Cardinal House (The Blackwell Brothers Book 4)

7. Wolf

Two nights go by without Luna being on shift.

Instead, I get this bouncy, flouncy, blonde bitch with a name like Trinity, or Flossy, or something. She has scowling, pale blue eyes, a snarl to her thin upper lip and a cockiness to her attitude that makes me want to knock her out just so I don’t have to look at it anymore.

Usually, she only comes in to check my monitor, muttering about me being a ‘criminal’ under her breath, then jots shit down on her clipboard, and fucks off again.

Not tonight.

Night three with no sign of Luna and I’m starting to forget all about searching for my little brother. Who, honestly, like my dad said, is probably holed up in The Crypt, a cult-run, underground bar, drowning his sorrows in absinthe and uppers. Rather than dwelling too much on that, I’m thinking about hauling my arse out of this bed and searching the streets for Luna instead.

I feel restless and irritable, and the room is so stuffy with a window that doesn’t fucking open -what’s even the point of it?- I sort of want to throw myself out of it.

“-just because she doesn’t show up for her shifts for two days, because she’s ill, I have to be the one to cover her. And honestly, I have better shit to do on my nights off tha-”

“Who are you talking about? Luna?” I grunt the question, interrupting her, which from the narrow eyed glare she throws my way, she doesn’t much like.

“Why? You miss the little weirdo or something?” she sneers at me, dropping her eyes down my mostly nude body with interest.

I”ve got the sheets covering my lower half, but my chest is bare because the heat inside this hospital, I’m almost certain, is what kills its patients.

I lift a brow, glaring right back at her, I’m not going to snap back and tell her that Luna isn’t weird, because, well, she is, but, I think I fucking like that about her.

“Don’t start that bitchy bollocks with me, just answer the question,” it’s said in a drawl, lazy, languid, like I couldn’t really give a fuck either way.

It’s kind of what I tell myself, too.

That I don’t care.

Though, I don’t find myself to be very convincing.

The blonde rolls her light eyes, popping her hip, “Yes, I’m referring to Luna.” I hate the way she says her fucking name, like she’s beneath her, less than, it makes me want to rip her tongue out. “The little liar’s called in sick, wait, no, scratch that, her guardian’s ‘personal assistant’ called in sick for her the last two days,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes again. “Which, you know, is just sooo, like, a cop-out. It screams privilege, right?”

I blink at that, bewildered, quite frankly, at the jealousy pouring off of this girl that claims to dislike her because she’s weird.

“Luna still has a guardian…” it’s less a question, and more of an out loud thought, but Florence keeps talking as though I’m actually conversing with her.

“Yeah,” she scoffs again, as though it should be obvious. At my frown, she rolls her eyes again. “She’s like, not all there, is she, you know, mentally…” she screws her face up as she says it, like I’m stupid, and it’s obvious. “I mean, clearly. How many other twenty-nine year olds do you know that still get ‘looked after’?”

She looks at me, waiting for an answer, and honestly, I don’t even know what to say to any of that. It doesn’t really give me anything. If Archer were here, he’d gossip along with her and get every last piece of information he could squeeze out of this girl. And she’d do it willingly, give up her darkest secrets, spill her guts, because Archer is nothing if not seductively charming.

“Right,” I finally say, and half of her face does this weird sort of scrunch thing, like she’s both cringing, and thinking I’m a complete moron, either that or she’s having a stroke.

“Yeah, so, anyway, guess you’ll be getting her back tomorrow, that’s what Josephine said after she took the call, and I’m getting four longgg days off.” Fiona says, well, she actually says a lot more after that, bitching about every other staff member she has the clear displeasure of working -loose term- alongside in this department.

But all I can focus on is the fact Luna will be back tomorrow. That’s how my next twenty-four hours drag by, waiting.

“Arrow’s spoken to him,” Archer drawls, kicked back in the hospital chair beside my bed, throwing a gobful of MMs into his mouth, they clack against his teeth before he crunches them with his mouth open. “He’s trippin’ balls, man, trippin’, balls.” Something dark falls over his face as he laughs, his eyes shadowed, the usual flares of green in them hidden by storm clouds.

“Why, what’d he say?” I ask, swallowing my own handful of colourful chocolate sweets.

