"It's all so cliche." I mumble as I wake up. The quilts were too warm, but something was keeping them on me. I struggled to remove them and found the weight.

"Dammit Nocturne let me take these quilts off, I'm dying of heat here." I say irritably. I really needed to get these damn quilts off before I died of heat stroke. Nocturne only laughs at me. Finally my adrenaline kicks in, I was seriously in need to cool off and that ass didn't get it.

He stopped laughing when I managed to throw him off the bed. I get off the bed and place my feet on the blessedly cool stones and stand only to faint.

"Mori!" the slapping of her awake doesn't put Mori in a good mood. She feels sick, sicker than she's ever felt before. And that includes before she found out that she was pregnant with the vampire king's children.

"I don't feel good Nocturne." Mori manages to get out.

"Hold on Mori, stay with me." Mori thinks she hears desperation in Nocturne's voice, but decides that she must be hearing things. The vampire king doesn't get desperate.

"You're burning up Mori. Here, drink this." Nocturne holds Mori up so that she can drink from the cup that's presented to her. Mori tries to push it away but after tasting the cold water she changes her mind and can't get enough of it. 

"More please." Her voice is raspy and faint. She frowns at it. What happened? She was fine not too long ago. Nocturne hands her another cup of water. She drinks it as fast as Nocturne will allow her to. By the time she finishes she's so weak she trembling.

"What happened?" Is all she can get out as Nocturne tucks her back up in the bed.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out. Now you just lie back and go to sleep." Nocturne says his temper barely in check. He knows more than he's telling Mori but she's too weak to call him on it.

"It was a dark and stormy night, like the cliched story always starts." Mori says lying back and closing her eyes.

"What was that Mori?" Nocturne asks distracted from his dark thoughts.

"It was a dark and stormy night. The weather so filthy not fit for man nor beast." Mori says softly to herself, but Nocturne hears it anyway. He smiles slightly not sure where she's taking this. "The night my life was turned upside down by the dark stranger blown in by the wind."

"Shouldn't that be tall, dark, and handsome stranger? If you are going for the cliche? Besides I am handsome." Nocturne says with no little mirth.

"And just how was I supposed to know if you were handsome or not with almost all the light in the cabin blown out by the wind. Now hush. I never said you were handsome and this is my cliched story." Mori reprimands Nocturne.

Nocturne isn't sure how he's supposed to take this. He's not used to being reprimanded and here's this human doing so. But not just any human he has to admit, his human, his wife or the equivalent thereof. He does have to admit the start of their story is rather cliched, he hopes that he can make things less so as they go along.

"You may not have called me handsome but plenty of other humans have." Nocturne smirks at the female lying with her eyes closed on the bed.

"Then maybe they need glasses." Comes her smart reply. Nocturne isn't sure how to respond to that until he sees her small smile. "What no reply oh mighty king?"

Just as Nocturne was about to reply he notices that Mori had fainted once more.

"What's wrong with her Terrance? I can't figure it out." Mori hears Nocturne say before she fades out once more.

"It appears that she might have been poisoned. But not directly." Terrance says gravely after he checked out the female before him. "Has she said anything about things tasting off or different?" Terrance says deep in thought.

"The only thing she said along those lines is that she preferred my blood to yours or Lin's. It was almost like she didn't like Lin's though. He hadn't given her very much when she pushed him away." Nocturne thinks about it more and believes that Lin might be responsible.

"Before you go and kill Lord Lin, you might want to consider that he had ingested something in human blood that won't harm us, but might very well harm Lady Mori." Terrance says softly. "I will feed her now and with the healing we've both done she and the children should be fine. Then I will check on the young lord for you. It is very possible that he doesn't know anything about the poisoning, but he won't be able to lie to me."

"Thank you. The bond with Mori is strong enough that she sees what I do, I'd rather she didn't have to see my darker side more than necessary." Nocturne says gazing down at the woman that has turned his world upside down as much as he's turned hers.

