a semi-upright position.

"Go away," she moaned.

"They'll make you feel better, I promise." He placed two pills in her hand.

"Stop shouting."

"I'm not shouting."

She glared at him, then put the pills in her mouth. "Water."

He gave her a glass filled to the brim. "Drink as much as you can."

After swallowing the pills, she tried to return the glass, but he made her finish. When she did, he set it on the bedside table. "Do you want to go back to sleep, or do you need to use the bathroom?"

"Sleep," she said.

He started to lay her back down.

"No, wait. Bathroom."

Lifting her gently from the bed, he carried her across the thick, cream-colored carpet. She felt as weak as a newborn, but she didn't want him to know that. "I have a hangover not some debilitating disease. I can walk, you know."

His mouth quirked. "I'll put you down at the door."

Seconds later, her feet touched the bathroom's cool marble. She leaned against the doorjamb until she had her balance.

"Are you sure you don't need my help?" he asked.

She glowered at him and shut the door in his face. Then, she laid her cheek on it and closed her eyes.

"Sarika?" His voice vibrated through the wood.

"What?"

"Don't look in the mirror, sweetheart."

* * *

She woke again in the bed to a tapping sound, which was odd, because the last thing she remembered was curling up on the thick cotton bath mat in front of the toilet. She had, indeed, looked in the mirror, and it hadn't been a pretty sight: pale face, green around the gills, hair tangled. And her once-perfect eye makeup now made her look like a deranged raccoon, but she was too sick to care.