Shringaar7
Ten long minutes passed and still no one came to the door. Alone and helpless, Erik smoothed the hair from her damp face and caressed her hot cheek.
She didn't respond.
He clung to her, curled her legs up in order to cradle her fragile, trembling body. He wanted her to feel his presence, to give her something to hold on to as she wandered through fever-induced sleep. All the while her teeth chattered, but her fever remained. He swore she felt warmer than the last time he'd checked, but with no way of knowing for certain, he merely held her.
And then he remembered why teeth chattered, and his heart sank at his own stupidity. Mopping her brow with cold water hadn't worked. In fact, her condition had worsened since the sponge bath, which had encouraged her temperature to rise. In desperation, he hadn't thought to check the water temperature and had thought the colder the water the better for her condition. Instead, he'd cooled her too swiftly, and now her body fought to heat itself.
"No, you can't sleep," he mumbled. "Wake up. Open your eyes and look at me."
She didn't respond. Her teeth had stopped chattering. She was giving up, unable to realize how much he wanted her to live. When was the last time he'd told her that he loved her? Yesterday? Two days ago? He knew for certain that it wasn't this morning when they'd spoken. He'd wasted an opportunity to tell her that she was beautiful and that he loved her for giving him a child, a perfect daughter.
He'd killed her.
The rag he'd held loosely in his hand fell to the ground with a soggy splat that emphasized his horror. He'd unintentionally increased her fever, a fatal, mindless mistake. He'd done it without a thought, without any consideration to the consequences. In greed and without concern for her health, he'd hurt her.
In complete disbelief he stared at her, at what he feared was the corpse of his wife and the mother of his child. Fear turned his insides cold, tightened every muscle in his body and trapped the air in the back of his throat. She would not have been so foolish if they're roles had been reversed. She would have known precisely what to do to care for him. No matter what, she always did know what he needed, what was best for him when he didn't know what was best for himself.
"Oh, Corinna," he whispered, his grasp on her tightening as though he struggled to keep her soul inside her body. He fought back the choke hold of tears, the torrent of heartache he knew all too well in his life. Behind him, Sorinji wailed, her tiny feet kicking at his back. She needed her mother more urgently than he needed his wife and best friend, his savior, his goddess.
For one brief moment he resented the tiny ball of wails, of piercing cries. If she hadn't been conceived then Corinna would have been fine. That, he realized, was also his doing. He couldn't blame a helpless child for her father's needs and wants.
"You must wake up," he begged. "Can't you hear her? She's crying for you, Corinna, not for me. She needs you. We need you."
Corinna barely breathed, barely moved. With each passing second she faded in his grasp, in his useless arms which failed to protect her. She didn't need him. She'd never needed him to guard her, to watch over her. He was useless, a burden to her life and livelihood, and now he'd killed her, the only person he'd ever loved without doubts, without hesitation.
"I need help!" he shouted, though it was barely a shout. His words came out strangled, weakened by the tears that came all at once and clouded his eyes. He was weak and he was selfish, he was cowardly and he was unable to cope with the world around him. To lose her was to lose the anchor in his life, the focal point that kept him from straying too close to the edge.
"Please," he begged, though he didn't know to whom. He would have pled at the feet of God to allow him to keep her. But no one listened to him, no one offered assistance in the darkest moment of his life. "Please, I need help."
Distantly, barely audible over the baby's cry and his own muffled moans, he heard Corinna grunt in pain, in desperation. Her lips parted, showing a flash of white teeth against dark red lips, pleading to him to help her, to stay with her.
"I'm here," he told her. "I'm right here, I'm right here."
Her lips trembled, formed words he couldn't understand. He started to smile, to encourage her to speak and tell him what she needed. All he needed was to hear her voice.
And then her fight to live was gone. No movement, no response to his voice as he urgently called to her.
"Corinna?" he questioned. She was limp in his grasp, a life size rag doll without control of her muscles. "Corinna, stay with me. Just stay with me a little longer."
He jostled her, pulled her close to his chest, but she didn't move. He could no longer find the pulse in her neck or feel her breaths on his face. And then, in his useless arms, he was certain she'd left him, a lone father with an even lonelier daughter.
