Page 35 of Cardinal House

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.

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