The three vampires lifted her out of the tub. Water poured her off, and her soaked tank top and underwear clung to her and heavy with absorbed water, dripping onto the marble floor. Each drop sounded far too loud in her ears.
Lilian was vaguely aware of being wrapped in plush and soft towels to soak up the excess water.
"We need to get these wet clothes off," Dante said. "Everything has to come off. The damp fabric is making the fever worse."
Even through her brain fog, Lilian knew what that meant. They had to take off all of ther clothes. She was going to be completely naked under the towels. The thought should have embarrassed her, but right now she was too far gone to give a damn.
"Lilian," Adrian said gently with his hand on her shoulder. "We need to take off all the wet clothes. We'll keep you covered with towels the whole time, but the wet stuff has to go. Do you get what I'm saying?"
She managed a weak nod, couldn't even find the words to speak as the fever dragged her further from the edge of consciousness.
"I'll do it," Adrian told the others. "You two get fresh towels and prepare the bed."
Dante and Lucien disappeared instantly, leaving Adrian alone with her in the bathroom. He worked fast, pulling the soaking wet tank top over her head, careful not to tug her hair or jolt her too much. Losing the waterlogged fabric was a relief, but it left her bare from the waist up until he immediately draped a towel over her chest.
"Almost done," he murmured, keeping his eyes strictly on her face, deliberately avoiding looking at her body.
His hands were quick and gentle as he slid the wet underwear down her legs, keeping her covered with towels the entire time. As soon as it was off, he wrapped her more securely in the large bath towels, making sure she was fully covered.
"There," he said quietly. "Much better. Let's get you back to the bed."
He lifted her again with effortless ease and carried her back into the bedroom. Dante and Lucien had already transformed the space, layering the bed with towels to absorb moisture, and a neat stack of fresh towels sat nearby beside a basin filled with ice water.
Adrian laid her down carefully on the prepared bed, adjusting the towels to make sure she stayed covered.
"We have dry underwear for you," Dante said, holding up a simple pair of cotton panties. "We'll put these on you, can't leave you totally naked in case we have to move you fast. But everything else stays off so your skin can breathe and cool down."
Lilian was just silent, too drained to speak. She let them help her into the dry underwear while keeping her covered with towels as much as possible. It was clear this wasn't their first time caring for someone in this state.
Once she was settled, naked except for the dry underwear and covered with towels, they began cooling her again.
Dante to the lead, his medical knowledge clearly the most extensive of the three. "We'll focus on the major blood vessels and pulse points," he explained, more to organize the process than to explain it to her. "Forehead, neck, chest, inner arms, inner thighs. The cooling will spread through her circulatory system from these points."
Andrian and Lucien moved in sync. One removed the towels that had warmed against her skin while the other soaked fresh ones in the ice water. They moved around the bed smoothly, never colliding, gently placing the cold compress against her burning body.
The first touch of an ice-cold compress on her forehead made Lilian gasp. Then another on her chest, right over her heart. Next was her neck, the coolness settling against her pulse point.
"Inner arms," Dante directed, and she felt cool towels being laid along the inside of both arms, from elbow to wrist, where the blood vessels were close to the surface.
"Now the thighs," he added.
This was more awkward. Lucien carefully lifted one edge of the towel covering her lower body just enough to reach her inner though without exposing her. He placed the cold compress, then repeated it on the other side. Even through the fever, Lilian felt a flicker of embarrassment stirred in her.
But the vampires didn't seem to notice. They acted like nurses in a hospital, focused entirely on bringing down her fever.
"Good. Forty point eight," Dante said after checking her temperature again. "Still too high, but this is helping. We'll need to change them every ten to fifteen minutes."
And so the exhausting cycle began.
Adrian and Lucien would remove the warm compress from her forehead, soak a fresh one in ice water, wring it out, drape it over her skin, and move to the next spot. Over and over.
Lilian drifted in and out of awareness as they worked. Sometimes she was lucid enough to track what was happening. Other times, she slipped into a fever dream where she couldn't tell what was real and what was just her brain melting.
After what felt like the fiftieth towel change, Adrian spoke up, "Her underwear is soaked again from sweating. We need to change it or it's going to trap the heat."
Dante nodded. "Agreed. Lucien, get a fresh pair from the dresser. Adrian and I will handle the change."
They removed the sweat soaked underwear while keeping her covered, and replaced it with a dry pair. Lilian barely reacted. Modesty seemed like such a trivial concern when her body was literally trying to kill itself.
The dry underwear felt cool and comfortable for maybe fifteen minutes before her seating soaked through it again.
"We're going to need to keep changing these," Dante said with a sigh. "Every hour or so. Her body is losing an extreme amount of fluid through sweating."
"I'll prepare several pairs. We'll rotate them quickly," Lucien offered.
And so that became part of the routine as well. Along with the endless towel changes, they changed her underwear every hour, doing what they could to keep her as dry and comfortable as possible.
It should have been humiliating, having three vampire princes changing her underwear like she was an infant. But they treated it like any other medical task, no different than taking her temperature or adjusting her pillows.
"Forty one," Dante announced during another temperature check. He sounded genuinely worried now. "It's still going up. The compresses aren't enough anymore."
"Back to the bath?" Adrian suggested.
Dante shook his head. "No. Her body heat warms the water too fast."
Then he was quiet for a moment, thinking. "We need more direct cooling. Lucien, fill the basin with ice water, as cold as we can make it. We'll do ice baths for her hands and feet."
Lucien vanished and came back moments later with two basins filled with ice water, chunks of ice still floating in them. They placed one on each side of the bed.
"This is going to hurt," Dante warned her, his dark eyes looking at her with an apology. "But we need to bring your temperature down before it causes permanent damage."