-o-
"I want to return," Darika said firmly.
Alin smiled and watched the sea gulls wheel overhead, one eye closed against the bright sun glinting off the harbor waves. "Good."
"To Mr. Levesque's house," she corrected. She was tired, thirsty, and dreading a long voyage across the sea. They're ship, however, had literally not come in yet. "I'd like to see him one last time."
Alin dropped his shoulders and turned away from her. They stood on the dock, their luggage beside them and their tickets in hand for their travel back to Europe.
"I should have known," he groaned. "Oh, I should have seen this coming, but alas I am a trusting fool."
"Just one more time." She stepped toward him and grabbed his arm. "There is no sense in traveling all of this distance for so little, is there?"
"I suppose not," he said, though his voice held no conviction. He turned back to her.
"She sent me here for a reason," she stated. "I know my mother and I know she wouldn't have sent me here without a purpose." She swallowed, unable to believe her own words. In the back of her mind she still remembered the sickening grin on her mother's face as she spoke the name Erik Levesque.
"The man with the scars upon his face," her mother had said. "Ask her how he received them. He will tell you much, my daughter." The poisonous tone in her mother's voice still haunted Darika, infused her with the need to chase a name.
She remembered her own fear and remorse when she looked at her mother, at the one person in the world she should have loved the most—yet often hated. Yet here she stood, an obedient daughter in an unfamiliar world.
"Find him." Her mother's words continued to echo through her mind. "Ask him how fond I was of him once, long ago. Then ask him about our happy reunion." Even now the words sent a shiver down her spine.
When she'd finally found him, she couldn't bear to ask him what had happened, though in her mind she expected it was the work of her sultan father, of the man she'd always known was not her sire. He'd treated her well, however, and had denied that she was not his daughter. For his own sake, she was certain, since her mother had dishonored him by lying with another man.
"Tell me one thing, Darika," Alin said. "Must I join you yet again?"
"Of course," she said, startled by his question. It may not have been his pleasure, but it was his duty. "Why wouldn't you?"
"Because I don't think the fellow likes me much."
"No one likes you much," she teased. In the five days since they'd wandered around New York, she'd appreciated his humor and his presence. He guarded her well and always made certain she was protected without hovering over her as certain bodyguards in her father's palace often had. The space he allowed her improved her mood. She almost found him pleasant. Almost.
"I don't want anyone to like me much," he said with a shrug. "Menacing and unapproachable makes my job easier."
She looked him over. Other than stature, he wasn't at all a force to be reckoned with. If only people knew his softer side they would never have taken him seriously. Much as she hated to admit it, he'd provided more than protection. He'd given her stability and an awkward, unusual friendship. He also promised not to tell her father that she traveled without a mandatory female companion.
"I'll have the sultan pay you well for the extra time we spend here."
"And if he refuses?"
She stiffened. "I have my own funds."
To that he snorted. "The gold of a woman."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I bet it smells like jasmine. What will the men say when they see me?"
"Oh, must you complain about everything?" she asked.
"Yes." He whistled for two dirty-faced boys, who quickly scampered toward them. In his rough growl of a voice he told them to take all of the trunks and luggage and return them to the Fair Inn, which is where they had stayed since they first arrived in New York almost a month earlier. The boys, obviously tamed by Alin's voice, bowed and nodded profusely as they stole glances at Darika. She stared at them, her face veiled and eyes barely visible as the wind pulled at her covering.
"She must be important," one of the boys said to the other, nodding in her direction.
They looked her over, scrutinized her clothing and appearance. She'd grown accustomed to people staring at her first in the palace where she'd grown up with her mother and her adoptive father's many wives.
Despite the desire to stare back at them, Darika lowered her eyes and allowed herself to become a spectacle.
"Look at her, dressed like a tent."
"She's not a tent! She must be a ghost," the other replied. "If we blink, she'll disappear."
"Turn away," his companion urged. "I don't want to see a ghost. Harold, what did I say! If she's a ghost, don't look."
No, she thought. I'm not a ghost. I'm chasing one.