"Get off him, monster!" someone screamed, another voice joining it, but she had to focus on what she was doing, she had to keep from going too far.
She heard it when his stomach revolted and she pulled away from him, clamping her hand over his mouth so even if he did bring it all back up, it was trapped, and he would have to swallow it all again.
His eyes were terrified, shaking as his body began to shut down and she bent down, pressing her lips firmly against his.
"Don't give up now," she whispered, her bloody fingers trailing through his hair and leaving smears on his face. "You can fight it, just a little longer."
He was silent except from the occasional grunt and whimper of pain. She could only stare into his face, not knowing if she had done the right thing or even if she had done it correctly.
Reaching down behind him, she pulled the claw out of his back and tugged the rope free, smiling faintly when she felt the resistance of his flesh that had grown around the rope. She hadn't wanted to remove it before he had begun to heal.
Watching him in fascination, she could see the changes in his features, his skin paling and his hair becoming glossy, the strength of him turning hard and he groaned in pain, his jaw shifting slightly. Pulling back his lip, she saw that his canine was pushing downwards, the point sharpening until it could cut skin like nothing else.
Moving away from his head, she pulled the scraps of his shirt away and tugged his pants down just enough for her to see the wound. Her fingers brushed away the blood and other substances she didn't want to think about to find the hole in him was knitting shut, the blood slowing until it was nothing but a trickle and then stopping as the fresh skin grew.
In all it took around three hours and she was surprised by the length of time, his heartbeat speeding up into a fever pitch and then skipping a beat once, twice, and then going silent with a hitch of his breath.
While he had been changing, she left and recovered some clothes for him, a basin of boiling water and cloths to clean him up, a sudden protective streak in her forcing her to move so that he wouldn't wake up smelling like a corpse in the sewer.
Washing him with care, she stripped him naked and redressed him after she had cleaned every inch of him. She had been surprised when his mother had joined in to help, her dress covered in gore though she hadn't cared.
When he was cleaned and dressed, she had been given a simplistic black gown and the queen had changed, each of them kneeling on either side of him, waiting for him.
His eyes were closed, and she watched the slow, calm movements of his chest as he breathed, but otherwise there was no signs of life from him, and it was making her anxious.
When his eyes finally did open, he blinked up at the ceiling in confusion as though it was the first time he had ever seen it. In a sense, it was. He had new eyes now and would be seeing the world much closer to what it was really like.
His head turned to the quiet sobs of his mother and he very nearly punched her when he reached for her, wanting to sooth her.
He stopped at the speed and then at the paleness of his hand, turning it slowly to see the changes.
His mother grabbed his hand and held it against her cheek, crying openly as she rocked back and forth. Malik was staring at her, seeing her for the first time too, and drinking in every detail of her lovely face, the age lines that gave her such distinction.
His head turned and his eyes found her, his breath freezing in his chest as he saw her for the first time also.
"Hello, my love," she whispered, his breath sucking in at the sound of her voice, or perhaps the words she had chosen.
He was all hers, her vampire, her scion, and she loved him dearly for that. It was entirely different to what she had felt for Kai or Nayishma, that was a gentle love and this one was a violent, possessive love that would have her ripping out the throat of any who tried to come against him.
"Gods, you're so beautiful…" he murmured.
"I bet you say that to all the girls," she said, smiling, and there it was, the same sharply shrinking pupils that came with her stupid smile.
"Only the pretty ones," he said.
His eyes lifted up past her head and he frowned, her own head turning to see what it was when a fist grabbed the mass of her hair and she was jerked backwards, snarling in pain. That was nothing to the next one, and she gasped as a blade slid into her back once, twice, again, and again, and again.
Letting go of her, the person jumped back, and she swayed, her body immediately flooding the area with healing magic.
"Etani!" Malik cried even as she fell, listening with a sigh as her body began to shut down; right lung punctured, liver slashed twice, trachea separated and both carotid arteries detached.
Well, they had done well, that was for sure. Whoever it was had hit three vital organs, and she was drowning in her own blood.
How she was going to get out of Ceress, she had no idea, it was going to be exceptionally inconvenient.
Boots pounded to her side, and he was there, his growling voice deep in her ear and his hands on her back with enough pressure that it was hurting terribly.
Her body was racing to repair itself, Malik's blood pounding through her, and even as her heart stopped beating. The severed arteries stitched back together.
Someone had rolled her onto her back and was pushing down on her chest, lips found hers and then moved away, more pressure on her chest, lips back on hers. It was an odd sensation, and she considered what it was they were doing. It seemed like they were manually forcing her heart to beat, and it was fascinating how the sharp pushes on her chest were pushing down on her heart and forcing it to push blood through her system.
How had the humans learnt how to do that? Why had they learnt how to do that? What was it going to do? Her heart hiccupped as the arteries joined and then it picked up an erratic, rapid pace that had her sucking in a breath and rolling onto her side to cough up the blood that had settled into her lungs, wheezing and groaning while her lung tried to figure out what it was doing.
'Expand, idiot...' she thought at the stupid organ, but it was ignoring her.
Someone had wrapped their arms around her and dragged her up off the floor and against their chest, thumping on her back. Finally, she sucked in a breath as her lung decided it was done being stupid and inflate again.
"Going.... to kill them..." she wheezed, the low growling laugh of Malik making her aware of who it was that had her.
"Will it make any difference if I said he didn't mean it?" Malik said and the sound of his voice was doing very interesting things to her libido.
"They didn't mean to stab me seven times?" she asked, relief flooding through her as the magic that had flooded the area dispersed and she could feel the resentment of Winter, thinking they would be going home if she died. At least she knew what the priorities of the magic were. It wanted home.
"He thought you were killing me," he said.
"I'll show him what that looks like…"