Chapter Eighteen - Part Two ▪︎

(Dahlia's eye colour^)

She was oblivious of the beast running after her. He was oblivious of her frail state.

She felt her heart beating stronger in her chest. Something was off. The blood is making her stronger, but her human body can't take it. She is tired, even though she could lift a horse without a problem.

She started slowing down. Her breathing wasn't fast, but it was deep, almost like gasps. She was clutching her throat as she fell to her knees and doubled over in pain. Her heart felt as though it was going to explode. The lycan blood was being pumped through her veins and was quickly destroying her. Her skin was now sickly pale and her cheeks were red due to the blood rushing to them. Sweat was forming on her upper lip and forehead.

She was turned on her back and someone held their hand to her neck. She assumed they were checking her pulse.

"Shit." The person muttered and she opened her eyes and tried to peek at them, but all she could see was darkness. She recognised that voice.

"Alexander?" Her voice cracked.

"Hold on to me and promise me you won't fall asleep, okay?" He spoke as he took her frail body by the waist and helped her stand. He put her hands around his neck and feet around his torso. Her head was between his neck and shoulder and her chest was pressed against his back.

She had no strength to reply to him as he held her legs and arms together. She enjoyed his warmth and she didn't exactly hate him like she was supposed to, but she knew this was the end of her freedom.

***

Six days have passed. The King took Dahlia to his infirmary and the vampire doctors, even though they were the best he could find, couldn't understand why her body was failing her. Her heart was damaged and her kidneys were almost destroyed in a matter of minutes. They concluded that something poisoned her blood and so they started hemodialysis.

She seemed healthier to him.

When he took her to the doctors, she was out cold. Her body was slightly blue and if it weren't for her faint heartbeat, he could have mistaken her for dead.

Her skin was still pale, but she undoubtedly looked healthier. At first, he contemplated giving her his own blood, but he feared her reaction if she died with it in her system. He knew her kind hated traitors and if she turned to a vampire, unwillingly or not, she would be their number one target.

He stroked her rosy cheekbones and moved her slightly dry hair away from her face.

He took her hand and held it as he looked at her blue fingernails.

He thought about the night when they first met. The dress she wore, her once silky hair, tan complexion, rosy cheeks and healthy skin.

She looked like a ghost of her former self. He ruined the only good present the gods gifted him, he had to be selfish and take her.

He blamed himself for her poor chance of survival and the life that followed if she did survive.

Was her being alive and hating him worse than her dying in his arms?

He walked out of her room and to the lonely garden in the back of the hospital.

***

Dahlia woke up in a daze. She remembered Alexander's voice telling her to stay awake and a strange warmth engulfing her as he held her on his back, but she doesn't remember how she got in this room.

It was the cleanest and the most expensive room she had ever been in.

She looked to the left and saw a big machine. It had two tubes in it, both full of her blood. They were connected to her neck and she would've thought they were draining her if she didn't know it was some kind of filter.

There was a sachet of yellow-orange liquid at the bottom. It looked like urin.

If it was filtering her blood and urin was the byproduct, her kidneys must have failed.

All she wanted to do was sleep. The process wasn't very comfortable and it was tiring her. Refusing to go to sleep, she looked at the table across from her bed. It had a vase full of dahlia flowers in different colours. She liked them very much.

She knew who gave them to her, she thought of it as a sweet gesture.

A nurse walked in through the door on her right. She had black hair tied up in a low ponytail and white scrubs with white crocs on her feet.

Dahlia never saw a nurse in actual scrubs before. It was strange, but interesting.

The nurse looked at the machine to Dahlia's left and lazily sweeped her eyes across a tired Dahlia. Her eyes almost buldged out of her head when she saw Dahlia's lids parted and blinking.

"Water." Dahlia barely managed to whisper.

The nurse looked scared out of her mind as she nodded and hurried out of the room. She didn't close the door all the way as Dahlia heard her yell down the corridor: "She is awake! Call The King!"

The King. What is she going to do with The King? She doesn't hate him, but she isn't very fond of him. Maybe she will open a new page for him.

A fresh start, that's what she needs.