Demon’s Revenge (High Demon #5)(47)
Author: Connie Suttle

Reah had been nothing but kind to him, and he should have warned her. Now, she was likely suffering after moonrush. Jerves laughed hysterically for a moment. Moonrush. It sounded so benign. Except that it wasn’t. He’d only seen it once, when Perdil forced him to kforrves help with some of the girls. Reah would be sold in two eight-days, only Jerves suspected that Zen and Perdil were planning to bid on the pretty cook in order to keep her in Galedaro’s kitchens.

"What is it, Master Jerves?" the assistant asked.

"Nothing. Keep working. Just get those orders sent to Ms. Schuul’s suite as requested."

"We will." The assistant turned away.

"There are no messages from her husband." Perdil tossed Reah’s comp-vid onto Zendeval’s desk.

"Good. We don’t have to answer if there aren’t any." Zendeval ignored the comp-vid.

"But that concerns me. There should be something, don’t you think?"

"He left because of family matters; perhaps she doesn’t want to bother him."

"Perhaps. But let me know if you get any communication from him. We’ll have to answer until we get her away from here."

"True. We don’t need the ASD or some such sniffing around Stellar Winds."

"Have you gone back to check on her?" Perdil had been quite busy in the kitchens after his return.

"No. I have communication from the physician, however. If you’d like to read it," Zen pushed his comp-vid toward Perdil. Perdil lifted the handheld and scanned the message.

"You’re not concerned that her fever’s still high?" Perdil handed the comp-vid back.

"I called—he says it happens at times. Some of the women become ill for inexplicable reasons. They are feverish for days and in pain, but eventually they recover fully."

"Does it worry you that you caused this?"

"Yes. I’ve never made a female ill before."

"Perhaps we should take her out of the cage and put her somewhere more comfortable."

"Do you think so?" Zen gave Perdil a quizzical look.

"The lack of females among your kind has not improved your intelligence," Perdil muttered. "Did you notice that this wasn’t one of Schuul’s comp-vids?" Perdil tapped Reah’s portable device.

"It matters not—we have her and we’ve confiscated this one. The others like it will be useless soon enough."

"It doesn’t worry you that there are some not controlled now?"

"Why should it worry me?" Zen blinked in confusion at Perdil.

"It’s dark inside your ass, isn’t it?" Perdil grumbled and stalked away.

"What did he mean by that?" Zen did a little grumbling of his own.

I was ill. I knew it. Likely Lendill knew it too, since he was seeing the doctor’s worried face quite often. He sent mindspeech occasionally, but the words were garbled if I were conscious enough to hear them. I wanted to heave whenever food was offered. Baths were given in cold water several times throughout the day. Geldis, the physician, complained that the normal doses of painkill didn’t alleviate the pain.

I might have laughed if I could have. Normal doses of most anything had no effect khadain on me. He upped the dosage several times, finally concluding that three times what was normal helped a little. I needed Karzac or my Larentii. Both were far away. Nobody was here to care for me except a physician I didn’t know.

I was still inside my cage, I knew that much, and every part of my body ached, lying on a thin mattress spread across the metal floor. I wondered, too, why the physician failed to report to Perdil or Zendeval that I was pregnant. Something prevented it, and I was too feverish and in pain to worry about it for long.

"Reah?" The voice came. I knew it from somewhere. I struggled toward consciousness. "Reah?" A hand touched my forehead. "Burning up. Get over here!" The voice shouted. "Get her into one of the private rooms. We need to clean her up and get this fever down. Where is that f**king physician?"

I hadn’t heard Perdil use that word before. He was with me now; I saw him through a fevered haze. "I didn’t move her; I wasn’t informed that I could." Geldis arrived quickly. Perdil was cursing again, raving about everybody needing permission to fart. I didn’t care, I wanted to be unconscious again and away from the pain.

"What part of take care of her needs did you not understand?" Perdil shouted. Likely, Geldis was cringing before the dwarf. I would be, too, if I were human. I wanted to laugh, I think, at my thoughts. The cage door was opened and I was lifted out of it. Usually a guard did that; Geldis didn’t fetch and carry. Another cool tub of water followed, more drugs were administered by mistjection and then someone carried me into a shower and bathed me. I didn’t realize it was Perdil until it was nearly over. The drugs were beginning to take effect.

"Three days and still no better off," he muttered as I was toweled off and carried to bed. It was a much better bed than the thin mat had been. Perdil was combing out my freshly washed hair when I slipped back into unconsciousness.

"Any better?" Zen slipped inside the private room. Perdil hadn’t told him that Reah had been moved, and at first he was angry to find the cage empty. The guards directed him to Reah’s new room. Perdil had sat next to the bed for several clicks, watching Reah sleep.

"The fever’s down for the moment, but I have to keep after that fool of a physician or he just wanders away. I asked him if we needed an IV; he said probably and walked out."

"Why does she need an IV?" Zen gave Perdil a worried glance.

"Because she isn’t getting better. She hasn’t kept anything down, including water. She needs fluids—even I know that and I have no medical training at all." Perdil snorted at his own statement.

"Do we have the necessary supplies? We can go to the hospital on Stellar Winds and get them."

"I sent one of the other physicians already," Perdil sighed. "About a click ago. They should be here anytime." That was how Zendeval Rjjn, who’d never needed a physician for any trouble of his own, watched in fascination as an IV was inserted into Reah’s hand and taped there, while a bag of fluid was attached and began to drip. Geldis attached another bag as well, which administered a steady flow of medication.

"Some develop infection of some kind," he said when Perdil asked about the treatment. "This drug treats a broad spectrum of infections, so I hope it has some effect. We’ll know by tomorrow if it helps."

"And if she has a reaction?"

"We’ll remove it right away. I’ll have someone watching if I can’t be here myself."