Chapter 237

Zane POV

It was thallium poisoning.

“The treatment is proceeding with Prussian blue, which traps thallium to keep it from being further absorbed, as well as activated charcoal and forced diuresis,” the doctor, whose name I learned was Vassles, told me.

Sitting by Sarah’s bedside, I was trying hard not to look at the second bed in the semi-private ward. It had held Mavis, and now it was empty.

Thallium was treatable, I had been told more than once now, but the issue was the size of the dose. Both women had just ingested too much of it for normal treatments to work. Poor Mavis had lasted barely four hours, and Sarah was unconscious, perhaps never to wake up.

I had sent the girls home, much against their wishes. I asked them to go to sleep and wake up to a healthy Sarah in the morning, but they hadn’t believed me.

“We’ll know more in a few hours,” Dr. Vassles told me.

I nodded, and finally he left me alone with the woman who had become more to me than my own life, than anything in my life. But it wasn’t only to take her hands in mine that I wanted privacy. Scott had been right about Ella; it made sense for him to be right about fated mates as well.

I leaned down and kissed her cold, unresponsive lips, then inside her cheek, where it wouldn’t show, I nicked her with a fang. I felt a small but instant surge of warmth. Her heart steadied just a bit, and I knew I had helped.

I didn’t think I could cure her, but my body could soothe her, could comfort and support her.

“Stay with me, Sarah,” I whispered into the dim room. “Stay with me and be my mate, and we’ll take on the world together.”

She breathed in, and then out, and I waited for that breath to stop. I waited for my world to stop.

For hours, I sat beside her, kissing her, nicking her when I could feel her pain return, pouring my spirit into her. I slept here and there, and when the doctors and nurses came in to check on her, I nodded and said the right things, whatever they were. When the morning came, I was still sitting there, listening to her breathe.

The morning brought the girls accompanied by Travis and Rucker. Travis gave me an update on the so-far fruitless search for Ella. Rucker said they’d found traces of thallium in what looked like shortbread crumbs when Mavis and Sarah had been sitting.

I nodded and said something appropriate.

I tried to smile at my girls, and then I saw Chloe was holding a book, one I recognized easily.

“Did you want to read to Sarah?” I asked.

She nodded solemnly. “Just the last part.”

“She’s like that, I’m sure,” I said.

Chloe settled into a chair on the other side of Sarah’s bed, Grace at her side. A nurse came in to take Sarah’s blood pressure, but she was unobtrusive. Sarah’s room felt oddly calm, like a temple.

Chloe opened the book and flipped to the page she wanted. When she began to read, I almost screamed at her to stop.

“The little mermaid kissed his hand, and felt as if her heart were already broken. His wedding morning would bring death to her, and she would change into the foam of the sea.”

I had no idea why she’d chosen such a horrific passage when the mermaid almost turns into sea foam, but Chloe’s air was determined and her voice sure. I closed my eyes and just let my daughter’s voice wash over me.

“She knew this was the last evening she should ever see the prince, for whom she had forsaken her kindred and her home; she had given up her beautiful voice, and suffered unheard-of pain daily for him, while he knew nothing of it. This was the last evening that she would breathe the same air with him, or gaze on the starry sky and the deep sea; an eternal night, without a thought or a dream, awaited her: she had no soul and now she could never win one.”

I noticed the nurse had stopped to listen. Travis and Rucker were frowning, but when they looked at me, I shook my head just enough for them to see. Chloe read on.

“She cast one more lingering, half-fainting glance at the prince, and then threw herself from the ship into the sea, and thought her body was dissolving into foam. The sun rose above the waves, and his warm rays fell on the cold foam of the little mermaid, who did not feel as if she were dying.

“She saw the bright sun, and all around her floated hundreds of transparent beautiful beings; she could see through them the white sails of the ship, and the red clouds in the sky; their speech was melodious, but too ethereal to be heard by mortal ears, as they were also unseen by mortal eyes.

“The little mermaid perceived that she had a body like theirs, and that she continued to rise higher and higher out of the foam. “Where am I?” asked she, and her voice sounded ethereal, as the voice of those who were with her; no earthly music could imitate it.”

Finally, I understood what Chloe was doing. I felt tears slip from my eyes as I closed them once more.

“‘You, poor little mermaid, have tried with your whole heart to do as we are doing; you have suffered and endured and raised yourself to the spirit-world by your good deeds; and now, by striving for three hundred years in the same way, you may obtain an immortal soul.’”

I knew that wasn’t quite the end of the story, but I was unsurprised when Chloe stopped reading, and I heard her close the book. I managed to get my eyes open to see her lean closer to Sarah and say in a clear voice, “Please don’t turn into an angel, Sarah. Please, stay with us instead.”

I met my daughter’s eyes and nodded. I couldn’t quite make myself smile.

Sniffling, the nurse left, and soon after Travis and Rucker took the girls for breakfast, which they had refused to eat until they saw Sarah. Dr. Vassles had evidently been waiting for that because he entered soon after, read over Sarah’s chart, and put his stethoscope to her chest.

He looked at me.

“She’s not getting better, is she?” I asked.

“No, I’m sorry. There was just so much poison. We’re not getting rid of it fast enough.”

I nodded, and after a few minutes of fiddling with the machines Sarah was hooked up to, he left.

“All right, Sarah,” I said to her unmoving form. “It’s time we faced things. Ella is a murderer. Scott told me truths with his lies. We’re meant to be together, and Janine was right: you must be a Moon Wolf.

“I don’t know how, but nothing else makes sense. You cannot die, and the only way to save you is to have you transform.”

I pressed her palm to mine. “Do you hear me, Sarah? It’s time to awaken your wolf. So, do it. Do it right now.”

I closed my eyes and reached out to the moon.