Holier Than Thou

[Emora Deen]

Tenele smiled up at him, taking his hand and holding it to her face. She stayed like that for a several minutes until a thought occurred to her. "Sinead! I wonder where she stayed." Tenele's protective instincts as a Queen's Maiden made her want to seek out the queen, but her body told her that she wouldn't be doing anything like that. "Would you..." Tenele pressed her lips together. Atul was missing, possibly hurt... and she was apparently confined to the bed for a moment... Sinead would be the last person Vlad would want to deal with. "She could keep me company while you investigate the soldier... If you're worried about leaving me alone. I have stalker too. You can leave the door open and he'll get you if anything is wrong."

[Soran Nightblade]

Leaving her side was not on the top of his idea list at the moment, but as usual, his wife did have a point. "I'll call a servant to fetch her," he said, rising. "I'll only be a minute." He cast her a thorough inspecting gaze before letting himself out. The door remained just a crack open, enough that Stalker could do as she'd suggested.

He'd walked most of the wing before spotting a young girl carrying an ash bin. "Can you tell me where Queen Sinead took residence last night?" he asked of the child. Her eyes lit up with recognition, and a smile crossed her face. Turning, she pointed a stubby finger at a door at the end of the hall.

"Thanks," Vlad muttered, making fast progress to the door. He paused and forced himself to knock and announce himself, knowing the queen didn't regard random teleportation into her chambers with any degree of tolerance.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele wrestled in bed, trying to get comfortable. No position seemed to make the reoccurring throb of pain ease or go away. Tenele let out an irritated growl and pushed to stand. Stalker jumped up next to her. His side brushed against her legs as she paced in slow circles, cringing.

Tenele took in a deep breath, and exhaled. It was at that moment that she felt water around her legs. Tenele looked down slowly, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. She took her robe from her shoulders and dropped it on the floor to mop up the... Water.

Water...

A jolt of pain ripped through her stomach, bringing Tenele down to her knees atop the robe. She took in a breath, frightened and uncertain. "Vlad," she called unsteadily. Her insides knotted, twisted. "Vlad!"

Deep breath. Calm down... Deep breath. She took in a deep breath, as the midwife instructed. No good, she couldn't concentrate on breathing. She pushed up to her feet, walking doubled over with an arm around her stomach and the other pressing along the wall for balance.

[Soran Nightblade]

Stalker snarled, a sound that would be terrifying to most people, and dashed forward to intercept her. Normally a silent hound, he raised his nose toward the ceiling and called for his master with a heart-stopping wail.

Vlad's eyes connected with Sinead's as she opened the door. He offered her a graceful bow. "Good dawn, my queen. I trust you slept...." His words broke off as Stalker's roar resounded through the palace. He'd never heard the beast sound like that before. Looking into Sinead's blue gaze, the vampire's irises shrank to tight red flares.

"Vladimir...what mischief is this?" Sinead demanded, confused by the panic she thought she saw in Vlad's expression.

"...Come, please," he said, grabbing her wrist. It was the closest to a command he'd ever come to giving her. He pulled her tight and felt her magic try to refuse him as they teleported to Tenele's room, and he knew the exact moment she decided to trust him. Vlad reappeared in the bedroom on high alert, a wary queen regaining her bearings beside him.

Stalker turned his head to him and growled a warning.

"Yes, good," he barely murmuredd his gratitude to the hound as he rushed to his wife's hunched form. "What's happened? Tenele?" he asked, his hands firmly cupping her shoulders.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele shook her head, her face knotting with pain. It came in sharp twisting waves that made her shake, made her knees weak. "Its too soon," she murmured, near crying with fear. "Its too soon for her to be born." She huffed several gasps before letting out a cry. Tenele was too distracted to notice Sinead in the room. Everything around her forced itself into tunnel vision, and the only thing she noticed besides the waves of pain were her husband's hands on her shoulders.

[Soran Nightblade]

"What? Now?" Vlad murmured, confused. His eyes went to the half-drenched robe on the floor. "Now," he breathed.

