Mated To The Crippled Alpha-Chapter 407: SHE IS Sick

"Whitney, you can’t sleep like this you’re completely soaked."

I touched her forehead and felt the heat radiating off it immediately. The fever had already taken hold. She had been sitting in the rain for who knew how long, too deep in her grief to notice or care. I stood there for a moment, equal parts worried and helpless, then called for a maid to help clean her up and get her into dry sheets. With the baby to think about, I couldn’t afford to push myself too hard in the middle of the night, but I wasn’t leaving her either.

By the time the family doctor arrived, Whitney was feverish and barely coherent, her normally pale face flushed a deep, unsettling red.

The face at the door wasn’t one I recognized. I looked at him carefully thirties, unremarkable features, a calm and unhurried manner. Not Dr. Laurence.

Lewis’s voice came from behind me. "He’s Dr. Mervin. He’s one of ours."

That eased the tension in my shoulders enough to let me explain Whitney’s condition. Dr. Mervin listened without interrupting, then said simply, "Sounds like she caught a chill from the rain. But with a fever this high, it could be more than that."

He reached for a thermometer, but I held out my hand. "I’ll take it."

He accepted that without comment. "Then I’ll check her pulse. A reading alone won’t tell me everything."

"Dr. Mervin you practice holistic medicine as well?"

"A little," he said modestly, which I had come to understand meant considerably more than a little.

I pulled a chair over for him, and the moment his fingers settled against Whitney’s wrist, something shifted in the room. Without warning, Whitney’s hand shot up and grabbed his wrist. Before any of us could react, she pulled herself upright and clung to him arms around his neck, shaking with fever and something far older and deeper than a cold.

I started to speak. Dr. Mervin raised a quiet hand in my direction, and I stopped.

He understood before I did. This wasn’t just fever. There was a grief in her body that had been building for days, and it had finally found a crack to pour through. I kept still and let it happen.

Whitney’s face was pressed against his shoulder, tears running freely, her breathing broken and desperate. "Vito," she whispered. "I knew you weren’t gone. I knew it."

My chest caved in a little at the sound of it.

Dr. Mervin didn’t pull away or correct her. He simply stayed, solid and present, and let her hold on. "Yes," he said quietly. "I’m here."

The trembling in her arms slowed. Her grip loosened. She sank back against the pillows and fell into a deep, exhausted sleep almost immediately.

I looked at Dr. Mervin. "She’s delirious from the fever," I said, feeling the need to explain, even though I wasn’t sure who I was explaining it to.

"I understand," he said simply, and turned his attention back to her pulse.

I waited, watching his face for clues. When he finally lowered her wrist, I couldn’t hold back. "How is she?"

"Her sorrow has built up and settled in the body," he said. "The cold is a symptom, not the cause. Her heart needs treating as much as anything else." He paused. "Tonight, we bring the fever down. The rest will take time and a different kind of medicine."

He began preparing the IV and medication while I hovered uselessly nearby. After a moment, he looked up. "Mrs. Hale, the infusion will run at least four hours. It’s very late. You should rest."

Lewis appeared in the doorway. "Theo will stay with her. You can’t be up all night, and the baby needs you rested."

He was right. I hated that he was right, but he was. Whitney mattered enormously to me but so did the life I was carrying. I couldn’t pretend otherwise. "Alright, Dr. Mervin. I’ll leave her in your care."

"No need for formalities, Mrs. Hale."

Lewis picked me up before I could argue, and I didn’t have the energy left to protest. The exhaustion hit me all at once, like a door swinging open. I was asleep before we reached our room.

I woke just after nine and went straight to Whitney without stopping for anything else. She was still asleep. Her forehead was warm when I touched it not as hot as the night before, but not right either.

"Mrs. Hale." Dr. Mervin was still there, standing quietly near the window.

"Her fever hasn’t broken."

"It’s coming in cycles," he said. "Her body is weak, and we can’t push too much medication at once. There’ll be another infusion this afternoon. It will come down gradually." He reached for the thermometer, and I stepped forward automatically.

"I’ll do it."

He stepped back without a word.

The reading was better than last night, but still elevated. I looked at him. "You mentioned stagnation last night grief that’s settled into the body. How do we treat that?"

"Two things," he said. "Ms. Morrigan needs to find a reason to look forward rather than backward. And her energy and blood are both depleted we address that with the right herbs over time. There’s no quick fix for what she’s carrying."

"I understand. I’ll trust you with it."

"Of course. You should go eat, Mrs. Hale. You’ve just woken up and you need to take care of yourself too. I’ll stay with her. She’s my patient you have nothing to worry about on that count."

His quiet acknowledgment of what I hadn’t quite said out loud made me feel slightly embarrassed for having thought it. "Yes. Of course. Thank you."

I turned to leave, and in the gap of the open door, I caught a glimpse of him reaching out to check Whitney’s temperature with his own hand, then straightening her blanket with a care that went just slightly beyond clinical. He had his back to me, so I couldn’t see his face. I stood there for half a second, noting it, then walked on and asked a servant to bring him breakfast.

Downstairs, Alisa was at the table, one hand resting on her rounded belly, looking exactly as composed and elegant as she always did. She looked up when I sat down. "Did something happen last night? I heard an unfamiliar voice from the kitchen."

"Starling had a fever. We called a doctor."

"Ah. He seems thorough he asked the kitchen staff to prepare specific food for her." She tilted her head. "You seem better lately. Morning sickness easing up?"

"A little."

"It gets easier," she said. "Though wait until the baby starts moving constantly at three in the morning. Mine has decided night is the perfect time to practice acrobatics." She laughed softly and rubbed her belly. "Enjoy the quiet while it lasts."

I smiled and made a polite excuse, dabbing my mouth with a napkin and slipping away before the conversation could go further. As I left the dining room, I glanced back once. Alisa sat poised and serene, one hand curved around her stomach, a picture of quiet contentment.

I turned away and headed back toward Whitney’s room.

The door was ajar. Dr. Mervin was at the desk with his back to the room, writing out a prescription in careful, unhurried strokes. Whitney was awake, lying against the pillow, her eyes fixed on the back of his head with a quiet, uncertain expression.

"Good morning," I said from the doorway. "That’s Dr. Wallace Mervin. You had a fever last night."

"Oh." She blinked slowly. "Thank you," she said, to the room in general, or maybe to him.

She pushed herself upright and swung her legs to the side of the bed, clearly intending to stand. She made it exactly one step before the world tilted on her. Her legs gave out without warning, and she was falling before anyone could say a word.

"Whitney!"

I was already moving, but I was too far. A dark blur passed in front of me Dr. Mervin, crossing the room in two strides, catching her cleanly before she hit the floor. He steadied her carefully, one arm around her back, and asked in a low, even voice, "Are you alright?"

Whitney lifted her head slowly. Her eyes found his face, and she stayed there just looking at him, with an expression I couldn’t quite read.