What Blooms At Midnight

Ten

"Of all the reckless things you've done in your lifetime, Eddie! Have you truly given that boy your blood after just meeting him two hours ago? How foolish can you be?" My Mother's words come out hissed in her shock, her hand reaching up to clutch the spot over her heart, the light dusting of color that manages to rise to the surface of her cheek cluing me into the true anger she feels in this moment, "What if your father and I don't approve of him? Who is he? What are his breeding and background? Do you know? Did you even think to stop and ask?"

"While he was suffering? I should hope my first thought to my soulmate's suffering is to ease it, not question him over his family lineage, Mother. For that, you should be glad because it means you've raised me well." It's not as though I do not understand her shock... Blood is not normally so easily given, "If we didn't start him on a regimen of it now he might've died before even getting a chance to come to the conclusion naturally. Alistair claims that if we keep the doses as small as possible in the beginning that he'll fall for me naturally enough and not hesitate to make the change by the time my blood actually starts to affect him." I'm careful to keep my voice low as my Beloved shifts ever so slightly in my lap, his precious face nuzzling deeper into my neck stealing my attention with the gentleness of the action.

"He truly would've died without intervention?" The question is aimed at a timid Alistair just as he finds himself taking Carilynn's gloved hand into his own, the two of them undoubtedly having missed each other when I had called him away. 

"Yes, Your Majesty. Even now he is still in very bad shape. The state he arrived in was even worse. Another episode could've stolen him away and deprived Ed-Prince Edmund the chance of having a long and happy life with his mate." Alistair does his best to keep his eyes off of my sister while he addresses Mother, but with his own soulmate so near it's hard, a challenge I had never quite understood until now.  

I find myself more and more content to simply watch Jasper as he dreams, his tiny grunts and sighs as he dreams so endearing, his heart beating not necessarily strong, but even and steady, its tempo drowning out the quieter hearts such as mine beating in the room. 

All I want to do is stroke his cheek and assure him that everything is going to be alright now... That now that I've found him he'll want for naught, his physical and emotional wants, and needs being taken care of by myself personally... That he'll never be in so much pain ever again in his life... That my veins are open to him day or night, the ache in my lips only to be soothed if I am brave enough to descend and close the space between myself and his beautifully resting form...

"Edmund?" 

It takes a moment for my name to register, my eyes caught on the sight of his sweet fist sliding up my chest until it rests right over my heart and hunkers down, a deep sigh leaving him as he feels the light fluttering he's created inside of me, my attention only being given to her in the form of a hum that lets her know that I am listening but unwilling to tear my eyes away from the Angel resting so peacefully in my lap. 

"I expect to be present when his parents arrive, and you should ready a carriage to take them home, that way the driver can collect his things before returning to us assuming they permit him to become a true companion. Now I've got to go inform your father the rate of which things are developing... And also how they're developing I suppose...Carilynn...Are you going to come with me or are you and Alistair going to finish the treatment for your latest bout of...hysteria?"  

The dry way in which our Mother says the word draws my eyes up, my mind piecing together what Alistair had said when he entered the room, an uncontrolled smile pulling at the corners of my lips at Mother's unwillingness to invalidate the daughter that had been born into the wrong body.  

Our Doctor had been slick in his circumnavigation of the rules held here in court, Carilynn's public image of having been born a physically female Princess being used as a smokescreen for the two of them to be able to make love whenever they found themselves unable to fight the pull they had on each other via a diagnosis that no one would question... Female hysteria cured by orgasm and little else. 

If Mother ever forbade the lust-driven fits between them by calling the diagnosis false due to Carilynn's anatomy she would be stripping my sister's very soul of the fragile joy she had finally found, her lover finally able to charm her out of the trousers she had been forcing herself to wear into the dresses she had always longed after... And Mother could bring herself to hurt one of her children that way... She would never force Carilynn to go back to living falsely, her depression something all of us remember all too well. 

Carilynn's face flushes at the suggestion, still unused to the rest of us talking of her treatments so casually, even after so long after becoming public with her beau, "I..I think it best we slip away and finish the treatment, Mama... I still feel ever so faint..."

It's hard not to laugh at the hollowness of the words as they sink heavily around Alistair's shoulders, his gaze at her something I have to ignore as an elder brother, his hand coming to her waist to start ushering her to the door, murmuring this and that about being sorry for having to leave her in the first place. 

Mother rolls her eyes at the two of them before she presses a kiss into my hair, and then to my surprise, hesitantly lowers herself and presses a tender kiss to Jasper's hair as well, a gentle whisper about having a sweet good night leaving her lips before she pulls away, an unsaid warning in her eyes when they meet mine... A warning not to try anything with my timid little companion... And also... A warning not to hurt him.