Archer’s gaze rolls back to mine, before flicking onto Dad’s who’s sitting the other side of me, opposite my brother. He’s in a tailored, navy suit, sans tie and jacket which is folded over the back of the small plastic chair he brought in from the hall to sit on, because like I said, it’s a thousand degrees in this fucking room. It’s why I’m still shirtless, nothing covering me but a fresh pair of black boxer shorts. I was covered by the thin, white, cotton bed sheets, but I’m atop them now.

“The usual,” our dad sighs, blinking up from his phone, the device clutched between both hands so he can type furiously. The man texts faster than any teenager, I’m sure. “Bleeding walls, moving floors, ghosts.”

Dad shrugs, like it doesn’t really mean anything, but the pinch of his brow, his dark brown eyes tight, I know he’s worried. He just won’t say anything while I”m here. With a bullet hole through my chest that itches like I’ve got fleas forming an army inside my sternum.

“Anyway,” Dad says, pressing the lock button on the side of his phone and tucking it back inside his slacks pocket. “Your sister sends her love, as do the boys, she wishes she could come, but, well...” Dad shrugs again, but this time it’s a looser gesture, warmer, familiar.

Grace grew up in a sanatorium, she doesn’t cope well in hospital settings. That’s why, with her and Hunter’s fourth baby on the way, they have a doctor visit the house for ultrasounds and check-ups.

My younger brother Hunter delivered their three boys at home in their bathroom after spending months being trained to do so, the rest of us waiting just down the hall. He wasn’t even nervous, he just knew he had to do it, for her. But this time, with a baby girl on the way, something that’s not been birthed in the Blackwell family in over seven generations, he’s scared utterly shitless.

“Where’s Thorne tonight?” I ask, holding my cupped palm out towards Archer for another handful of sweets, Thorne’s been here every night, even if he doesn’t show until three-am, we work unusual hours.

“With Haisley,” Dad grins, it’s wide and real and a little bit wolfish. “Both of them have been staying at the mill to help in Rosie’s absence.” Rosie is Heron Mill’s housekeeper slash nanny, and she loves her work, but she’s going in for a second hip replacement and having a well deserved ten weeks off. And with Grace being seven months gone now, she doesn’t have the energy to chase around three boys under six. “And I think all of the chaos has gotten to Thorne, so he’s taken her out to dinner.” His eyes sparkle as he says it, and although, due to a messy family drama, Haisley already bears our last name, they’re not married…

“He’s going to propose tonight, huh?” I smile as I say it, it makes my heart thud a little harder, it feels good, the thought of him getting down on one knee, tears in her eyes, hands covering her mouth in surprise.

They’re perfect together.

“How the fuck d’you get that from that?!” Archer laughs, smiling widely now too.

It makes the room feel warm, not that it’s fucking cold in here, definitely not that, but it feels like happiness.

Love.

Then the doors open, and at the entrance is the woman I’ve been desperate to see. I feel all three of us, my dad, my brother and me, collectively stop breathing as our gazes swing to her.

That long, shiny, sheet of raven-black hair is braided forward over one shoulder, her icy-blue eyes are bright and wide. She’s fucking beautiful.

But something’s off with her.

And like wolves scenting blood, all three of us sense it.

She holds herself strangely, one of her shoulders dropped slightly lower than the other. She appears stiff, like a wooden doll with barely posable joints.

“Is it okay to come in, Mr Blackwell?” she asks quietly, one hand splayed over the door, pushing it inwards, the other by her side, long fingers curled around her blue clipboard.

She’s not even looking at any of us as she speaks. Her eyes are on the space just over my head. She could just as easily be speaking to me, as she could Archer or Dad.

And it’s the latter that speaks, “Of course, you can, Luna,” he smiles warmly as he says it, shooting me a quick look. “Archer and I were just leaving,” Dad says, pushing to stand, he smooths his big hands down his thighs, collecting his jacket and tie. “We’ll be back tomorrow, son,” he tells me, gripping my shoulder firmly as Archer unfolds himself from his chair on my other side.

I watch them both walk towards Luna, her tall, slim frame seeming to shrink back as they approach, and they catch it too. The way they slow their steps towards her, giving her a wide berth. With warm smiles, they both say goodbye to her as they pass, and then we’re alone.

She almost limps towards me, but I likely wouldn’t notice if I weren’t looking for it. She’s slow in her approach, like she’s in pain, coming up beside me to scribble down things from the monitor screen on my left, giving me a much wider berth than normal.