A flock of nervous maids arrived at the door, peeking in. "L....Lord Dracul?" one murmured. We heard the best....is everything..." her eyes froze on Tenele bent over against him.

"Doctor Borat, immediately," Vlad spoke to the young maids. His voice was deceptively calm. They bolted. "Queen Sinead, will you please get me that candle by the windowsill," he said as he pulled his trembling wife into his arms.

"You're going to be fine, my love," he whispered, lifting her gingerly back onto the bed. "You're doing fine."

[Emora Deen]

Tenele nodded, settling back into bed. She worked to remember what the midwife had told her about her breathing. She tried to stay focused on that, and not worry over how early it seemed, or the fact that they were missing one important member of this group. Tenele grabbed hold of Vlad's arm and she didn't let go, digging her fingers in, because she knew he could take it... and because once she got started she couldn't do anything else until the pain ebbed. "Something's wrong," she cried. "Its too soon."

"Babies have an idea of when they want out," Doctor Borat muttered as he rushed in, winded. "When did it start."

"Right after breakfast," she groaned.

"Nothing before that? No faint pain?"

Tenele shook her head before fading into a cry. Stalker made a worried deep throated growl, unused to seeing Tenele in pain without having something to attack. "It just started, just like that? No warning? And so quickly?"

"Yes, yes, yes," Tenele grumbled impatiently.

The doctor pursed his lips together and glanced to Vlad. He forced a smile. "No matter, it seems the young one wants to come into the world... So let us help it."

[Soran Nightblade]

A thorny sense of realization dug into the vampire's stomach as he listened to their exchange and thought it through. He wasn't sure if he was more relieved or furious about the thought that all this was caused by Maxwell's potion.

"I'm calling your other doctor," he muttered, careful to keep his growing fury out of his voice for his wife. He struck a match and lit the candle Sinead had brought, and quietly growled Maxwell's name into the flame.

Moments later, the demon appeared in the room with them. He took a look around the room and absorbed what was taking place.

"Maxwell, this is happening very soon," the vampire said, his calm voice quivering with bridled anger.

"You wanted to preserver your woman's safety. This will ensure it is so."

Vlad wrapped his fingers tightly to avoid striking him. "And the child?"

"It is premature, so of course there are risks. You said you wanted the woman safe, and I'm keeping her safe."

"No," Vlad said, a low growl in his voice striking fear into the nurses in the room. "Our agreement was to ensure the safety of both. You never said we had to risk one for the other."

"I'm not a magician, Vlad. You know perfectly well there is no way to promise such a thing."

"See that they are both health, or I will rip your throat out," he snarled.

Maxwell raised his eyebrows as if he'd just observed something interesting and wanted to go record it in his journals. "If you were capable of such a thing, you'd have done it by now," he dismissed matter-of-factly.

[Emora Deen]

"Lady Dracul," Doctor Borat called her attention back to him. She was trying to listen to Vlad and Maxwell's conversation, but she couldn't make out much. "We're going to sit you up, okay?"

"Can't you stop it?" she asked him, fear lacing her words.

"No, I can't." Doctor Borat told her truthfully. "But, your baby is fine. You are going to be fine. I promise. Its not too early, just early. Okay?"

Tenele nodded slowly as the nurses stepped in around her and helped her sit up, stuffing pillows behind her back. Her eyes sought out the room desperately, falling on Sinead, and then on Vlad. She wanted to call to him, wanted him near her.

Stalker snarled at the nurses, but Tenele held up her hand to keep him away. Just as Doctor Borat touched her leg another searing pain travelled through her and she screamed, digging her fingers into the covers.

Stalker launched himself up, snapping his jaws. He jumped onto the bed and positioned himself protectively atop her, growling at them. The nurses scattered, but Doctor Borat stayed close. "Easy," he muttered to the beast. But, Stalker now equated the man's touch with Tenele's pain, and was having a hard time discerning whether to kill him or not.

