8. Chapter 8
John opened his eyes and blinked in confusion. This wasn’t his cabin. The bedroom was almost as large as his cabin, with a desk and seating area to the one side. An open door led into a bathroom.
His foggy brain began to clear, and he remembered what happened.
He was in the clan house. He moved the blanket and checked his side, wincing when he ran his fingers along the bandages.
He needed to take a better look. The doctor had mentioned he should stay put for a day, but after that, he was gone.
Sitting up, he took a deep breath, which pulled on his side.
But at least he wasn’t dizzy. And he really wanted to get cleaned up.
He was in his boxers, which made sense since his shirt and jeans were probably a bloody mess.
Hopefully they’d burned his clothes since the doctor said they would.
Testing his legs, he walked slowly over to his duffel and backpack.
He unzipped them both and saw that nothing appeared to be disturbed.
He was surprised they hadn’t gone through his things, especially after he announced he was leaving.
He closed his backpack and grabbed his duffel, heading toward the bathroom.
As he passed the window, he looked outside and saw another building to the left with the valley beyond it.
Movement caught his eye. Sienna was talking to someone in some sort of courtyard.
From the look of their stiff bodies, it was not a happy conversation.
John released his dragon senses and watched them closely, his stomach clenching at the idea of Sienna being in any sort of confrontation.
Especially after what she’d recently been through with him.
He recognized the male. He’d been the one who drove her to his cabin.
Were they a couple? That would explain why he glared at John the whole time Sienna spoke to him.
Not that John was competing for her. And he knew she wouldn’t like the thought of anyone competing for her like she was some prize to be won.
Even though John hadn’t spent much time with her, he knew she was smart, dedicated, and cared for her family and clan. The makings of a good leader.
Unfortunately he couldn’t hear what they were saying, and opening the window might draw their attention to him.
He watched closely as they continued to talk, prepared to what, exactly?
Protect her? After seeing how she reacted at the cabin, he had a feeling she could protect herself, but that didn’t calm the rumble in his chest. He flinched.
It was his dragon, who hadn’t made himself known for quite some time.
Maybe him being attacked again woke him up.
Sienna opened her arms, and the dumbass shook his head.
Was he rejecting her? But a moment later he wrapped his arms around her, and John backed away from the window and walked into the bathroom.
She was okay. He wasn’t sure why his dragon was still rumbling in his chest. Time to worry about himself.
Inside the room, he found several towels folded on the vanity with a box of large waterproof bandages. He set his bag down and turned on the shower before taking care of business.
As he washed his hands, he looked in the mirror, quickly assessing things.
He needed a serious shave, and his face was pale with dark circles under his eyes.
A bandage covered his side. Peeling back the gauze, he found a neat set of stitches over a red, slightly swollen mark.
The doctor knew what he was doing. John had plenty of ragged scars from sewing himself up in the past.
He examined the scars that dotted his chest, remembering the pity on Sienna’s face when she’d seen them. He didn’t need anyone’s pity. He shook his head and reached for the box of bandages, pulled out one of the large squares, quickly opened it, and pressed it against his side.
Stepping into the spa-like shower, he couldn’t help but moan as the warm water from several showerheads hit his body.
Tension left his back and shoulders and sluiced away along with any residual blood or dirt.
He stood for a few minutes letting the water massage him before finishing his shower and getting dressed.
He brushed his teeth but didn’t have the energy to shave before heading back into the bedroom.
What was he supposed to do now? A knock on the closed door interrupted his thoughts. He opened it to find Tessa carrying a tray of food. A little girl with two dark braids and big blue eyes stood next to her holding a plate of cookies and looking up at him.
“We thought you might be hungry by now,” Tessa said.
When he reached for the tray, she barged into the room instead and set it on the coffee table in front of the couch. The little girl followed her.
“John, this is Lily. She wanted to meet you.”
“Hello, Lily.” He’d heard a lot about both Lily and Arabella but had never met either of them.
Lily grinned, and he could see that she was missing a tooth. “Hello. Do you like cookies?”
“I do.”
She set the plate down on the table as well.
“Lily helped Marilyn bake these for you to make you feel better.”
“Thank you,” he said, the words rusty on his lips. When was the last time he said thank you?
“She also asked Marilyn to make you grilled cheese and tomato soup since that is one of our favorite comfort foods.”
John nodded and stood awkwardly, not sure what else to say.
