Mia
I frowned as I looked at the lightning streaking in the sky, it was bright enough that it made the night look like the day even though it was well way past dusk. I winced as I heard the thunder rumbling loudly in the sky as well.
I had never been afraid of thunder but this wasn’t part of it. I shivered and ran my hands over my shoulders, wiping the sweats off my palms with my clothes.
Quinn noticed and moved closer to me. “Are you fine?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I am.”
“What happened? I didn’t think you were afraid of the thunder.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t think so too.”
“But you are at the moment?”
“It seems like that.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “Come over here.”
What could I have said to that? I moved closer to him and jumped into his arms. I smiled as I sat between his legs and he wrapped his hands around me.
“Feeling better now?”
I nodded, smiling like an idiot. “Yes.”
“Good.”
It felt good to have his arms around me. I could focus on his warmth, scent and breath slightly teasing the back of my neck instead of the worries in my head.
I looked around the room. “Where are the others?”
“They went with Rudolph on their hunt tonight, claiming that they were bored and would like to see how the vampires did their thing. They were back not quite long and were tired. They both went to bed minutes before you came.”
“Oh!” I sighed. I could understand why they were bored. I would have been too if I hadn’t been taking care of the king. I must admit that gave me something to do to keep myself busy and sane while I was here. I couldn’t imagine how hard it must be for the boys having nothing to do with themselves.
I wasn’t also around as I should be with them, as I was now practically a live-in nurse at the palace, monitoring the king and everything must have gotten more boring for the guys.
The king had gotten worse and experiencing some symptoms that were shocking to me. I had to start thinking on my feet or the vampires would have lost their faith in me. I couldn’t say that I hadn’t lost my faith in myself. I didn’t know what I was doing as well but I wanted to push this through. I wanted to save the land and everyone. I wanted to be an hero but not at the expense of the life of the vampire so I hoped that it wasn’t the case.
I wanted to do this to see the vampire live like as normally as he was meant to. I couldn’t forget that day in his room while I was tending to him alone. He had been having nightmares and suddenly he had stopped having them. We had been relieved only for big sores to appear on his skin. As usual, my cure was the sap but I was skeptical of using it in the presence of the others as I was worried that it might not work because of my theory that the sap wouldn’t work on the body of the vampire king because he wasn’t the vampire king.
I was afraid of making a fool of myself and had told the others to excuse us and leave me alone with the king. With trembling hands, I had applied the sap on the body of the vampire king while holding my breath. It had been a wonder when the sores began to dry up and I concluded that could be because the sores were caused by the dark wizard in him and realized that his nightmares might have also been caused by the dark wizard.
I decided to turn the sap into a cream to be applied on the skin of the vampire king after then and it had been working. After his bath, the sap was rubbed on his body and I was relieved that he had better sleep since then. He stopped having nightmares and we were all glad. With all the stuff that I had done and theories that I had tried out in this land, I felt experienced enough to call myself a medical researcher.
I chuckled as I remembered the look on the boy’s face when I had said that. They had snorted at me and encouraged me to stop deluding myself that I needed more than that to be acknowledged as a researcher. They had unnecessarily reminded me without asking them that the scientists in their team were more learned and experienced before they were accepted and didn’t work on guesses on a human life as I was doing.
I knew that they used that to get back at me as I wouldn’t let them listen for days on end about anything except how good a researcher, doctor and hero I was. I had bragged to them that the vampires were either going to give me a medal when we were leaving or have a statue built for me before we leave.
I knew I was being unnecessarily annoying with my brags but I couldn’t help myself.
I had deserved the ego bubble burst that they gave me afterwards as well but had pretended to be mad at them for days. It wasn’t a surprise that the boys had gotten closer to Rudolph as I was busy with the king and also pretending to be mad at them despite their pleas.
I hoped that the dark wizard would get weak quickly and push out of the vampire king as the sap was almost finished and we still needed some to fight him when he finally give up on the vampire’s body.
I constantly gave Ava reassurance even though I needed some myself. She was worried and getting more anxious about seeing her man back to how he used to be. I always told her not to worry that he would be back in shape in no time. I believed that with all that was in me even though the problem was that I didn’t know what time that would be.
I remembered the promise that I had made to the vampire king and was determined to make him well soon. He had opened his eyes for a brief moment that day that I was alone with him nurturing his sores and stared at me. I could still feel his stare on me and I shivered.
The sorrow and pain in those eyes were enough to cause me to start crying and I would have cried if not that I didn’t want him to feel bad about himself and burst into tears as well.
I could still remember his words and how they had sounded.
“Please help me get back to normal, Mia.” He had said in a broken whisper and drifted back to sleep.
For some minutes, I had sat there still and didn’t know what else I was going to do about him as I watched him sleep. I could feel his desperation to be normal and hold the hands of the woman he loved and could also feel my own desperation crawling up on me.
