Cardinal House (The Blackwell Brothers Book 4)

15. Luna

Inner arms sore, my muscles ache all over, my head pounds, and my eyes burn, but I pry them open despite the sting because of the man in the chair beside me.

Wolf Blackwell.

His chin-length hair is down, the coal coloured strands tucked behind his pierced ears. His head is turned against the side of the high back chair, his temple resting against the worn leather. Something about the chair makes me uncomfortable, the longer I look at it the worse my head pounds, but the man sleeping in it is far too pretty in slumber not to stare at.

Rose-pink lips sit in a plump pout making him look boyish, his jaw is sharp, harsh angles with a square chin, high cheekbones and neat, black stubble styled tidily on his cheeks. His eyes are closed, heavy fans of dark lashes that curl high atop his cheekbones, but beneath those lids sit these warm, fiery, honey, whiskey coloured orbs that I want to stare into for days.

It’s dark in here, but being so close to him, the shadows only seem to carve and enhance his features like he’s a piece of art in a museum and I’m just a lucky girl with a nice view.

I think this is the first time I’ve really woken up since the other day, when we talked.

‘I wanted you to be mine.’

Something flutters around in my belly at the thought, a warmth spreading through my chest, but then I glance at the chair again and it’s like ice water dousing me.

As much as I don’t want to, I’m going to have to wake Wolf up. My bladder is full, my legs have pins and needles, and my lower back is twinging from lying in bed so long. I feel thirsty and uncomfortable, and I want to bathe. I want to wear fresh clothes, and for my skin to smell like soap, and the pressure in my pelvis is starting to hurt.

Wolf’s hand is in one of mine, grip tight even in sleep, my fingers are bandaged, taped up and swaddled in gauze. The last couple of days have been a blur. The only parts I can remember when I woke are Wolf’s warmth, his fresh breath fanning my face, his gentle touch with rough hands. A divine contrast, this man is built like a beast, huge muscles, broad shoulders, tall and towering, but he’s soft and caring, with me.

“Wolf,” I say quietly, my voice cracking, but he doesn’t stir.

Shadows fill the space around us, this strange cube like room. There”s no light in here, no window for the outside world, but one wall is glass, and I move my eyes there now, peering through the darkness.

My skin ripples with goosebumps, my eyes wide, trying to see in the pitch dark. The space feels open with the glass partition, a large empty room on the other side.

It feels as though demons and ghouls are creeping through the obsidian, my eyes seeing blurs of shadows moving amongst the darkness, but I know there’s nobody there.

My breathing is ragged, my lungs burning as I strain my eyes, trying to see. I turn my attention back to Wolf, his soft snores like a hibernating bear, a smooth, deep rumble that shakes me to my core with comfort. There’s a creak then, and my heart lurches into my throat, perspiration sticking my hair to the back of my neck, my forehead beading with sweat.

I fly up in the bed, every muscle protesting, but my eyes flick to that horrible leather armchair again and I feel unsafe, something inside of me repels against the idea that that chair is just a chair. It feels impossibly more, even though I don’t understand why.

Suddenly, all I can see is bone and blood and deep red seeping across dark wooden floors. I see flickering candlelight at the edges of my vision and my own reflection staring back at me, a split lip. Then there are blue eyes, familiar, but they are not my own, and my insides curl and rebel and force acid up the back of my throat.

I’m flopping to the floor, on the other side of Wolf, my knees and hands crashing into the hard ground. Keeping my eyes down, I crawl forwards, not looking up as a cool breeze feathers over my heated skin. I don’t want to see, so I don’t look. If I don’t look, I can’t see, and I can’t be scared.

The top of my head bumps into the corner junction of a wall, pain splitting down the side of my face as black spots blur across my vision. I reach out for the wall, curling myself up into its corner and try to stop seeing those eyes.

There’s a glint in my vision, large, strong hands that are like Wolf’s but not. Gold, something big and gaudy and too flashy on a fist made of violence. I’m shoving down the shorts I wear, knowing I mustn’t have them on, supposed to be bare. I kick them away quickly, trying not to be caught. There’s a terrible rasping sound growing, louder and louder, closer and closer, and the images in my head are coming to life around me like an old film cast over the walls.

The floor is falling away around me, my head curled into my drawn up knees, hands fisting tightly over my ears. Wet warmth meets my bare feet, soaking my bare skin, and my tummy twists with shame, but I can’t look up and I can’t open my eyes, and even still, the images come. The blue eyes, like mine, but not my own, the large hands and the flash of gold. The blood, the bone, the sound.

It echoes in my ears, thumping, groaning, silence. Eerie and calm, soundless, blocking out the noises of the world above. Pain explodes in my head and my eardrums feel like they’re about to burst. And then the water comes over me in a wave, silent and wet, then there’s a voice, a scent. Harsh hands on bruised flesh, heat flush with my back. A rocking motion that has pain shooting through my coccyx, up the spasming bones in my spine. Sticky, thick, slick slipping down my legs, a scent, strong and smoky and sweet, it makes me gag, my stomach revolting when it’s all I can smell.

A whimper passes my lips, and I know I shouldn’t make noise; I am to be silent, sweet girl. Silence. I clamp my hands over my ears harder, my painful knuckles going numb as I smash them against my ears.