Tessa gestured to the couch. “Why don’t you take a seat and eat while it’s warm.”
He sat down, but instead of leaving, Tessa sat in the chair across from him, and Lily perched next to him. They were going to watch him eat? He reached for the sandwich and brought it to his lips while Lily leaned forward, watching him with a small frown.
He stopped. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t you want to dip it?” Lily asked.
He glanced over at Tessa, who smirked at him before he turned back to Lily. “Okay.” John set it down and reached for the knife to cut it in half. As he positioned the knife at the top to cut it lengthwise, Lily frowned again.
“How should I cut it?” She pointed her little finger to the corner, and he cut the sandwich on the diagonal. Picking up half, he dipped the sandwich in the soup and then took a bite. Lily and Tessa watched, and he felt a bit like a specimen under a microscope.
“Mmm. That’s really good.”
Lily beamed at him while he dipped and took another bite.
“That was close,” Tessa said, barely choking back a laugh. “You almost cut the sandwich wrong.”
Lily sighed. “Daddy cuts it wrong all the time.”
“He says he likes it that way, but we’ll keep working with him on it, right, sweetheart?”
“Right.” Lily turned toward the closed door. “Bella.”
A second later there was a knock at the door, and Lily skipped over and opened it. Megan walked in carrying a toddler with curly auburn hair like her mother.
He must not have hidden his surprise well, because Tessa nodded. “It still shocks me every time too. Bella does the same thing with Lily.”
“Glad to see you up, John,” Megan said. “This is Bella.”
“Hello, Bella.”
Bella waved at him. “Hi, Unka Gumpy.”
Megan’s face turned bright red as Tessa burst into laughter and Lily’s giggle joined her. The corner of John’s mouth hitched up slightly. Smiling was another thing he was rusty at.
What was happening? Megan set Bella down when she started to squirm, and Lily took Bella’s hand and led her over to the couch. Bella climbed up next to him, and Lily circled the coffee table and sat on his other side.
Megan gaped at them. “It normally takes Bella a while to warm up to new people.”
Hell, it took him a while to warm up to any people.
He wasn’t someone who wanted relationships.
He’d learned long ago that it was just a recipe for heartbreak.
He cleared his throat. “She probably saw the cookies.” He picked up the plate and held it out to Bella and then Lily, who each took a cookie.
He picked one up and took a bite as well.
He moaned at the taste, and there was no faking it for the sake of Lily’s feelings. “Now that is a good cookie.”
Lily smiled as she took a bite of her own cookie, leaving chocolate at the corners of her mouth.
They finished their cookies, and then both girls watched while he ate the rest of his sandwich and soup. Luckily he didn’t have to talk since Lily regaled him with stories about her teacher and Bella laughed at almost everything Lily, or “Yiwee,” as she called her, said.
“Lily. It’s time for you to go back to school,” Tessa said.
Lily nodded. “Okay. Bye,” she said as she scurried out of the room.
“We have a tutor that teaches her at the house. As much as Adam and I would love for her to be in a school with other children, we don’t think it’s safe right now. We know that the Templars were after her in the past, and now that she’s older and her powers are growing, she’s in even more danger.”
His stomach soured a bit on the food he just ate. “Does she still have visions through her drawings?”
Tessa reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a square piece of paper. She unfolded it and held it out to him. He took it and looked at the crayon drawing. It was of a cabin with flames shooting out of the windows and roof.
“She gave me that minutes after Sienna called Adam and let him know that you’d been hurt and she was coming back to the house. And before you ask, Lily didn’t hear the conversation, and even if she had, Sienna didn’t mention the explosion over the phone.”
He swallowed and looked up at Tessa and then over at Megan, who had scooped up Bella into her arms.
“What about…?” He tilted his head toward Bella.
Megan sighed. “She knows when Lily is coming, but other than that, she hasn’t said or done anything that leads us to believe her powers are developing.”
He wasn’t sure what to say to that. What to say to anything, really.
Megan kissed her daughter’s curls as she headed toward the door. “We’ll leave you to rest. This is a lot for someone who likes to be alone.”
Tessa stood and picked up the tray and followed her. “Yeah, get some rest, Unka Gumpy.”
He shook his head as they closed the door. He could hear Tessa laughing all the way down the hall. What amazing children. He hadn’t interacted with kids in, well, he couldn’t remember how long.
Those beautiful little girls and their mothers deserved a life free of fear. He needed to find a way to end the curse for all their sakes.