Page 24 of Baited

He expels more air from his lungs. One wing flaps weakly but the rest of him doesn’t move. One of the medics installs some sort of tube into his arm, hooking him up to a crystal bottle which hovers in the air. The other two busy themselves around his abdomen.

“Izzy?” His eyes flicker open briefly.

“Yes, it’s me,” I reply, cupping his strong jaw.

He leans into my touch, murmuring my name again.

I slide my other hand under his wing and gently move it so it is more comfortable for him, smoothing out his feathers.

“Whatever happens, I’m here for you,” I whisper in his ear.

Then his entire body arches up as the medics apply their instruments to his wound, bellowing out in pain before slumping back, once again unconscious.

“Fucking hell, did you have to do that?” I mutter, pulling at the bedclothes to mop over Blayn’s brow.

“If you wanted him to live,” the first medic says, looking over his shoulder as someone else enters the room.

It’s another medic, an older Oykig male, his scales once blue but now a grizzled gray around his head and the tip of his tail.

“What have you been doing?” he demands of the others.

They gather around him as I turn my attention back to Blayn. Some of his color has returned, his breathing less ragged.Whatever the medics did to him, it seems to have worked. I feel like I can breathe again too.

Blayn is staring at me.

I stroke his cheek.

“Sleep,” I say, quietly. “You’ll feel better if you sleep.”

“Will you keep the dark and the light away?” he rasps. “Please?”

“You want me to stay with you?”

“Please don’t let it take me.” His eyes widen.

“I won’t. I’ll stay, if you sleep,” I tell him.

A smile tugs at the corner of his lips briefly. It plucks at my insides too and I feel calm and oh-so-tired as Blayn’s eyelids struggle to stay open, lose their battle, and he is gone again.

“This is the female?” The older Oykig is next to the bed, talking to his colleagues. One of them nods.

He reaches in hesitantly, then grasps Blayn’s chin, turning his head one way and the other. My huge gladiator doesn’t make a sound or move a muscle, although the hint of a smile remains.

The medic hums with interest.

“Seems he likes you, little one,” he says to me. “You’re going to be necessary for his healing process, I believe, given Blayn doesn’t like anything…except, it seems, you.”

“I don’t know if I can.” I stumble over the words because my heart is telling me the only thing I want to do is be by Blayn’s side.

The male who smiled the best smile for me a few seconds ago, simply because I was with him, because I promised to stay with him.

“I’ll arrange it with the madame. He’s got some way to go before he’s fit enough to be moved back to the dome, and given the level of infection which has spread through his body, I don’t want to disturb his healing.” He gives me a searching look. “Gryn heal well and they heal fast, but Blayn has allowed an infectionto take hold, something pretty nasty from the look of his vitals. He needs peace, quiet, rest, and, when his fever breaks, food and care. Are you prepared to do that?”

I look down at where Blayn has curled his hand around my thigh, claws fully retracted.

“Yes.” I meet the medic’s gaze. “I am.”

IZZY

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