Chapter 24 I Will Certainly Bring Him Back To Life
Brea's POV
I woke up slowly. My body felt heavy in a way that wasn't quite pain...more like pressure, like something had pressed down on every part of me while I slept and hadn't fully let go yet.
I sat up. My head swam. I pressed my hand to my temple and waited for it to pass and when it did there was something underneath it.
My senses had been turned up slightly. I looked down at my arm.
I touched it slowly. There was nothing, no wound and no bruising where the bite mark had been. I turned my arm over in the light and stared at it for a long moment.
That was not possible. A door opened quietly.
A girl stepped in. Young, composed, watching everything in the room in one sweep before her eyes settled on me. She bowed slightly.
"My lady. I've been assigned as your guardian."
Guardians are not servants and not soldiers. They are assigned exclusively to the highest-ranking members of vampire nobility, royals, their consorts, and those under direct court protection.
I looked at her for exactly one second.
"Where is Rayne?"
"The prince is fine." She said it without blinking. Like she had been standing outside that door practicing those three words until they stopped sounding like a lie.
I went still.."You're lying."
She didn't deny it. She held my gaze and said nothing and that was its own kind of answer.
I pushed the covers back and got up. My legs were unsteady for a moment and I put my hand on the bedpost and waited.
"My lady." She stepped forward. "You are not permitted to leave. The prince gave that order himself."
"Then he can tell me that himself." I moved past her toward the door.
She didn't stop me. I noticed that, but didn't care enough about it right now to stop.
Something was off the moment I stepped into the hallway.
The servants who normally moved with happiness, slow, like people who had somewhere to be but had forgotten why.
Nobody looked at me directly as thier eyes would look at me and then drop away before they got close, finding sudden interest in the floor, the wall, anything that wasn't my face.
I walked, then I saw the butler was at the end of the corridor. I saw him from a distance and I already knew before I reached him...his eyes were red at the rims, his composure intact but only barely, held together by whatever years of service had built in him.
"What's going on," I said. He looked at me.
He didn't say a single word. I turned and walked faster.
There was a door open further down the hall. Light from inside.. I felt my feet slow as I got close and then I pushed through anyway.
Queen Nikolai was there. Two doctors and three court members I half recognized standing back against the wall. Nobody was speaking.
Then I saw the bed it was Rayne his eyes closed.
"No," I said. Queen Nikolai turned and looked at me and the grief on her face curdled into something else the moment her eyes met mine.
"This is your fault." I wasn't concerned about that as I was already at the bedside, already reaching for him, already touching his face which was cold.
"Rayne." My voice came out wrong. "Rayne, wake up."
There was nothing. "Wake up." I hit his chest lightly with my fist. Then harder. "Rayne!"
I turned to the doctor. The older one and gray-haired one. He was watching me with an expression that had already accepted something I hadn't yet.
"Tell me the truth," I said. He looked at me for a long moment.
"He gave his life for yours." The room went very quiet.
I turned back to Rayne. It hit me all at once.
I remembered his face at the edge of the dark in the clearing, saying "You're the first.
I pressed my forehead against his chest and my hands gripped his shirt and I felt the sob come up before I could stop it.
"Wake up." My voice was gone.... "Wake up, wake up" But, he didn't move.
"I've never had anyone give their life for me," I said into his chest.
"Why would you waste it on me." It wasn't a question. It didn't have the shape of a question.
"I'm just—I'm just a human. I'm not...I'm not worth this. I'm not worth this."
“You weren’t supposed to leave me. We didn’t even get to… I didn’t even get to tell you properly…” My voice dropped to a shattered whisper.
“You’re the first person I have ever loved, Rayne. The very first. No one has ever made me feel safe, or seen, or wanted the way you did. Don’t leave me… please… don’t leave me…”
Tears streamed down my face, soaking into his shirt. I pressed my forehead harder against him, as if I could somehow pour my own warmth back into his body.
