“Blade?” she whispered, eyes still closed, but her body drifted closer to his, curling in against his warmth.
“Right here, darlin’,” he assured her.
“I-I’m scared.”
“He’s dead, darlin’. Can't hurt you again.”
“S-scared this is a d-dream. That y-you're not r-real,” she stammered, her voice catching, and a couple of tears leaked out, trailing down her temples.
“No dream, my sweet little genius. I’m right here. Terry Richards is dead. He’s never going to touch you again. We’re going to get you cleaned up, get some fluids in you, warm you up, and take you home.”
“You came,” she whispered.
“Nowhere on earth you could be that I wouldn't come after you, darlin’. So let that be a warning for you if you're planning on ditching me after we get you back home. Bound by blood.”
“Bound by blood,” she echoed, then slowly her eyelids lifted, obviously still worried that when she opened them, he wasn't going to be there. The relief in those wide blue eyes of hers when they met his gaze was something he would never forget.
Running his knuckles down her cheek, he then palmed it and leaned in, feathering his lips across hers. He’d come so close tolosing her, yet she was here, alive, mostly unharmed, physically at least, although she was going to have some major trauma to work through on top of what she was already attempting to handle.
“Never letting you go again,” he whispered against her lips, meaning it sincerely. She was his, she’d said she was, and he wasn't going to let her take it back.
“Okay,” she agreed, snuggling into him, exhaustion weighing her down as she let him take all of her weight.
“I’m serious, darlin’,” he warned her as he tucked her closer.
“I know.”
“And you're really good with that?”
“Already told you that I was.”
Chuckling, he shifted his hold on her as he stood, keeping her pressed against him, both to share his body warmth and to shield her half-naked body from the others. “Rest now, darlin’, I'm here to take care of you.”
There was no better feeling in the world than his girl acquiescing, allowing herself to drift off to sleep content in the knowledge that she was safe in his arms.
January 17th
10:49 P.M.
“This isn’t necessary,” Whitney told Blade, even as she curled instinctively into him. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to turn to him to seek comfort, and in his arms already felt like the safest place to be.
Maybe she’d been a little clingier than she should have been these last several hours, but after spending over a day with TerryRichards, the wealth of emotions she’d experienced, the fear and terror, her determination to remember that Blade wouldn't abandon her, then him saving her life all over again, she couldn’t seem to help it. At Blade’s side was the only place where that storm of emotions stilled enough that she could breathe.
But she was worried about becoming a bother. A burden.
Would he grow tired of her if she didn't find a way to pull it together quickly?
Blade had lived through three years of captivity. Held in a bulletproof glass cage, experimented on, forced to kill who he was told when he was told to do it, she hadn't even been kept by Terry Richards for two days, and she felt like she was handling things worse than he had.
“Absolutely is, darlin’,” Blade returned, touching a kiss to her temple.
The kiss made her heart melt, even as her anxiety grew and tears seeped out, rolling down her cheeks in sad little trails. She didn't want to cry again, it felt like she’d been doing it all day when she wasn't sleeping, but she couldn’t seem to stop.
“Darlin,” Blade said, his voice pained, like if he could he would take her suffering and make it his own, but that wasn't what she wanted. He had more than enough of his own to shoulder.
“Sorry,” she hiccupped, doing her best to rein in her emotions.
“Don’t be sorry, darlin’. It’s normal to be a mess after being abducted and assaulted, you have to know that in that big, beautiful brain of yours.”