“Luna,” I say softly, as softly as my deep voice will allow, I’m gruff with the way I speak, but I try to soften it for her. “Look at me.” Her eyes dart just slightly towards me, that pale-blue flicking to me from the corner of her eye before refocusing on the screen in front of her. “Please.” It’s a mistake when I reach for her hand, I know it is as soon as I lift my fingers from the bed, but even as I tell myself to drop my arm, I don’t.

She flinches before I even make contact, a wince in her face like the sharp movement pains her, and it feels like a dagger through my chest. Give me a bullet over this any day.

I drop my hand back to the bed instantly, even though my fingertips tingle with the want to reach for her again, to make contact this time with that milky soft skin. But I don’t. Instead, forcing myself up a little straighter in the bed, I turn fully towards her, my hips twisting so my entire upper body is angled towards her. My chest pinches, the skin feeling tight, but the pain is more like severe bruising now than fiery agony.

“Luna,” she doesn’t look at me, but I can tell I have her attention, her eyes are still on the screen but they’re glazed, because she’s listening to me, and I don’t want to scare her off. “I’m sorry, about the other day, when I was rude to you, and what happened afterward. I just wanted to apologise. Again.” Her bottom lip pulls tight, like she’s clamping down on it with her teeth, her fingers pausing over the keyboard she was typing on only moments ago. “I’m really sorry about it.” The last part comes out in a whisper, gruff and low, but she still doesn’t look at me and I realise I’m holding my breath, waiting for her to. “I’m really grateful you’re the one taking care of me.”

She blinks. Hard. A flurrying flutter of her lashes over watery eyes, then she turns to me, and we’re so close, the way I’m pushed up towards her, my height helping me get closer even though I’m sitting down. Our lips could brush, if I just lean forward a little, and it’s all I can think about, but I stop myself from closing the scant distance. Staying right where I am, our lips hovering only millimetres apart, her breath feathers over my mouth, her scent dizzying me, sweet peas and fresh cotton, soft and subtle.

“Luna,” her eyes drop from mine, her gaze falling to my mouth. “When I get out of here,” her eyes come back to mine, wide and waiting, sparkling like stars in the night’s sky. “Come to dinner with me.” I don’t ask it as a question this time, I know it’s bad, but I don’t want her to have the option of saying no. Again. “To thank you,” I find myself tacking on the end, as if it’ll help sway her.

She stares at me so blankly, I’d think she hadn’t heard me at all, but the rush of her breath fanning across my skin is all I need to know.

She heard, and she feels something about it.

Right now, that’s all I’m after, a reaction.

“Say yes,” I hush, my lips almost skimming hers with my words, but I am so very careful not to let them touch. “Say you’ll let me apologise with a fancy dinner and wine and too much dessert.”

Everything is a whisper, it’s like we’re trapped in a bubble of tension, and I wonder if this is all just me. But then, with a shuddering inhale, I feel her fingers brush my collarbone as she reaches up resting her hand as light as a feather against the front of my shoulder.

“Your eyes are like a real wolf’s,” she whispers, that plump pout of hers actually brushing mine, my lips tingle like they’ve been shocked with electricity. “I think about them sometimes.” My heart hammers harder and harder, blood rushing around like it’s a race inside my body. “They’re really pretty.”

Trying not to think too hard about the fact she thinks about me too, I say again, “Come to dinner with me.” Wetting my lips with the tip of my tongue, catching hers as I do, she doesn’t flinch back. “Come to dinner with me,” I repeat, her fingertips pressing firmer against my clavicle.

She exhales, gently pushing herself away from me. She steps back, just out of reach, because that’s what I want to do. Reach for her. Earn her trust. Get her to tell me what’s wrong. But she looks at me with big eyes, the blue crystal clear, and offers me a sad smile, a gentle shake to her head.

“I’m sorry, Wolf, I can’t.”

And then she turns away from me, crossing the room, nothing but the swoosh of the swinging doors left in her wake.

She’s all I think about as I try to stay awake for when she has to come in again to check on me, but it’s another nurse instead, and I realise with a new bloom of pain in my chest that she swapped with someone to avoid seeing me again.

I try hard not to think too much about what’s clearly wrong with her tonight. The way she moved, the sad look in her eye. Whatever it is, it’s well hidden.

Well practised.

And that just makes me all the more concerned.