Married in Vengeance (Dynasty Rebels #4)

Chapter 23

Twenty-Three

RAM

Ram stared at the empty bed. She hadn’t come. He’d spent all night waiting for her to come back to their room. But she hadn’t come.

And why did he care? He should be rejoicing to have the bed to himself again. Instead of sprawling in the king size bed to his heart’s content, he’d spent the night sitting in a chair staring at it.

The first rays of the rising sun filtered in through the curtains, slowly lightening the darkness in the room. He’d never believed in blackout blinds but for the first time in his life he was starting to see the appeal. He would have preferred to stew in the darkness of his soul…room dammit not soul! His soul was fine!

He shifted his gaze to the closed bedroom door, waiting and watching but his new bride didn’t come storming through it. Enough was enough. He was going to haul her back here and they were going to talk. About everything. He wanted to know what the fuck she planned to get out of screwing with him with those emails and that video…and then…and then he didn’t know. But one step at a time.

Ram marched down the corridor to the guest bedroom Aadhya was using and shoved the door open. He stared at the lump huddled under the comforter. She was asleep! He’d spent the whole night stewing over their messed-up lives and she was sleeping! Furious, he strode over to the bed and reached down to wake her up.

Aadhya moaned as he shook her shoulder. Ram froze. That wasn’t a good moan. That was an I’m-in-pain moan.

“Aadhya?” Ram sat down on the side of the bed and tried to wake her, more gently this time.

She didn’t wake up. Instead, Aadhya stirred restlessly and turned into his side. He snatched back the hand that touched her cheek. Pressing the back of his hand to her forehead, Ram swore. She was burning up!

He reached over to press the buzzer by the bedside that was connected to the staff quarters. Minutes later, a helper arrived and was dispatched to fetch a thermometer and a strip of paracetamol. Another one rushed to bring a plate of fruit and toast.

“Aadhya,” Ram murmured. “You need to wake up.”

She mumbled something incomprehensible and turned over again, her robe riding up to reveal a smooth, toned leg. Ram yanked the comforter over her and tried again.

“I need you to wake up baby. You’ve got a fever.”

One eye opened, focusing blearily on him. “Baby?” she croaked.

Ram flushed. “It was a slip of the tongue. Open your mouth.”

She did to argue with him but before she could get anything out, he slipped the thermometer in, under her tongue. Aadhya’s single eye glared mutinously at him before she shut it again.

When the thermometer beeped, he pulled it out and checked the display. 102.4!

“Aadhya! Up!”

“Ram! No!” She grumbled as she pulled the comforter over her head. “Go away!”

The helper arrived with a bed tray of food and a strip of paracetamol. He placed it on a side table and nudged Aadhya again. She kicked him in the hip in reply.

“Get up.” He hauled her up with one hand into a sitting position even as she struggled to get out of his grip. Plonking the bed tray in front of her, he pointed at it. “Eat.”

Aadhya blew a curl of hair out of her face and glowered at him. “You have the nursing abilities of a troll living under a bridge.”

Ram glowered back at her. “And you are the troll living under the bridge. Now eat.”

She picked up a slice of toast and bit into it, spraying crumbs all over the bed. Apparently, she also had the manners of a troll. Ram popped a tablet out of the strip on the tray and dropped it on to her plate.

“What hurts?” he asked gruffly.

Aadhya swallowed her toast, wincing at the movement. “Everything.”

He watched her closely. Her throat for sure and probably her head from the way she kept touching it with one hand. He picked up the pill she was ignoring and held it out to her.

Aadhya eyed it balefully. “It’s too big. I can’t swallow that. I’ll choke.”

“No, you won’t. Don’t be a baby.”

“Yes, I will. I’ll choke and die. Make sure you bury me in my wedding saree. After all, I was dying on that day too.”

Ram wondered if it was possible to rupture a blood vessel from arguing with a person. “You’re not going to die. Take the damn tablet. And we won’t bury you. Cremation is more likely.”

“I’m telling you I’ll choke. I always choke on tablets. I can’t swallow the big ones. I have a small throat.”

A disbelieving snort escaped him. “A small throat?” he asked, even as he took the tablet between his fingers and snapped it in two.

“Yes,” she said defensively, eyeing the pieces he now held. “Smaller please,” she muttered.

Ram snapped the pieces again, now holding four small quarters. “Now?”

Aadhya nodded, taking the pieces from him and carefully swallowing each one.

“Eat your fruit,” he told her, watching her hand tremble as she put the glass back on the tray. What the fuck was wrong with her? Did the flu come on so quickly and so strongly?

“I can’t, Ram. I don’t feel good.” She pushed the tray away from her.

“You need to eat something Aadhya or the medicine is going to –“

He never did get to finish what the medicine was going to do because Aadhya shoved past him and launched herself out of the bed. He ran behind her into the bathroom to find her heaving over the toilet, the remnants of her toast and whatever else she had in her witch’s stomach spewing out of her.

He wrapped an arm around her waist bracing her and gathered as much as he could of her unruly curls to keep it out of the way. No matter how hard he tried, her wild hair just kept slipping out and into her face.

“Hold my hair,” she hissed at him like the she-devil she was.

“I’m trying,” he hissed back. “It’s un-holdable.”

More hair slipped out of his grasp just as she threw up again, bucking against his hold around her waist. Hell, whatever this was, it couldn’t just be the flu.

When she was finally done, he helped her to the sink to rinse her face and mouth. He surreptitiously wet a few locks of hair that he’d lost his grip on and that had since gotten caught in the onslaught.

“Shit!” Aadhya braced herself against the toilet counter. “I have to get ready for work.”

Ram’s eyebrows shot up. “The only place you’re going is the hospital.”

“You’re not the boss of me!” Aadhya spun in her place to face him.

He saw it coming, a split second before it happened, and that was the only reason he managed to catch her before she collapsed. Her eyes rolled back and she was out even before he’d managed to brace himself against the dead weight of her.

Panic like he’d never known flooded through him as he carried her into the room and laid her on the bed. He needed to get her to a hospital immediately. A knock on the door heralded his mother’s entry.

“Amma.” Ram looked at her wild eyed. “Aadhya’s really sick.”

“Hmm.” His mother reached down to lay her hand on Aadhya’s clammy forehead.

“She has fever, throat pain, a headache, and she vomited.”

“Sounds like the flu,” Amma said placidly. “You gave her paracetamol?”

“102.4?” Ram shook the thermometer in his mother’s face. “And she fainted!”

“She’ll feel better the minute the paracetamol works.” Amma adjusted her pallu on her shoulder calmly. “Let her rest now.”

“She fainted!!” Ram yelled, just as Aadhya stirred in the bed. “It’s not the flu. We have to go to emergency now.”

“Make it stop!” Aadhya moaned.

“What chinna?” his mother asked, leaning forward.

“Him.” Aadhya pointed a finger at Ram who was still holding the thermometer up like it was evidence in a case he was arguing. “Make him stop.”

His mother smothered a grin. “I will,” she assured Aadhya. “I’ll get rid of him. You sleep. We’ll check in on you in a little while.”

Ram glowered at his mother when she gestured to him to precede her out of the door.

“No,” he ground out.

“Alright.” Dhanvantri Gadde had spent a lifetime managing the idiotic Gadde men. “How about a compromise? Instead of dragging this poor child to a crowded hospital, why don’t we call a doctor home to check her out? If the doctor also feels she needs to go to the hospital, then we’ll take her.”

Fine. Ram could live with that.

“Deal,” he muttered. “But it’s not the flu.”