Quinn unwrapped his hands around me and turned me to face him. “Are you fine?”
“I am.” I nodded, giving him a slight smile.
He wasn’t fazed by it. He frowned at me. “You just shivered.”
“It’s cold.” I lied. “Isn’t it about to rain? The thunder and lightning have been going on for some time now.”
His frown got deeper. “Now, I’m more concerned. You are not fine.”
“I am, Quinn. Stop being … overprotective.” I wanted to say dramatic but had to pause as I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
“I’m not.” He scowled. “You are lying to me and you know it. You are not shivering because of the rain.” He chuckled at the way I arched my eyebrows. “Why? Because it never rained. The thunder and lightning also stopped minutes ago so I don’t understand why you are cold because of that.” He had this smug look in his eyes saying that he had me where exactly he wanted me, at a place where I couldn’t escape from.
I didn’t like that teasing look in his eyes and knew that I had nothing else to say to it. I stood up from the chair that we were on, getting away from between his legs and cleared my throat.
“Let me go wake Jack and John up.” I said as I moved towards the bedroom. “I feel bored without them around.”
He chuckled as he knew what I was doing. I knew he was about to tease me and was running away from him before he did that.
I hadn’t walked for more than two steps before Rudolph entered in a rush. He ran into the room without knocking and was breathing hard. Quinn and I both turned, surprised to see him. I could see that Quinn was annoyed and ready to give the intruder an earful until he noticed that it was Rudolph and also the state that he had come in was a mess.
“What is the problem, man? Quinn asked as he walked closer to him. “What happened?”
Rudolph sighed. “I should be asking you that. What is happening?”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. Not again. Rudolph always asked that question when something had happened to the king and he expected us to have automatically known about it and started fixing it even before he told us. I was so annoyed that I knew of the dark wizard at this moment of my life. He was nothing but a nuisance and everyday, I kept wishing that we would quickly put an end to him.
“Did something happened to the king?” I asked.
“You said you could fix this.” Rudolph said. “You said you had fought with the dark wizard and once captured him. You said you could fix him.”
I could see that Quinn was visibly annoyed and quickly slipped my hand into his. He exhaled a breath and nodded at him. I nodded back at him, relieved that he had gotten his emotions under control.
Rudolph was clearly overworked about something and we didn’t know what it was. It would be a diaster if Quinn also his patience and everyone got rattled.
“Tell us calmly what is going on, Rudolph.” I said to him. “You can’t just barge in here and expect us to have known why you are rattled.”
“Didn’t you say the king would be fine soon? Why is he now in a coma?”
My blood went cold. The king was now in a coma. I was afraid of what that meant. Did that mean the king was giving up the fight and surrendering to the dark wizard? I was afraid the king would die and the dark wizard would escape. I was afraid of something worse. What if the king opened his eyes but it wasn’t Ethan but the dark wizard in charge of the body. We all would be doomed if that happened.
I was about to talk when he rushed on. “As if that is enough to give me a headache, thunder and lightning started to streak a across the sky and have heard reports from five vampires of their houses being burnt without knowing where the source of fire was from. Seven snakes have been killed in the last fifteen minutes and everything has been so strange.”
“Strange?” I repeated. I still couldn’t see what was strange in all that he had said.
The vampire king could have gone into a coma because he was tired. That could be explained. Thunder, lightning, snaked were normal and I believed he was only attaching meaning to them because of what was going on. The fires could have been done by someone who wasn’t ready to confess.
I had to be logical in this scenario. We all had to. I wondered how Rudolph became the general of the army here if this was how he always got worked out. Could this be because his friend was involved?
“Yes, strange.” He nodded at me. “Fires don’t just happen here. Fine, let’s say that could have been done by someone. What of the snakes, thunder and lightning? Snakes are never found here. Never.” He said for emphasis.
“Thunder and lightning at this time of the year is also another thing that has never happened before.”
What? I was dumbfounded. It was strange indeed.
“Now tell me what is going on here.” Rudolph demanded.
“It’s the dark wizard.”
We all turned to Jack as we heard him walk into the house. “I didn’t know you were awake.” I said, watching as John walked behind him.
He smiled at me. “We woke up not quite long and heard everything Rudolph said.” He smiled at him. “Sorry, man that we didn’t come outside when we heard your voice. We had to dress up.”
Rudolph snorted. “I don’t care if you had come out naked. Just tell me what is going on.”
“The dark wizard is getting weak and putting up a fight. That is why everything has been happening and your king went into a comatose state because his body couldn’t deal with the assault. These are signs that his time is near and drawing to an end.” He turned to Quinn. “Do you remember what happened in the house for a weak after dad captured the dark wizard before he finally became weak and everything became calm?”
Quinn nodded.
“I remember.” John said.
Jack smiled at him and then turned to Rudolph. “You heard them. It’s time to have your king back.”