Page 21 of Cardinal House

I can feel it.

The pull in my core, a tether to my soul, something invisible and overwhelming joining me to her.

Can you feel it too? Tug back, baby girl, tug back and let me see you.

Those crystal blue eyes peer up into my own, her cheek cool in my warm palm. I hold her gaze, licking my lips, and I watch as her eyes drop to my mouth, flicking right back up to mine.

“Let me take you to dinner,” I breathe the words almost over her lips once more, because I tugged on that tether that’s somehow knitted us together with a sparkling silver thread, and she came. “Let me take you anywhere,” I stare into her eyes, “everywhere.” Our lips brush with every word now as she leans into me, letting me rest my other hand on her waist, both of hers coming to rest against my chest.

Luna’s bottom lip trembles, I can’t see it because we’re so close, but I feel it quivering over mine, and I want to draw back, a frown on my face, but when her shuttered lids lift, her eyes glassy with tears, something clenches inside of me and I don’t push. I don’t push her, even though I want to demand something from her.

Someone’s hurt her, I know it, so many little things have been coming together inside of my brain, and I’ve been driving myself insane trying to understand without asking her.

But I’m leaving here now and I don’t want to go with her thinking I didn’t care enough to ask.

“Who’s hurting you, Luna,” I whisper over her mouth, tightening my grip on her waist, just enough for her to feel my fingers flex against her ribs.

Her lips part, her eyes fluttering closed, a breath heavy from her nose. I want to kiss her. Take her away from here. From these people who treat her like shit and whisper about her behind her back.

I want to wrap her up in my arms.

Protect her from the world and everyone in it.

Even me.

Her eyes open, flicking between mine, she closes her mouth, silence loud in the moment, all I can hear is the rapid thundering of my heart.

She steps back, dropping her head and wringing her hands.

“Luna.”

“You need to use the chair, or I’ll get in trouble,” she swallows, bringing her eyes up onto mine from beneath her lashes and all of the air leaves my lungs. “You can get out of it once you pass the entrance doors to the hospital. I’ll be in the hall with your medicines.”

With that, Luna backs away from me, avoiding Hunter as she leaves the room, my eyes following her as she goes.

I breathe in deep, closing my eyes, huffing sharply with a shake of my head, I ball my fists, but there’s nothing I can do.

Well, there is, I could kidnap her from here and lock her up with me. It wouldn’t be the first time one of the Blackwell men has done just that, it’s also highly unlikely to be the last. Blackwells do not think clearly when it comes to their obsessions.

I thought I was immune.

I’ve got two brothers who have found love with their obsessions, and another three brothers heartbroken by theirs. Neither group of them ever really sold me on the idea.

Fuck, this is rough.

Thorne steps between my knees, a white t-shirt gathered up in his hands, he holds it out to me, and I thread my head and arms through so he can pull it down my back.

“Thank you,” I sigh, scrubbing a fist to my eye, I can feel a stress headache coming on already, and I feel fucking exhausted.

“She reminds me of Gracie,” Hunter says with a little less hostility in his voice than usual, he always gets like that when he talks about his wife. When I turn to look at him, his eyes already on mine, the same shade as Dad’s and the rest of our brothers, only my own are different, like Mum’s, he shrugs, “You’ll have to make her an offer she can’t say no to.”

Nobody else says anything as between Thorne and Archer, they get me in the wheelchair, and Hunter manoeuvres me out into the hall. Luna’s there, waiting at the end beside the lift, a green paper bag in her hand and a small stack of papers.

Her blue eyes track me as I’m wheeled towards her, Archer ahead of us, Thorne behind. She passes the paper bag to Archer as he thumbs the call button for the lift and then drops her gaze to me.

I don’t say anything to her as the lift doors slide open, Archer and Thorne both step inside, and Hunter turns us around, wheeling me backwards into the lift so I’m facing outwards.

Luna reaches out, holding out the papers in her hand, but I'm not looking at those, I’m only looking at her.

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