“I would love to die with you,” I whispered, voice trembling. “If this is the end, then take me with you. I don’t want to be here without you.”
The room had gone completely silent. I stayed there, clinging to him, until the tears wouldn’t stop and my body shook with them.
Then something inside me snapped. With tears still streaming down my cheeks, I pushed myself up. I looked like a mental patient with a disheveled hair.
I bolted from the room before anyone could stop me, running barefoot through the corridors toward the infirmary wing.
Servants scattered out of my way. I burst through the infirmary doors.
A tray of surgical instruments sat on a side table, scalpels, bandages, vials. My eyes locked on a sharp silver knife.
Without hesitation, I snatched it up.
“Doctor!” I screamed, “Take my blood! Take it and put it back in him! He needs it—he needs me!”
Before the stunned Doctor could react, I slashed the blade across my left wrist in one swift motion.
Blood welled up instantly, dark red and flowing freely down my arm.
“Take it!” I thrust my bleeding wrist toward him, blood dripping onto the stone floor. “Put it back in Rayne! Now! He can’t die....he can’t!”
The doctor lunged forward, "My lady, stop—!” But I was already running again, blood trailing behind me in bright crimson drops.
The vampires in the room reacted the moment the blood hit the air.
It was instant. Two of the court members near the wall snapped their heads toward me in unison, eyes darkening with a low hiss.
One of the doctors took a sharp step back and turned away deliberately, jaw tight, fighting it.
Even the guardian in the doorway had gone very still, nostrils flared, hands rigid at her sides.
Nobody moved toward me. But the effort it cost them was visible.
I didn't care. I collapsed beside the bed and pressed my wrist to Rayne's lips and tilted it so the blood ran warm into his mouth.
"Drink," I said. My voice came out wrecked. "Drink. Please. Take it. Take all of it. Just—come back. Please come back to me."
His lips didn't move at first. The blood ran across them, staining them red. Then, faintly, a tiny amount of blood was drawn inward, disappearing down his throat as if swallowed by reflex. His throat moved — just the smallest twitch.
"Rayne?" My breath caught.
The blood ran down his chin and I watched it and kept my wrist there anyway because taking it away meant accepting something I was not going to accept.
"Please," I said. Quiet now. Just the two of us. "Please."
I pressed harder, forcing more blood between his lips, my free hand cradling his head.
“Rayne...swallow it. I’m giving you everything. Don’t leave me. I can’t do this without you. Drink!”
Still nothing. His body remained limp and unresponsive.
“Rayne… Rayne, please… I love you… don’t go…” The doctor rushed in after me, trying to grab my arm. “My lady, you’re losing too much blood...let me bandage” I shoved him away violently.
“You caused this!” I screamed at him, voice raw and ugly. “You told him there was a way...you made him think he could save me and sacrifice himself! He was weak because of all of you! This is your fault!”
I pushed him again, harder, letting out every ounce of frustration and agony in wild, uncontrolled shoves.
“He shouldn’t have listened to any of your shit! He should still be here with me!”
My strength finally gave out. The room spun. My legs buckled and I collapsed to the floor in a heap, blood still oozing from my wrist, pooling beneath me. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision.
But I refused to stay down. With a guttural cry, I forced myself back to my feet, swaying like a drunkard, and staggered back to Rayne’s body.
I looked exactly like a mental patient, face streaked with tears and blood,
“It’s a dream,” I muttered to myself, voice high and hysterical. “This is just a dream. It has to be. He’ll wake up. He has to.”
I slapped myself hard across the face, once, twice the sharp sting blooming on my cheek.
“Wake up!” I screamed at myself. “Wake up from this nightmare!”
But Rayne still didn’t move. His chest remained still. His eyes stayed closed.
The truth crashed over me again, worse than before. I stood there, swaying, staring at his lifeless form, blood still dripping steadily from my wrist onto the sheets.
My final words tore out of me in a raw, piercing scream that echoed through the entire chamber, through the palace, through the very stones themselves
“Ahhhhhh!”