Iron Serpent Chronicles

Chapter 9 - Ransom

My heart in my throat, I watched Kiema's chest for the longest minutes of my life. Completely ignoring the shape of her breasts, I just needed to know if she was even f*****g breathing.

"Kiema?" I called softly. I didn't recognize the soft tone that came from my own mouth. Women had never been anything more than convenience and novelty to me before this one. But damned if she hadn't made a big impression on me in a short amount of time.

Her chest rose and fell in an even, if slow, tempo.

Out cold.

Her petrified warning not to touch her filled my mind again. I couldn't f*****g leave her like this. Not after she'd saved me.

Left with nothing else in the small room, I finally ripped the shower curtain down. Rod and all. Throwing the rod into the bathtub, I kept one eye on the unconscious woman.

Not even a twitch to indicate she'd heard the crash.

I was out of patience; I had to get her off the floor. My entire being was screaming at me to get her moved.

I shook the curtain out and then spent the next ten minutes trying to figure out how to move her onto it without touching her directly. Sweat dripping from my temples, I wrapped my hands and arms in the remaining towels from the wall rack. I finally managed to lift her torso and roll her body onto the curtain. I made a mental note to make sure to check her head later. It had slammed against the door frame pretty hard.

I winced remembering the sharp crack of her teeth together followed quickly by the smash of her jaw into the toilet bowl. I needed to check her chin as well. I shook off the towels.

Stepping over her prone legs, I hopscotched my way through the door and grabbed the far ends of the shower curtain. Clutching the corners tightly, I began the slowest walk down a hallway in my entire memory. After every step, I paused to make sure she was okay, that she was still breathing.

Just as I entered the turn for the corner, her body stiffened as if someone had zapped her with a live electrical wire. I dropped the curtain corners like they were on fire and stepped onto the makeshift gurney. Cursing the inability to touch her once more, I nudged her leg with my shoed foot.

"Kiema?"

Nothing.

"Sweetheart?" Her body was bowed back, her lips pulled back, teeth bared in a tight grimace. The elegant neck I wanted to nuzzle was distorted with distended muscles as her head pulled back at a grotesque angle.

Why the f**k didn't anyone tell me she has a problem with seizures? f**k!

I knelt down next to her. Close enough to feel her body heat. She felt like a f*****g furnace. She pumped body heat like she was trying to single handedly warm the cabin during the harshest winter on record.

"Kiema." A slight quaver caught at the end of her name. I cleared my throat.

A choked moan slid from her throat as her eyelids opened the slightest degree.

I got down as close to her as I thought safe and got right in her eye line. "What can I do to help you?"

Breath heaved through her clenched lips, puffing gently against my cheeks.

Another low moan slithered between her lips.

"f**k. Sweetheart, I can't understand you." I punched my hands into the floor next to her body. "I've got you on the shower curtain. Can I pick you up and move you to your bed? I swear not one inch of my skin will touch yours."

Another incoherent moan.

"Can you blink?"

Moan.

"Blink once for yes, twice for no."

She blinked once.

"Thank Gaia. Can I pick you up with the shower curtain?"

Another single blink.

Within seconds, she was in my arms. My racing heart slowed as soon as she was cradled against my chest. I felt like I could f*****g breathe again.

I started across the living room. The keycode panel standing guard at her door stared at me with its steady red eye.

Fuck. "I'm going to take you to the couch. I don't know the codes to your suite."

I looked down and saw her blink again.

"Okay." Five steps to the couch big enough to hold a small sports team, I was loath to let her go.

Her body was still taut, head and legs thrust behind her, hands clenched tight by her sides. I angled her to lay on her side. If she started puking again, I didn't want her to choke on it.

"What can I do?" I asked again as I made sure she wouldn't fall off the couch. I pushed the last pillow under her belly, tilting her up the smallest fraction.

She said nothing. Didn't moan.

Silence greeted me.

I looked at her face. Her eyes were completely closed.

After a couple minutes of fear-wrenched breathing, I watched as her body finally seemed to dissolve into the furniture. Like snow melting in the sun, she defrosted before my eyes.

Wrapping the edge of the curtain around my hand, I brushed the hair off her face. With a wrinkle of her nose, she turned her head to the side.

I smiled at the purely feminine motion.

Batting at my hand, Kiema turned her face into the cushion and sank deeper into oblivion.

Satisfied that she was going to be okay, at least for a little bit, I got up and moved back to the bathroom. I didn't want her to have any bad reminders waiting for her when she woke up.

Crossing the threshold into the hallway bathroom, I looked into the toilet. Expecting to find the typical vomit, I was horrified to find what looked like an organ floating in the pinkish water of the bowl.

I had to cover my own mouth and dart for the trashcan before I emptied my own stomach.