"If he knowingly administered poisoned blood to Lady Mori?" Terrance questions.

Nocturne's face turns dark. "Then we'll have to find a way to keep Mori distracted because I'll be tearing him limb from limb." Terrance just nods. It would be the appropriate response after nearly killing the heir to the vampire throne. But he thinks that Nocturne would be even more cruel, not because of the bond but because he's come to care for this female. Terrance never thought to see the day that the king would care for a human.

"Ohh." Mori moans. "Why does my head ache?" She holds her hand to her head.

"I can help with that if you wish." Nocturne asks softly and solicitously. He sits at the edge of the bed and gently runs his hand over her face.

"It feels like an army is playing war in my head. If you can fix that I'd really appreciate it." Mori hurts so bad that she couldn't think about anything else. The healing Nocturne sends through her brings her so much relief she wants to cry. But it isn't just the head that is healed, it's like a relief throughout her body that she hadn't even realized that she needed.

"What happened?" Mori asks once she is able to take it all in.

"From what Terrance and I could figure you had been poisoned." Nocturne keeps his voice even but Mori can detect his anger. She just can't tell where it's directed. She swallows hard, she pretty sure he's not angry with her, after all he did offer her healing.

Like he can read her mind Nocturne answers. "No, Mori I'm not angry with you. There is very little opportunity for someone to have poisoned you."

"Lord Lin?" Mori questions. "That's who you are thinking isn't it?" She hadn't thought that a vampire would betray him like that. It makes her nervous to think that she is now a target.

"He is one of those I suspect, yes. Actually he's the one with the greatest opportunity to have done so. However, it may not have been intentional if it is him. We can tolerate things that humans cannot and he may have ingested something like that unknowingly and passed it on to you." Nocturnes voice strains to remain emotionless, but Mori picks up the fury he's holding in.

"But you don't believe that do you?" Mori asks sitting up. Nocturne helps her become comfortable but restrains her from actually getting out of bed. "I have things to do Nocturne I can't stay in bed all day."

"To answer your question, a vampire can taste the flavor of the blood and can tell if the blood carries such contaminants. Unless he was influenced by other things," Nocturne sneers at this, it takes a great deal of 'other things' to cover the taste of contaminated blood. "As for the bed, you are still too weak to be leaving that bed for now. You need to eat and rest for the day, Mori."

Mori just looks at Nocturne incredulously. "Um, Nocturne?"

Nocturne turns to her, "Just how do you expect me to eat if you won't let me fix any food?"

Nocturne looks at her for a long minute before smirking. "I'll get you some food."

Now it's Mori's turn to look at Nocturne, "You cook?" The complete disbelief in her face and voice is so out of place on Mori that Nocturne is actually offended. Although secretly pleased that he was able to crack her immense emotional control.

Highly pleased at this accomplishment, "Of course not." His tone shows his offended senses, "It won't take me long to go to the village and return with food."

With that Mori bursts out laughing. Nocturne once more doesn't know whether to be offended or this time entranced. He loves her laughter, it makes him feel light somehow. "Why are you laughing?"

"I'm sorry Nocturne. It's just the thought of the king of the vampire's playing errand boy for a lowly human is just too much. I apologize if I have offended." But since she is having trouble stopping her laughter Nocturne isn't sure the apology is sincere. Although he does have to admit if any of the vampires were to see this they would never believe it either.

Not sure how to deal with it Nocturne decides to ignore it. "Just stay in bed Mori. I'll return soon. Anything in particular you'd like?"

Mori wipes the tears of her laughter away. "Truly I'm sorry. Man I haven't laughed like that since before my mother died. No, whatever you feel I'd do best with." Mori although feeling better for having laughed leans back against the head board. "I'll stay in bed Nocturne, I'm too weak and tired to get up now."

Nocturne nods once and turns towards the door. "Rest, I'll be back soon." And before Mori can even blink the handsome king had left the cabin.