Chapter 9

Beth was having the strangest dream.

She was facing Ariel and heard her scream at her, right before she fell forward under the earth, and now she was slowly drowning in some kind of muck that she found underground.

No matter how hard she tried she couldn't keep her eyes open or seem to catch her breath. She could feel her breath slowing down. She knew she was dying.

As she felt herself suffocating, she again saw herself in the cell during the time she was twelve and all those people, mostly men, came by and jeered at her, or they laughed and made crude sexual comments to her about what she would soon be doing for them.

But as they did she defiantly looked at them and wouldn't give them the satisfaction of knowing how scared she was. Once she was out of this cell she would either kill them or make them kill her.

Truthfully though, she felt the same now as she did then, scared and alone.

Even though her mother was in the next cell over, she was still unconscious, and so she knew she was trapped alone with the knowledge that she would never see Ayden again and he would never know how much she cared about him.

Then suddenly Ayden was there.

It felt as if he dived under the surface to find her and grabbed onto her and held her in his arms and made her feel safe. She could feel him holding onto her from behind as he wrapped his arms around her and she saw the picture of her past self in the cell slowly starting to fade away.

As her anxiety left her as she leaned back into his arms.

Beth could now feel him with her and she felt him smile at her. As she smiled back she could feel herself starting to breathe easier. His being there made everything alright. The dream of her being trapped in the cell then completely evaporated.

All of a sudden she was cold.

She was so cold that she couldn't believe it. Beth looked around for Ayden, who was in her dream with her, but he was no longer anywhere she could see, and for some reason the cold feeling wouldn't go away.

Suddenly her eyes opened and she found she was shivering hard.

Looking over she could see that she was in a room, and Ariel was sitting in a chair with her back against a wall and she appeared to be dosing.

It was very dark and other than the light from room she couldn't see anything else. She couldn't see her cousins trademark red hair, but she could tell by her mannerisms that it was her.

"A-a-a-ariel, I'm-m-m c-c-c-old. W-w-w-what is g-g-going o-o-on?" asked Beth.

"Beth! You're alive! You're alive!" screamed Ariel as she came to the bed and hugged her cousin.

"What happened?" asked Beth a little more in control.

She was starting to warm up. She was under heavy blankets so she really shouldn't have been cold at all.

"You got some of that plague in you and you almost died. Ayden used white magic and some of his own blood to remove the plague from you. He worked on you all through the night and into the morning. You lost a lot of blood.

"You've both been out for two days. Well you have, Ayden is still out. I think he's exhausted and it looked like he had some major blood loss as well. He had problems expanding the blood in both of your bodies to replace what was lost. We thought we lost you both, but he managed to save you," said Ariel as she looked at her.

"Ayden did that? For me?" asked Beth softly, but tiredly in wonder.

"He said he couldn't lose you and used his own body to save you. I think you have your answer as to whether or not he wants you or would do what it took to keep you with him," said Ariel softly with a smile.

Beth tried to smile and say something to her, but sleep claimed her as her body fought to recover from what happened to it.

Beth came awake with a start and looked around the room.

This time it was Gem sitting in the chair watching her. She could see the sun was up and streaming into the window. She was a strange contrast with her freely hanging shoulder length black hair to Ariel's braided red hair that she saw when she first opened her eyes earlier.

Groaning Beth sat up and looked around.

"How do you feel?" asked Gem.

"Like a Bull ran me over in the front yard," said Beth. "How's Ayden?"

"He's not woken up yet. I changed with Ariel this morning to watch you so she could get some sleep. She's been watching you the most while you were out. Haley is with Ayden and she won't leave his side," said Gem quietly.

Getting out of bed, Beth saw that she still had on her under shirt, and it was ripped, but she wasn't wearing her guild leather vest. She was also missing her light chain mail shirt, but at least she was still in her leather pants.

As she also took further stock of her body she saw the bandage on her left arm that hadn't been there before she passed out.

"Your other clothes are over here. We took them off so you could rest," said Gem to her unasked questions.

"Can you tell me better what he did for me?" asked Beth as she stood up shaky for a few moments before she got her balance and stopped shaking.

"He basically forced his blood into your body to surround the poison that was in your blood and used that to magically enhance and remove the poison from you. He used magic to keep his blood free of the disease and to gather up and force the poison out of your body while he helped your body produce more untainted blood to help heal you.

"He also tried to purify the plague in your system at first like we did in the bottles, but he gave up when he couldn't get it all, and had to settle on trying to removed it. It looks like he succeeded. That took longer but it was the best route left open to him.

"It's hard to know what he did exactly, or to do outside a classroom from what Michael tells me, and it should have been impossible to do on the fly. I've never even heard of anyone trying this before. But Michael said that Ayden had theorized it for one of his classes as a viable way, and you were the first person he's ever tried it with," said Gem quietly.

"Where is Ayden now?" asked Beth

"He is in the room next to us. You know, you may need to rest a little longer," said Gem with concern.

"No I'm done resting, I need to check on Ayden," said Beth tensely as she started for the doorway without looking back.

Entering the room next to hers she found an ashen Ayden still sleeping and Haley holding onto his bandaged hand as she watched his face. She could see the concern on Haley's face. If anyone ever questioned her loved or her older brother they could see that it ran deep just by watching her now.

Quietly coming into the room Beth sat down on the bed and gently took his hand from his sister. Haley looked at her as she did, but she saw the pain and worry in Beth's face for her brother and so said nothing about it.

"Ayden, I'm so sorry you had to save me because of a stupid mistake on my part. I'm sorry you had to put yourself in this position. Please be alright, you have to know by now that I love you and I need you to give me a chance to really prove it too you," said Beth softly.

At hearing Gem and Haley's harsh intake of breath she ignored them and continued speaking as if they weren't there. She didn't want Ayden to die and she didn't know if he would from what he did to save her.

Ariel hadn't told either Haley or Gem what took place at the Inn because of everything that had happened with the theft, so this was the first they were hearing of it.

"I know I shouldn't have done what I did to you when we were kids and you did nothing to deserve how I treated you on this job when you came to visit. But I did it because I was jealous and I didn't want anyone else to have you.

"Please let me have a chance to prove I love you and to be with you. Please don't die," said Beth softly as a few of the tears that were swimming in her eyes escaped down her face.

As she closed her eyes to try and fight any further tears she felt Ayden's free hand on the side of her face.

"I never could stand to see you cry you know, even as a child," croaked out Ayden as he barely cracked open his eyes.

Crying out Beth lay on his chest and hugged him.

After a moment Haley cleared her throat and Beth blushed deeply as she sat up away from Ayden to face her. But she still held his bandaged hand tenderly.

"What is all this about you loving him?" asked Gem still in wide eyed shock from the doorway.

"Beth, we're all family here you know and..." started Haley impatiently.

"Haley... ," started Beth interrupting her.

"Let me do it this time," said Ayden softly