The sickness is coming on faster each and every day. He can feel it creeping along his bones—burrowing into his marrow. Blood now flecks his lips when he coughs and his ribs are beginning to show against the sides of him, so much so that fingers could trace along their morbid patterns. And yet, he does not return to the Chamber. He does not stop running until exhaustion every day. It as if he is tempting fate to just cut the life cord already—and maybe he is. Maybe all he wants is to just have it all end.
Maybe it is what he knows he deserves.
Today is no different. He is frothy with sweat, eyes wild, breath wheezing in and out of diseased lungs. That is, until he sees her. She is not swollen with child, but he knows that the two can’t be far from her. Neither can that buckskin stallion who fathered them. But Makai decides that he does not care. Maybe it is the actions of a dying man; maybe it is just that he is delirious from lack of sleep, but he does not care.
He staggered toward her, and he is by her side before he knows it, mouth on her neck as if he is tasting salvation, body trembling. “Oksana,” he murmurs, teeth hitting flesh. But he breaks away, stumbles back, coughing violently. “No,” is all he says, although he is the one who should, would, be reprimanded in this situation. “Where are they?” he finally manages, his voice thick with the agony. “Where is he?”
Makai doesn’t bother to explain himself; he knew that she would know what he was talking about. He shakes his delicate, regal head, mane flying. “It didn’t take you long.” Each word drives the knife in his chest just a little deeper, and he knows this is crazy—knows that he should be anywhere but here. But if he is going to let himself die, the last thing he wants is to be near her again. Even if she rightfully hates him.
MAKAI
I'm a dead man walking here
but that's the least of all my fears