“Stefan, can you fetch us a tub of warm water, a few soft sponges, and towels from the supply room?”
Stefan only nodded, eyes flashing toward me with some unease. The feeling was mutual.
“I think Vincent should stay on the mainland for a couple of days,” Lucian said to me. “I’d like to monitor his recovery.”
“I’m staying with him,” I said as Stefan slinked away, so much like your damned cat. I’d need to have someone fetch her for your comfort as well.
“I’ll set you both up in the west wing of my manor,” Lucian said.
“I don’t want your pet near Vincent.” Lucian looked taken aback by that demand, so I continued. “Vincent killed his cellmates, or so he claims. I can’t imagine he won’t seek some kind of retribution.”
“I can handle Stefan,” Lucian said with his usual arrogance.
“You overestimate yourself. If he makes a move against Vincent, I’ll kill him.”
“You and your death threats,” Lucian said lightly. “The kill list just keeps growing.”
That was certainly true. Kill first, ask questions later was my current mindset.
Stefan returned soon after with our supplies. I caught him staring at you a little too long and dismissed him from our presence. Then Lucian and I set to bathing you. You were so fragile, bones heavy beneath sparse flesh. Your frame was skeletal and your skin paler than when you were a newborn.
“You’re going to want answers,” Lucian said. “I’d advise you to let Vincent reveal them in his own time.” I set my jaw, recalling the way you’d wilted under my barrage of questions. “He needs a steady, calming influence,” Lucian continued. “Someone to level his moods and assure him he’s safe. You can’t go into a rage over every little thing, even if he reveals to you his horrors. Don’t make this about yourself.”
I recalled then when Lucian had been kidnapped as an adolescent by a couple of cultists who’d wished to test the limits of our resurrection. They’d conducted barbaric experiments on Lucian’s bloodborn body. When I’d finally located him, my first priority was to vanquish those who’d harmed him, which I did in a brutal, savage manner. But restoring Lucian’s mental health was not something my warrior training had prepared me for, and I made a lot of blunders.
“He’s not going to be the same,” I said solemnly. Lucian had transformed from a vivacious, fun-loving youth to a cold, and sometimes cruel, young man.
“He won’t be like me,” Lucian said, as if to reassure me.
“That’s not what I meant.” A lie.
“I understand your fear, Henri. The important thing is that you accept him as he is. Whatever behaviors he exhibits, try not to be alarmed or correct him. Just let him… be.”
I nodded, committing Lucian’s advice to memory. “I wish I’d known what to do….” We never spoke of that incident. I didn’t know then if it was Lucian or myself who’d always avoided the topic. Perhaps it was my own guilt which prevented me from acknowledging how I’d failed him.
“You found me, and you fought for me,” Lucian said. “That’s all I could ask of a big brother.”
I swallowed and concentrated on your features, sharper than before but still familiar. My beautiful soul. This was never supposed to be your fate. You were meant to walk in the light. To dance and laugh and be happy. I’d do whatever needed to be done, be whomever you needed me to be.
“This isn’t like what happened to Orlando,” Lucian said, raising the dead with the mention of your former self. “Don’t let your guilt fester.”
I nodded. If only it were that easy.
