[excerpt] by Editor Page A

better than a mad cow alone in a field tripping over its four feet. She ran a gentle finger across the rough flesh. Lucian wouldn’t want to kiss her today. She pouted and her lips split wider. Desperate, she lunged forward and grabbed the nightstand. She tried to lift the pitcher, but her arms felt like anvils dangled from each one. Pain riveted down her arms to her hands. She set the pitcher down to work out the cramps. What the hell is wrong with me? How humiliating would it be to die of thirst in her own home with a full pitcher of water smack dab in front of her? Then she realized if she died, humiliation would be moot. Trying a second time with both hands, she was able to pour the water, except a dark viscous liquid sloshed into the cup. The container and its contents tumbled over. Soured clots splattered like broken eggs on the floor. A burnt, coppery odor violated her little nose. Accustomed to the scent, she was certain blood painted her legs and feet. Serina’s last thought before blackness swallowed her was to aim for the bed.
    ****
    The warmth of the morning sunrise which Raven usually enjoyed, today did a bit more than gently coax her awake, it lambasted her. Raven lay very still in her bed, wide awake and very much in misery. Her eyes clamped shut, streams of water seeped out the corners and ran off her cheeks soaking her pillow. Someone had to have snuck in and placed her head in a vice grip. She was beyond confident that at any moment her brains would burst through her nose, ears, and mouth. The mere idea of lifting her head to get a drink was out of the question. Raven tried to call for Lucian, but found both her voice and strength waning. She tried to give him a little mental mind push they often used for communication between them, but even that proved futile. Against better judgment, she attempted to climb out of bed. On borrowed energy, she flopped one leg at a time over the edge of the bed. She sat upright holding on to the mattress’s edge with all her might. She tried to stand but instead met the floor with an alarming thud.
    ****
    Awakened by a loud crash, Lucian jumped from his bed in desperation. He fought back the panic that waited, like a snake coiled in the grass, ready to strike. As he headed to Raven’s room, he found the length of the hallway grew longer rather than shorter with his every step. The carpet runners purposefully reached up in attempts to trip him, and inevitably doing so, Lucian careened into a Louis XIV table in the hall. The priceless treasure tipped sideways along with the candelabra that it once held. Bits of shattered glass added to his mayhem.
    “Bloody hell,” Lucian uttered as he looked at the bottom of his feet. After some painful moments, picking out glass from his feet and fingers, Lucian attempted to touch Raven’s mind but she was like a closed book. Any other day of the week, their ability to psychically communicate came as a blessing. Today it vexed him.
    He found Raven on the floor, unconscious with the appearance of death already upon her. Her flawless, alabaster skin had a taut, frigid appearance. He wondered how she could be so cold when the room sweltered? Lucian fixated on the window...wide open. How? He’d personally locked it. He stripped Raven’s quilt from her bed and wrapped her. Carrying her limp body, he headed for the stables and managed to find the remainder of the broken glass in the hallway. Bloody footprints trailed behind him like a broken shadow. Tears blinded him as he dropped to his knees in front of the carriage. “Duncan.” His voice cracked with anguish.
    Coming up behind Lucian, Duncan took Raven. No words were exchanged as Duncan carefully placed the woman in Lucian’s lap and slammed the door shut. Then, Duncan drove the carriage towards Dr. Jones’s home pushing the horses so hard he knew he’d be walking home.
    Pulling up in front of their family doctor’s manor, Duncan jumped from the carriage before it stopped rolling,