Highland Bear (Book 4)

Chapter 29

Yet, surely, if he had wished to see her once more, he would have done, as two full weeks have passed and not a sight or sound…or so Alfred had told her reluctantly… had been heard of him. It made her heart throb along with the rest of her body in sympathy at being crushed and forgotten so completely by the one it had given itself too so naively.

With a rasping breath which sawed through her throat, she finally found blissful oblivion as sleep claimed her. No thinking, no feeling, nothing. It was all she could have hoped for as she either healed or did not. Whatever the outcome, she just hoped the pain which had become the beating of her heart would disappear with it.

She felt hot. The sun scorching her skin. A moan she could feel, even if she could not hear it, tore from her throat, the shredding of her vocal cords immeasurable, taking her back under.

Parched mouth, dry tongue, chattering teeth. An utter cold chill all throughout her body.

Eyelids sawing open and closed, bleary vision caught on nothing in particular, could not focus, or pick up any detail. Oblivion coming up once more to meet her.

Sound.

Or was it?

Her imagination had not been so cruel to her in many a year, she has screams running through her mind, she could not stop them. They would not stop of their own accord. They were dreadful and heartrending, yet at the same time, she perversely did not want them to stop, for they were the only thing she had heard in years…had she finally gone mad? Was this the end of her as Rohesia, and the beginnings of her becoming the English fool in Edinburgh, she was sure most of the Scots men and women would pay their hard earned money to see such a thing.

Darkness...blessed healing darkness took her once more. The sound gone, but her head still pounding, though it faded as she lost her grip on the light once more. It did not matter, for the light hurt too much. The darkness helped, it did not cause the pain to worsen. It helped it to mellow slightly.

Terrors the likes of she had never seen before tormented her, waking and dreaming they would not leave her side. Crawling about her skin, and leaving her aching and freezing and burning all in one. Had she died? Was this some form of hell? Had she truly been so wicked in her life that this is what it had come too? Even God himself had forsaken her in her hour of need. Nothing could make this better, not even God could save her now. She was doomed for eternity, and she could do nothing about it. It still did not stop her from conjuring the face of the only one she wished for in that moment.

Dry, cracked lips formed soundless words. Mumbles and grumbles came from the form laying so still and yet so agitated upon the bed. Alternating between sweating so much the linen had to be changed, and freezing so hard the fire had to be built up and the blankets piled upon her. Watching her like a hawk was the only way to ensure that she was not too far gone either way before pulled back from the brink time and time again.

Whispering words would have no effect, and yet it did not stop the words from tumbling out. She would never hear them, that was a certainty, but it made him feel better to know that they had been said aloud at least. That the Lord Almighty had heard his prayers if nothing or no one else had. It was all he could give her. His prayers and his thoughts, and his actions, little as they were. Tears pooled in eyes that had nary shed a tear in years, and yet were quite willing to do so over the tiny curled up figure on the bed before him.

Her pale skin sallow and her eyes sunken and dark. She was being pulled between this world and the beyond. Yet she was fighting. Fighting with everything within her and he could not be prouder.

Holding a frozen hand, the tips a little blue which worried him tremendously, he looked up at a sound. He, himself freezing a moment before leaning forward trying to work out what it was these mumblings were. “Artair.”

The one word sent his blood ice cold. Before it fired through his system, leaning forward his placed his lips tenderly upon her brow. “I am here, Rohesia, all you have to do now is fight.”