Big hands come to my shoulders and I flinch so hard I crack my forehead against my knees and stars shoot through my head again like the milky way is spitting them out and unable to stop.

“Luna.”

One word and I’m scrambling, dropping my hands and shoving down onto my knees, wetness beneath them as I drag myself through the puddle. I’m launching myself forward until I collide with a broad chest that smells like lilies and teakwood and I suck it down like it’s the only oxygen I can stand.

“Luna,” Wolf mumbles, his lips to the crown of my head, pressing kisses, over and over against my hair.

Big and warm and safe.

My entire body trembles in his hold, and although he drops back to his bottom with a thud that rattles my teeth, and his chest huffs out a short, surprised ooft, I’ve never felt safer or more secure, in my life.

And I don’t know how I know that, only that I do.

Tears streak my cheeks, wetting Wolf’s throat, where I bury my face in the hollow. Hot, little puffs of breath turning into water vapour against his skin, a cry cracking out of my dry throat as he holds me close. Squeezing me so hard it feels like he could snap my spine, but I want him to hold me impossibly tighter, closer. Break open his chest cavity and wrap me up inside of him.

“It’s okay, baby girl, I’ve got you,” he hums against the top of my head, his breath hot over my scalp. “You’re safe.”

But I don’t feel safe, not inside my own mind, “There are monsters,” I whisper, my hands curled into fists, squeezed beneath my chin.

“The only monster here is me, Luna,” Wolf hushes, little, sweaty strands of hair blowing across my face. “And I’m yours.” His arms squeeze me tight, while his hands smooth up my spine.

“It hurts,” I whimper, squeezing my eyes shut tight as a dull ache seems to thud in my bottom.

“I know it does,” Wolf kisses my hair again and I press myself tighter into him, no part of me touching the floor, every inch of me is cradled in his lap. “But I’m going to make sure you never hurt ever again.”

The bathroom light is off, the door ajar for some light to creep in from the hall. My head is splitting, an ache in my eyes as Wolf tilts my head back, tipping another bowl of water over my hair.

He sits at the side of the clawfoot tub, pressed up on his knees, a pair of fresh jogging bottoms on his legs because his other ones were wet.

Because of me.

Shame heats my cheeks and I drop my head forward just as he douses me once more with the bowl of water, and I splutter as it runs into my nostrils. Wolf’s hand swipes over my face, his calloused skin comforting as he rubs water from my eyes. He runs a soapy cloth over my skin, washing every part of my battered body, his touch gentle and soft with my bruises and cuts.

Even though it’s four-am, Wolf cradled me, rocking me, soothing me in a puddle of pee, before hearing my request for a bath and obliging without protest. He didn’t say anything about it, even though it’s embarrassing and makes my cheeks heat, he still doesn’t mention it. As though it never even happened.

I haven’t told him about the chair. Or the eyes. I didn’t tell him anything because he hasn’t asked. I don’t think I could tell him anyway. None of it makes sense. To be frightened of a chair.

“What’s that pout for,” he chuckles lightly, more water from the bowl rushing down my back.

“Headache,” I lie, but also, it’s not a lie, I really do have a headache, but that’s not why I’m pouting.

“Blackwells don’t tell lies,” he says quietly, as though to himself, but it feels nice, to hear it, to feel the real truth there.

He hums, his hands finding my bruised shoulders and massaging slowly, the pressure light, warm and heavy, welcome.

“I’m not a Blackwell,” I reply quietly, his hands stilling for just a moment before continuing their ministrations.

“You’re a Beaumont,” he says, and the whole sentence sounds wrong, like he’s not really directing that at me at all, even though that is my name.

Beaumont.

Something I did remember, my name.

“Ready?” he asks a few minutes later, the warm water cooling quickly inside this cold house.

“Yes,” I blink up at him as he stands.

Reaching back down to run the flat of his hand over the top of my head, being careful to miss the long bullet scrape in my scalp. He smooths the water out as he presses down, wringing out the long tresses by curling the strands around his fist and squeezing the water free.

Wolf pulls the plug, draining the bath, and then scoops low to grab me up, my hands already reaching for him as he bends forward. He sits himself down on the closed toilet seat, cradling me in a towel and carefully pats me dry.

The towel is huge, big enough to fit both of us, but it’s just for me, warm and fluffy and large enough to swaddle me up in. He lifts up another, this one slightly smaller and lays it over my head, lifting my hair from my back and wrapping it up.

And then he just holds me.

His chin to the top of my head, arms secure around my waist, my back, and my eyes close as I breathe him in, lilies and teakwood, strong and floral, warm.

“What did you dream about, Little Moon?” he asks me quietly.

Wolf has a naturally deep voice, it’s a bit gruff, gravelly, loud, but he quells all of that when he speaks to me.

“Monsters,” I whisper back, my lips brushing his chest, the barest smattering of dark hairs over his tight, tanned skin.

“What sort of monsters, baby girl?” he asks me in a hush, both of us still and comfortable, relaxed where we’re curled up together in the steamy bathroom.

Two words, and I don”t have to think about them at all before they fall off of my tongue, “Human ones.”