Lilian tried to focus on breathing, but even that simple act felt difficult. Her chest felt tight, her lungs struggled to expand properly, and her heart was racing like she had just been running without stopping.
Dante knelt by the tub and pressed a digital thermometer to her temple. When it beeped, his face tightened imperceptibly. It was a small look, but she could tell he was worried.
"Forty point two," he announced. "Still climbing. Lucien, go grab more ice. We need to bring this down before it gets dangerous."
"On it," Lucien replied, and Lilian heard him leave and return in what felt like seconds. Vampire speed meant the kitchen might as well have been next door.
She tried to focus on Dante's face, but her vision was already starting to blur. The bathroom lights were way too bright, stabbing at her eyes like needles. Everything was too loud, the splashing water, the hum of the fan, even the sound of the vampires' breathing.
Her senses were officially going haywire, turning everything into an assault on her overloaded nervous system.
"Hurts," she managed to gasp out. Speaking felt swallowing shards of glass. "Everything hurts."
"I know," Dante said, brushing her damp hair away from her forehead with surprising gentleness. "The fever amplifies everything. Your body is fighting the venom with everything it has, and that battle is what's driving your temperature spike. Your immune system is basically in overdrive, attacking what it perceives as a foreign invader. It will get worse before it gets better."
"How much worse?" Lilian asked, though part of her hoped he would just lie and tell her it would be over soon.
But Dante wasn't the type to sugarcoat things. He never had been.
"Much worse," he said, meeting her straight in the eyes without flinching. "This is just the start. The fever will peak in about twelve to eighteen hours. After that, the real transformation begins. These next few hours are going to be very difficult. I won't lie to you about that."
Twelve to eighteen hours of this burning alive from the inside out, of her body tearing itself apart while she was conscious and aware of every excruciating second. Tears slid down her cheeks, mixing with the sweat still beading on her face despite the cool water surrounding her.
"I can't," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I can't do this. It's too~"
"Yes, you can," Adrian interrupted firmly, his hand found hers under the water and squeezed it. His grip was cool and solid, an anchor when her world was spinning out of control. "You're stronger than you think. And you're not doing this alone. We will be here with you every single second. You won't suffer alone. I promise."
Lucien was suddenly back with a bucket of ice in his hands. Lilian didn't notice him leaving or returning. He dumped the ice into the tub around her, and the sudden bite of cold against her overheated skin made her gasp and instinctively try to pull away.
"Stay still," Dante commanded, his hand resting on her shoulder, gentle but firm, keeeping her in place. "The ice will help lower your temperature. I know it's uncomfortable, but you need to let it work. Trust me."
Trust. It was a big ask, but she didn't exactly have a choice. She was completely at their mercy, relying on these three vampires to get her through this alive.
Lilian forced herself to stay still as the ice settled around her in the water. The clash between the burning fever inside her and the biting cold outside was almost unbearable, making her teeth chatter and her whole body shaking violently.
"Good girl," Dante said, checking her temperature again. "Forty point eight. The ice is slowing the rise. Adrian, keep adding cool water as it warms up. We need to hold it cool enough to help, but not so cold it causes a shock."
The next hour was a brutal tug-of-war between heat and cold. Her body was generating heat faster than the water could soak it up, leaving her feeling like she was being pulled apart in two directions at once.
Adrian kept the tap running, his hand constantly checking the temperature to make sure it wasn't too cold.
Dante monitored her vitals obsessively, taking her temperature every ten minutes and recorded the numbers on an IPad he had brought with him. Lucien kept bringing the fresh ice from the kitchen whenever the previous batch melted.
The three of them worked together in silence, moving around the bathroom with the ease of people who had known each other for decades, maybe centuries. There was no wasted movement, each of them seemed to know exactly where the others were, adjusting without needing to communicate verbally.
"Forty point seven," Dante said after another temperature check. "Still climbing but slower. The water's doing its job."
Lilian barely heard him, her mind was starting to drift, and reality was getting hazy. The bathroom seemed to warp and sway, the walls rising and falling as if they were breathing.
And she could have sworn she saw dark shadows moving in the cornerrs of her vision, but they vanished every time she tried to focus on them.
"Stay with us, Lilian," Adrian said, his voice cutting through the haze. His hand squeezed her again. "Don't let the fever pull you under yet. Listen to my voice. Stay here with me."
She tried, she really did. But it was like trying to hold onto water with her bare hands, no matter how hard she gripped, reality kept slipping through her fingers.
"I think we need to get her out," Lucien said. She couldn't tell if it had been an hour or just five minutes. Time no longer made sense. "The water's not cooling her down anymore. It's warmed up. And her clothes are just trapping the heat against her skin."
"Agreed," Dante said. "Let's move her to the bed. We'll need to change her into dry clothes and use cold compresses instead. That'll work better now."