Chapter 202: Lilith Fainted
He was halfway down the hall when he heard Agnes screaming.
He had known Agnes for twenty six years, and in those years she had never made that sound.
He was running before he even decided to run. Down the rest of the stairs. Through the east corridor. Past two servants who pressed themselves flat against the wall as he went by. The door to Lilith’s suite was open and he went straight through it.
Agnes was on the floor.
The morning tea tray was overturned beside her. The cup broken in two pieces. Hot tea spreading slowly across the stone. Agnes was on her knees and next to her was Lilith, face down on the floor between the bed and the nightstand. One arm stretched out toward the water glass she never reached. Completely still.
He crossed the room and dropped down beside her.
Two fingers to her throat. Her pulse was there. Fast and too shallow but there.
He pressed his palm flat to her forehead.
The heat that came off her skin stopped him cold.
She wasn’t just warm. She was burning. Radiating heat in a way that didn’t make sense for a simple fever. It came off her in waves and he felt it move up through his palm and into his wrist.
Kael stopped pacing at that same moment.
The wolf stopped pacing for the first time since midnight. Nicholas felt the stillness inside his chest like a held breath.
Then Kael started pushing.
Not pacing anymore. Pushing.....at something Nicholas couldn’t see or name. Like there was a wall right there in front of him and something he needed was on the other side of it and he couldn’t get through. He pushed and pushed and the wall held and he pushed harder.
Nicholas didn’t have time to figure out what that meant.
He picked Lilith up off the floor.
She was completely limp in his arms. Her head fell against his shoulder. Her skin was so hot it was almost uncomfortable to hold her and he held her anyway and carried her to the bed and laid her down carefully.
"Get Dr Aldric," he said to Agnes. "Right now. And find my brothers."
Agnes was already on her feet.
Sebastian came through the door two minutes later.
He came fast. Eyes going straight to Lilith on the bed and then straight to Nicholas standing over her. He looked at Nicholas’s face and something shifted in his expression.
"What happened," he said.
"Agnes found her on the floor. She’s running a fever." Nicholas didn’t move from the bed. Couldn’t make himself step back from her. "A bad one. Feel her skin."
Sebastian came to the bed and pressed his hand to Lilith’s forehead the same way Nicholas had. His jaw tightened immediately.
"How long has she been like this."
"I don’t know."
Sebastian looked at him. At the way Nicholas was standing. At the way Kael was sitting just behind Nicholas’s eyes and he could see Nicholas trying to hold him back.
He didn’t ask about that.
Lucian came through the door thirty seconds later at a dead run and stopped when he saw Lilith on the bed.
Then Zev surged.
Lucian actually grabbed the doorframe. His knuckles went white. His eyes flickered gold for just a second before he pulled it back and blinked and looked at his brothers with an expression that said he didn’t entirely understand what had just happened to him.
Neither did Nicholas.
Neither did Sebastian judging by the way Rhen was suddenly restless in his chest in a way that had nothing to do with the curse and everything to do with the unconscious girl on the bed.
All three of their wolves pushing at something. Something right there. Something just out of reach.
"She needs a doctor," Nicholas said. Because that was the thing he could do right now. "Lucian. Find Dr Aldric."
Lucian let go of the doorframe, closed his eyes and sent a mind link to the pack doctor.
***
The Omegas arrived before the doctor did.
They came the way pack members always came when something moved through the bond....drawn without knowing why, following instinct down corridors they had no business being in. By the time Nicholas stepped into the doorway of Lilith’s suite there were six of them clustered at the end of the corridor with wide uncertain eyes and low murmuring voices.
Mara appeared behind them.
She looked at the gathered Omegas. Looked at their faces. Looked at the way they were slowly moving toward Lilith’s room.
"All of you," she said. "Clear the corridor. Now."
They turned back and ran away.
Every single one of them. Gone in under a minute without a single argument because something in Mara’s voice didn’t leave room for arguments.
She took up position at the end of the empty corridor and didn’t move from it.
Sera arrived four minutes later.
Still in her training gear. Dark hair loose. She’d been on the training ground when something moved through the pack bond and she’d felt it in her chest like a pulled thread and known which direction it came from and run the whole way.
She looked through the open door at Lilith on the bed. At Agnes pressing a cloth to her forehead. At the three brothers standing there looking like men who needed to be doing something and had nothing they could do.
"How high is the fever," she said.
"We don’t know yet," Sebastian said.
Sera looked at Agnes.
Agnes looked back at her. "She’s very hot. I’ve been trying to bring it down but...." She shook her head. "It’s not coming down."
"Let me go in," Sera said. "I’ll help Agnes manage it until the doctor gets here. Cold water and cloths. We need to keep her temperature from climbing any higher." She looked at the brothers. "I think it is best that you wait outside."
Nicholas looked at her.
"She needs women right now," Sera said simply. "Not Alphas standing over her."
Nicholas looked at her and then he looked at Lilith. He turned back and walked out of the room with Lucian and Sebastian following him.
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