Peeling away his blood-soaked clothes and then yours, John started the water running in a tub even more luxurious than the one he’d made for you in your little attic haven. “Let me take care of you,” he smiled, showing just the tips of his fangs and chuckling slightly as you edged for the door. He easily lifted you into the warm water, swirling with dried flowers of some kind and a soothing light scent. But the groan that slipped past his full mouth was heartrending. He was in terrible pain and attempting to not show it.
John fitted the platinum limb back onto his shoulder, but the scar tissue around it looked even harder, like granite cruelly etched over skin. New gashes and wounds littered his chest and arms, even the supernaturally quick healing of the Night Brethren was struggling to repair his damage. John tiredly soaped a cloth, bringing the sudsy fabric to stroke it over your face, down your neck and arms, lifting each one carefully to spread the honey-scented lather over your skin.
But after he’d gently washed your hair, he attempted to rise from the tub. John was so stiff and slow, in pain and vulnerable in a way you’d never seen before. In a way he’d never allowed you to witness.
“Will you…” the words clogged your throat. You did not initiate anything with John, you never had. But he’d nearly been destroyed, getting you free of the Tyrrells and their revolting fiefdom. “Can I wash you?”
This time he groaned slightly as he settled back in the tub. “I would…” he hesitated, apparently this was new ground for him, too. “I would like that.”
Chapter 6: In Accord
In which Little Bird is saved from the Night Brethren, but not from the quandary of the child she's carrying.
Waking several hours later, you felt like you might have been the one in the brutal fight with that vile Stephen. Every muscle ached and your head throbbed, like too much information had been stuffed into your brain all at once and you were struggling to comprehend the last two (three? Was it three?) days. Your world had been so small, only the confines of your Birdcage high up in Black Heart’s mansion and now there was so much more, some even worse than you could have imagined. And Mama? When would you see her again?
Swinging your legs over to the side of the bed, you slumped there for a moment.
“Let me try to assemble this.” The sound of your own voice startled you, but you pushed on.
“Mama is alive.” That was the best news.
“John came to get me away from the Night Brethren and my disgusting half-brother.” You were very grateful for that, though you recognized the irony of flying back into your cage and holding the door closed yourself. But the alternative … you shuddered.
“He’s manipulated me from the day he took me at the harbor.” Now, why would that upset you so much? Make your chest hurt? You remembered Mama’s words, that the mother and father had to be in accord for a night child to survive. She was tricked, but shehadbelieved she loved Tyrrell when you were born, and no matter how evil he was, he must have cared for her, too.
Which led you to face the most difficult news. You were with child. John was the sire. The images of the shadow things screeching and tearing their screaming victims apart made you shudder and begin to cry. What could save your child from becoming one? You did not love him. How could you love him?
“Oh, Little Bird…” he’d entered the room silently, “why are you crying?”
“There are many reasons,” you wept, “any of them seems like enough.” John sat next to you, one cool palm resting on your back. You tried scrubbing at your wet cheeks with the back of your hand. “Aren’t you going to punish me for the tears?”
A low sigh left his sinfully lush lips. “When you wept as a child, I was powerless to do anything about it. I didn’t understand grief or loss. The Night Brethren took my knowledge of human emotion when they took my life. I decided simply … stopping you was for the best.”
“What you did was horrible,” you managed to gulp out, “you killed people. Their blood was on my hands. I was a child!”
He gazed at you steadily. You knew he didn’t care about their deaths, but he understood thatyoucared. It was disconcerting and you didn’t know what to make of it.
“Why are you being kind to me now?” It burst out of you, the thing you didn’t understand. He had you. You were carrying his … you didn’t know what form the entity inside you took but it was there. “You have what you want.”
Part of you prepared to flinch away, but he sat utterly, perfectly still, his hand still resting on your back. When your sobs slowed down, John carefully wiped your face clean.
“Your mother told me something about this child.”
“Yes,” you nodded, “how that evil monst- how he tricked Mama into thinking it was love.”
“Love on your mother’s side,” His full lips went up slightly on one side, almost a smile. “But you need to know that there was some care on your father’s-” He saw your look of disgust and grinned this time. “But on Tyrrell’s side, you need to know that he also cared for your mother.” He put up a hand to stop your protest. “The King," he said mockingly, “of the Night Brethren is everything you think he is. But you would not have been possible, you would not be the young woman I see before me if he had not cared for her. And even though they have not created a second child, your mother does have an honored position in his court. We do not - we cannot - love the way you do. But we feel…?” He paused; brow furrowed. “We feel.”
He looked nearly the same as always, just twenty-four hours after a beating that was meant to kill him. But John still moved stiffly, with less of his usual grace.
“Um, how are you?” you ventured, feeling a little foolish. You had never asked your keeper any such thing before. He was … Black Heart. And then John. And then your lover. And now, your savior. Because being forced to mate with that monstrous spawn of Tyrrell was unimaginable. And he seemed equally as surprised by your question, as much as he would allow himself to be, which was merely lifting one brow as he watched you.
“I’m … better,” he finally said. “Iamdisappointed that my repertoire of dirty tricks was not as extensive as that spoiled little bastard’s.” You watched nervously as a crimson sheen made his eyes glow. “Though I suspect his father was the one who told him of the only way that my arm can be torn off.”
“Does it hurt?”
He chuckled humorlessly. “As much as sawing off my human one. But here,” he lifted you into a more comfortable position and put a tray across your lap, “you must eat.”
There was some sort of dark bread, thick with molasses and scrambled eggs. Your stomach growled, embarrassingly loud and you took your fork. “There are chickens here?” Oh, the eggs were so delicious! “Where are we?”
