Chapter 31 Sanguinary

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Kylo's rest took him slow and deep. Something reminiscent of tar or black treacle. Thick, syrupy and dark. Though he'd welcome that crushing vale of blackness as opposed to any fevered dream that his mind could conjure up. All the places he's seen in all the ages he's lived. Times of peace or war. His head seemed to regurgitate them at random, at its own behest.

Though something pulled him sharply out of his sleep. As his senses stirred to life, he feels his chest quake and burn with something fevered. It feels like a sort of madness setting in his spine. Creeping along every bone of him. Sinking deep.

And that something is sweet, metallic, and blazing hot.

Blood. He can smell a lot of warm, viscid, blood-

Iris.

Rest can't hold him back now. His eyes slam open and every cell in his body violently shakes off the sleep he'd been trapped in.

His head lifts from his pillow like a startled animal. He twists around and looks behind him. The covers falling over his naked waist.

His eyes adjust quick to the light. Snapping from brown to gold in a flash like a candle flame. He blinks at the shape of his wife huddled opposite him. In her nightgown. Curled away from him with her arms around her stomach.

Kylo looms over the mattress and his large cold hands move to press into her back. She mumbles something incoherent at him. He settles onto his knees behind her. The scent of blood blooming stronger in his nose. His hands worriedly press over her.

"Iris?" He asks. Frown pulling down his dark brows. He reaches up and pulls a lock of hair back from her forehead. She's dewy and warm. He can see the sheen of sweat on her forehead in the half dark of their room.

She opens her eyes and turns back at him. Looking groggy. Pain etched into her face. And her hands are guarding her stomach- wrapped around herself. Knees pulled up.

"Oh, dove-" He realises. Her monthly courses. She was hurting.

"I'm well. Just-" She winces as a roll of pain squeezed at her lower stomach. Clenching tight. He can see one of her hands fisting into her nightgown. Knuckles white on the crumpled linen.

He strokes the hair out her face. She sighs at the touch of his cool fingers. They felt like bliss on her skin - as they always did.

It didn't stop the way he could smell her blood. Curling temptation onto his hungry tongue. Burning sluggish with the scent of her. Cloying and preying on his tastebuds.

It gouged into his stomach like he'd been fiercely kicked by Erland. Knocked him sideways to detect it, and unable to help her when she was in such pain.

He has to leave the bloodthirsty animal aside and remember to be the gallant husband. The one thing he can seldom stand- for her to be in pain which he is helpless to take away.

She woke up an hour ago with that horrid sharp flare stabbing in between her hips and that certain stickiness smearing and staining the insides of her thighs.

She had silently padded to the bathing chamber, cleaned off with a rag and the tepid soapy water left in the jug and basin from washing her face the night before. She soaked the rag and sought out her bundle of clean cotton rags she kept handy for times like these. She crept back to bed and tried to resume sleep before the cramps kicked in.

"Can I get you something? Anything for the pain?" He asks. But truly he is ill-equipt to know what she might need during this time. He leans over her and holds the hip closest to him.

"Rose is drawing me a bath. She says she has a remedy for a woman's monthly aches." Iris insists. Gently shutting her eyes and resting back on the pillow. Turning onto her back.

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