Chapter 122: Fever Terms

Elias said it without the slightest smile on his face, which only made the line worse. His expression stayed cool and blank, but the words themselves carried enough dry mockery that Serena could not tell what he actually meant by them.

Had he truly changed his mind all of a sudden? Had seeing her sick and half-buried in the covers made him soften enough to take care of her?

Serena looked at the capsule held near her mouth, her eyes complicated. Her first instinct was to turn her head and refuse it, not because she had any real reason to avoid medicine, but because the suddenness of his attention had caught her wrong. Then she realized how absurd that would look. Dodging a pill while lying in bed with a fever would make her seem fragile in a way she had never allowed herself to be, like some pampered boy waiting to be coaxed.

After a brief silence, she stayed still.

Elias waited long enough to confirm that she had no intention of opening her mouth. Then he simply pushed the capsule between her lips, pressing past the small resistance of her mouth and forcing the medicine in.

Serena had no time to prepare for it. His fingertip brushed her lips, and the contact was far too intimate for something as ordinary as taking cold medicine. The heat on her face was already from the fever, but that did not stop the touch from shaking something loose in her. For a woman who had made entire boardrooms lower their voices by entering them, being handled like this over a pill felt like an insult to her authority.

Her voice went cold. "You could have warned me first."

"Ma’am, take your medicine," Elias repeated. "Did I not say that?"

Serena found herself blocked by the sheer shamelessness of the answer. She could hardly tell him that his brief, unexpected gentleness had unsettled her enough to make her hesitate over a capsule.

Luckily, Elias did not seem to notice anything strange about her reaction. He straightened from the bed and said, "I’ll get water."

He came back not long after with a glass in his hand, then sat on the edge of the bed again. "Open."

Serena frowned. "It’s already dissolving."

That was the point. I waited so it would melt. Enjoy the bitterness.

Even so, Serena parted her lips and drank from the glass he held out. The water washed the medicine down and dulled the taste spreading over her tongue.

Elias lowered the glass. "More?"

"No." Serena shook her head.

"Good."

He set the water on the nightstand.

The exchange had been too normal. Too ordinary. It did not belong to them, and it did not fit the shape of what had always existed between them.

For one wrong instant, it felt like a real couple. A girlfriend sick in bed, a boyfriend sitting beside her with medicine and water, staying close because leaving would feel too careless.

The thought gave Serena a faint, instinctive resistance. She shook it away before it settled.

"Get some rest," Elias said, already moving as if to leave.

Serena caught his hand before he could stand fully.

Elias tried to pull free once. When that failed, he turned back and looked down at her.

He did not speak. He only watched her in silence.

Serena pressed her lips together. His silence gave her a frustration she could not name cleanly. It made him seem as though he was indulging her, and it made her seem as though she had already sunk too deeply into this strange version of closeness.

She made her voice sound natural. "Sit down. You’re not leaving."

The coldness returned to Elias’s tone. "Trying to get me sick too?"

Serena had not expected him to attack from that angle. Her chest tightened, and her answer came out stiff. "I’m sick. Shouldn’t you be staying at my side?"

"The night you’re actually dying, I can sit by your bed." Elias put more strength into trying to free his hand. "For a cold, I don’t think you’re that delicate."

"Stay where you are..." Serena started to say something else, but a violent cough tore through her. She grabbed his arm, her entire body shaking under the covers as her already flushed cheeks turned a deeper red. "Are you really trying to... cough... piss me off until I die?"

Please don’t die in front of me.

Then Elias actually sat back down by the bed. "Once you fall asleep, I’m leaving."

Serena was not satisfied. Even sick, her temperament had not changed. In her mind, Elias should have stayed beside her the whole time simply because she wanted him there.

But because she was sick, she was not confident she could truly restrain him if he decided to leave. For once, she did not push for more.

Elias looked down at her arm. Because she was holding his hand, the whole thing had slipped out from under the blanket and lay exposed to the colder air of the room. He moved to pull his hand away, but Serena immediately tightened her grip.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Put your arm back under the blanket." Irritation roughened his voice.

At that, the tension in Serena’s face eased. So that was what he cared about.

She kept hold of his hand and drew both of their joined hands under the comforter together.

"This works," she said, with a trace of satisfaction.

Elias looked at her for a few seconds. A thin hint of helplessness passed over his face before he could hide it.

Serena saw it anyway. She saw tolerance there, something close enough to indulgence that her thoughts grew messy again.

Maybe sick people really were easier to shake loose from themselves. Serena was usually too sharp, too capable, and too practiced at control to be caught by an ordinary bedside gesture. Yet fever blurred the edges of her judgment, and Elias’s presence kept pulling her attention in directions she did not fully want to name.

With her mind tangled and her body heavy, she gradually slipped toward sleep.

Somewhere in that dim, half-dreaming state, she felt the thing she refused to release begin to leave her. It was not a clear thought so much as a bodily alarm. Just before it could pull away completely, she snapped awake, eyes opening wide as her hand clenched with all the strength she had left.

The sudden force made pain flash across Elias’s expression. He gritted his teeth and stared at her. "Are you insane?"

She was sick, feverish, and half-drained. Where the hell had that grip come from?

Serena had not really rested, and her voice had grown even hoarser. "Don’t go."

"You were asleep. Why shouldn’t I leave?"

"I wasn’t asleep." Serena looked at him with fever-bright seriousness. "I woke up because you tried to leave."

Elias seemed to laugh without any warmth. "Then I’m leaving now." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

He dragged her arm out from under the comforter. Serena looked weak enough that even sitting up would have been a challenge, but her hand stayed locked around his as if it had been fused there.

"Can’t you behave for once?" she asked.

"When have I ever behaved?"

"In bed, you’re very good at listening..."

Elias lunged forward and clamped his hand over her mouth, his face flushed with anger and embarrassment. "Shut up."

Serena’s eyes widened slightly.

He was leaning over her, glaring hard enough to look vicious, but she did not feel the least bit threatened. With his cheeks faintly red and his hand pressed over her mouth in panic, he looked unexpectedly, dangerously cute.

Her breath spilled hot against his palm. In the small space between them, that heat slowly turned damp. The fever had already left her skin too warm, and now his hand, her breath, the bed, and the too-close distance between them seemed to drag the air thicker.

Their eyes stayed on each other. Neither of them moved at first. Even the room seemed to narrow around the contact, until the moment felt humid and sticky in a way Serena could not blame entirely on the fever.

Then cold air rushed back into her lungs.

Elias had pulled both hands away.

He looked down at her and said evenly, "Go to sleep. I’ll stay with you until you wake up."

Serena had been seconds from getting angry because he had taken his hand out of hers. At his words, that anger gradually settled.

If this was the price, it was not unacceptable.

She closed her eyes. The familiar presence at her side remained, close enough for her body to recognize even without looking. Beneath the fever, beneath the damp discomfort and the bitter trace of medicine still lingering in her mouth, she fell asleep with an ease that felt almost safe.

[Serena Blackwood favorability has increased. Current level: 45%.]

Serena woke because she was too hot.

People with high fevers often woke that way, dragged up by sweat sticking to their skin and sheets clinging where they should not. The discomfort was unpleasant, but it also meant the worst of the fever had broken. Her mind was clearer than before, and her body, though weak, no longer felt as if it belonged to someone else.

The first thing she did after opening her eyes was look toward the side of the bed.

The chair beside her was empty.

The figure who had stayed with her even inside her dream was gone.

For a second, the disappointment hit before she could control it. Serena lay there, damp with sweat, and felt a sudden chill crawl over her overheated body.

That damned impostor.