Zed's voice cracked as he called out, "Skye!" His sight was blurry, his head pounding like it was being split open from the inside.
"Skye!" He called again, forcing his eyes open, but she wasn't in the room.
Where was she?
His heart beat slowed down becoming weaker. He swayed before grabbing the edge of the table to balance himself. He grabbed the edge of a table for balance, his fingers trembling.
"Skye…" he whispered before vanishing from the spot, reappearing inside her room.
He found her sleeping peacefully. His knees gave out before he could take another step, his body crashing to the ground with a thud.
Skye jolted awake at the noise, eyes wide. She scanned the room, when her eyes landed on Zed lying on the floor, her blood ran cold.
"Zed?" she gasped, rushing over to him. He groaned, trying to sit up, but his body was too weak. His skin was drenched with sweat, his breathing shallow and uneven.
"Zed, what happened to you?" she cried, trying to lift him, but he was too heavy. He tried to move, but every muscle screamed in pain.
"Get up," She told him but he shook his head. His hair was wet with sweat and it fell over his face but his body felt hotter than usual, hot enough to boil a kettle, struggling under his weight until finally she managed to pull him up and he leaned his weight on her.
Skye led him to the bed, before letting him fall on it, relieving her of his weight.
"What happened?" She asked again, worry marring her features.
"I… I don't know," he rasped. His throat felt raw, it hurt to speak.
After a while, he didn't hear her reply.
"Skye?" He called but there was no response. He forced himself up but he couldn't find her as his eyes scanned the room, and he fell back down. He felt his strength slowly leaving him something wasn't right. Why was he hurting so much?
He heard footsteps coming towards him, he forced his eyes open and saw Skye beside him before they shut again.
"I thought you left," he whispered, not being able to talk loudly.
"I can't leave you like this," she assured him. He could hear the sadness in her voice and it made him frown.
Soon he felt a cold cloth being placed against his head and sighed in relief. Skye pushed his hair out of the way as she applied the cold compress to his boiling skin.
Zed's lips moved faintly. "Skye… it won't stop the pain…"
"Don't speak!" She warned him soaking the cloth again before squeezing and applying it to his head again helped a little but didn't do much.
Zed felt his consciousness slipping and his body weaken.
He tried to focus on her face, but everything was fading, the walls, her voice. Suddenly, realization dawned in his mind at what was happening.
"Skye…" His voice was a whisper now. "Stop. I'm… dying."
Her hands froze midair. He barely sounded like himself and all the blood was drained from his face. He was the palest she had ever seen, like he lacked blood.
"Don't say that," she whispered, shaking her head. "No, you're not dying, you can't be."
But his color was fading fast. His lips had gone pale, his pulse weaker with every second.
They just got married and he was dying, no one would ever want to marry her.
"Zed, please," she begged, tears slipping down her cheeks. "You can't die, not after everything, not now
His lips parted into a small, broken laugh with his voice barely audible. "It's too late…"
"Zed?" she whispered, her voice cracking but he didn't answer.
"Zed!" she cried, shaking him. "Zed, wake up!"
Nothing.
Her chest tightened, and her breathing became erratic. She pressed her ear against his chest, willing for his heart to beat but there was no movement. His skin that had been so hot, was now turning cold beneath her touch.
"No… no, no," she whispered, her hands shaking as she grabbed his shoulders, shaking him harder. "Zed, wake up! You're not dead!"
But her actions were futile as he didn't move.
Her cries filled the silent room. She laid her head against his chest, tears soaking his skin. "Please… please…" she whispered over and over, through the tears that blurred her vision.
Her husband was gone, her mysterious, powerful, powerful and unreadable husband...was gone.
And deep within the fading shadows of his mind, Zed finally understood what had happened.
The man he fed on wasn't human. He'd felt something off but ignored it. The resistance, the strange strength that the man had, it wasn't mortal.
He had fed on one of his kind.
A demon.
It seemed the man was a weak one as he hadn't sensed anything from him. And it was against every law to feed on his own kind, drinking the blood of his fellow demon was forbidden with one punishment attached to it,
Death.
He hadn't sensed it until it was too late.
Now, as his consciousness slipped into darkness, Zed could almost hear her crying. She would be confused, she had no idea what he was, she had no idea what was happening.
Zed cussed himself in his mind for not noticing it earlier.