"Stalker, no! Get down! He's not hurting me. Vlad! Doctor Borat, wait! Don't touch him-"

Stalker latched onto Doctor Borat's arm the second it reached for Tenele again, sinking his jagged teeth into soft flesh. This time it was Doctor Borat screaming.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad turned his attention away from his argument with Maxwell as the scent of blood filled the room. His glare as it fell upon Stalker seemed to physically maim the hound. The creature slunk backwards, tail falling submissively as its garnet eyes peered up at Vlad's brighter rubies. The vampire made a gesture of absolute disdain and waved his hand to the side. A black portal swirled into existence, at the edge of the room. Stalker seemed uncertain whether to be more concerned by Vlad or the portal he might never be summoned from again. His eyes glanced to Tenele, as if for mercy.

It was the wrong thing to do. "Get in," the vampire said coldly. "Only a useless beast would cause further chaos in a scene like this."

Stalker's eyes flared with panic as he spun and leaped through the portal, before Vlad's temper could burn him alive.

Vlad closed the portal like he was turning off the sink, focusing on his wife. The doctor was whimpering in shock at his bleeding arm. "Go address your wounds. Return when you are composed. You are not useful in a panic," the vampire dismissed the physician calmly. The man gratefully fled the room, clutching his arm tightly.

He want to Tenele's side, the rage he'd displayed moments before completely buried under a calm stare. "You're doing fine," he said, taking to a stool just beside her. "Breathe deeply."

[Emora Deen]

Tenele nodded to her husband, taking a deep breath. Her hands loosed from the sheets either side of her. "He was only worried about me," Tenele exhaled, leaning her head back against the pillows. It was no excuse for the hound to bite people...

Tenele reached out for Vlad's hand and held it tightly. She focused on her breathing, and tried to cry through clenched teeth instead of piercing screams.

A nurse scurried in a few minutes later, her head hanging low. She approached Vlad fearfully. "Doctor Borat says he won't be coming back..." she muttered. Other nurses scurried in with a bowl of hot water and towels.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad surrendered his hand to whatever purpose she might find comforting. He gently brushed her hair out of her eyes with the fingers of his other hand. "Your majesty, you're free to come closer," he addressed Sinead quietly, as if he were introducing the queen to a happy kitten and not her anguished maiden.

Sinead stepped forward to Tenele's bedside and relieved Vlad of his hair-petting duty. "You're a strong girl, Tenele," she soothed in the same tone she'd used when the maiden scraped a knee or fell from her horse as a child. "A little sting, and you'll be through."

"Keep her breathing," Maxwell said casually, pulling up a stool at the base of the bed. Vlad snarled at him, keeping his anger mostly out of sight of the wife he was trying to calm. He didn't like the idea of Maxwell so close to her. It was challenging even to allow Sinead this much contact. His protective instincts were irrational and fierce when the woman he loved was in pain.

"You will handle her with respect," he warned in the most frigidly polite tone in history.

Maxwell rolled his eyes, but moved with more care as he draped a clean sheet over Tenele's knees and guided them out wide.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele smiled tightly at Sinead's words, pressing her face gently towards the woman's hand. Her hand curled around Vlad's, nails digging in. She couldn't voice how scared she was, because there was absolutely no going back now. Her green eyes sought out her husband's. "We haven't even settled on a name," she breathed, cringing. She jerked back against the pillows, clutching his hand tighter, and holding onto the bed with the other.

"Please," she called to Maxwell. Probably the nicest way she'd ever addressed the man.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad held her gaze reassuringly while her grip grew tighter around his hand. She could have dug her nails straight through, and he wouldn't have noticed at that moment. He was focused on her, listening to the raggedness of her breath and her chaotic heartbeat. "There will be time for naming," he smirked.

"Not yet," Maxwell informed her without much feeling. He was watching beneath the sheet, reading her body. "Another few seconds. Good. Hold... Now. Push," he directed her as her body contracted.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele did as he instructed, bearing down and pushing. She exhaled in a scream, and when the pushing was over she fell back against the pillows with a ragged gasp. Tenele shook her head, forgetting how to breathe. She pushed when Maxwell told her too, and cried when he didn't.