valentín rezník . (netvor) wrote in exsanguious, @ 2015-08-27 01:47:00 |
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NADEZHDA: They did not share a property. They did not live together. When she had made the decision to move to San Luis Obispo she had purchased a large house for herself and Valentín was, of course, entitled to whatever room he saw fit to use within it but she had not specifically set one aside for him. As it was now she did think of one of the bedrooms as his but it was more normal for him to stay in his own home: the property next door. Nadya remembered with pride how he had told her that he had simply compelled the owners away, he had come so very far since she had turned him so many decades ago. She knew he sought that pride in her, that praise for a job well done, she knew his loyalty was absolute and unwavering, that she could control and command him easily, effortlessly. That was the way it should be, that was the reason she had made him, to be hers for eternity. That was why she had put such special, some might say perverse, effort into finding the perfect progeny.
Nadya had not expected him in her home that night which was saying little considering that he was the only person she allowed to come and go as they pleased. It was the loud slam of her back patio door that alarmed her, however. Valentín was usually silent in his entrance, she had taught him much better than to make such a racket upon entering any property. So something had to be wrong.
On the stairs she scented blood and had she a pulse of her own it would have quickened.
Barefooted and already dressed for bed in silks she descended the stairs swiftly, silently, and then darted through into her kitchen, vast and marbled. There was Valentín, covered in blood.
“Who did this.” It was not a question. It was a demand. Nadya took her possessions and their wellbeing extremely seriously, deathly seriously. She was at his side faster than a human eye could see, her hands already on his bloody shirt, just about tearing it out of her way to see the damage that had been done to him.
VALENTÍN: More than once he had almost crashed the car on his way to his destination, if he hadn’t been so familiar with the route it was entirely possible he would have at some point and it was in large part thanks to the reflexes of other drivers on the road -- not that he would give anyone else any kind of credit, especially not in his current condition -- that there hadn’t been some kind of accident. As it was Valentín could barely recall the journey, it had been all he could do to stay conscious for the duration and keeping his eyes open had been close to impossible, when he’d reached Nadya’s house he’d managed to get the vehicle more or less into her driveway before practically falling out of the door that he had left open in favour of getting into the house itself. Through the gate he’d tripped and stumbled on his way around to the back, they didn’t need any curious neighbours peering through their curtains trying to sneak a peek at what was going on and he couldn’t trust himself to stay quiet, he could scarcely hold his weight up given how much blood he had lost, how dangerously close he was to running on empty. Blood smeared on the handle to the patio door when he grasped at it blindly, shakily, and when he entered the house it was far from quietly that he did so, he all but crashed inside and only just managed to catch himself on the kitchen counter.
Nadya was coming. Valentín became aware of that before he actually heard that, he had come to believe early on that vampires had a connection when they forged the kind of bond he had with his creator, makers and their progeny were bound by blood in the most literal sense and it was like a buzzing in the back of his brain when Nadya moved on the floor overhead and made her way to the stairs. Relief flooded his system but it wasn’t enough to wash away the pain, there was too much of it and too little blood in his system to counteract it. That blood was still trickling out of him, from the jagged holes in his leg and shoulder and the messy wound in his back around the pointed shaft of wood that had been driven through flesh and muscle and tissue.
By the time his maker appeared, striding purposefully towards him in her silks, Valentín had slumped down the counter, his less injured arm clutching awkwardly at the counter and leaving dark streaks on the worktop. “Blonde. Young.” There was blood on his tongue. “Slayer.” There was no doubt about that now, not in his mind at least. “The girls are gone.”
NADEZHDA: The girls? The girls? Nadya could care less about the girls she had sent her progeny out to find, she was only concerned by his injuries, by the fact that a slayer had done this to him. Trust her most loyal to be concerned about that. Always so concerned by what she wanted, following her orders, giving her whatever she asked for. That was why she loved him so much, of course, but the task she had given him was irrelevant now. “I don’t care about the girls.”
Nadya slid an arm under his good one, the other was obviously broken and would need to be reset, but first things first. It was easy enough for her to take his weight, she was much older, much stronger, in much better control of the supernatural prowess her vampirism had given her. Without another word she moved him from the counter top -- smeared in blood like the floor, like the door, like her expensive silk night clothes -- and guided him over to the table and chairs that sat in the bay window across the expansive kitchen. With one hand she pulled out a chair for him and then lowered him in to it; she needed to check him over, he needed blood, certainly, but she needed to check him over fully first.
“You survived and you found your way back to me, this is all that matters.” Nadya moved so that she was balanced on her toes in front of him, perched between his knees, her hands resting on his thighs.
VALENTÍN: Much like his maker Valentín cared about how he presented himself to the world, he had not only his reputation to uphold but hers as well and that was always first and foremost in his thoughts. At all times he was put together and composed, he carried himself with dignity and confidence and when he acted it was always in her best interests. Now though he looked so very much unlike the person he projected to the world beyond these walls, covered in blood and thoroughly dishevelled and unkempt, his clothing torn and stained, his hair wild and tousled, looking more like a lowly human than the progeny of one of the most powerful vampires the world had ever seen. It was embarrassing, disgraceful, sickening in a way he would hate himself for later, if he had had the strength for it now he might have been close to losing himself to a rage borne of shame and indignation.
As it was he could barely hold his head up and by the time she’d got him to the table and sat him in the chair it had bowed under its own weight, coming to rest upon Nadya’s. “They’re dead,” he said then, his voice low and thick, sounding slurred now for the blood loss and the toll the injuries were taking on his body, “the others are dead.” Permanently now, never to rise again, they had decomposed in that alley before the authorities had arrived on the scene. That was some small mercy at least.
NADEZHDA: Over the decades that they had been together she had seen him in many states, all states. Nadya had known Valentín all his life, after all, or most of it anyway. When he had been a human boy she had taken him and his nasty little sister in, raised them, given them whatever they needed and in return for that and for the gift she had bestowed in making him her son she received his undying loyalty. That bond between them was a powerful motivator for survival, she knew, it was likely part of what had spurred him to survive the fight. Despite the state of him she was proud of him. So she would take care of him, make sure he healed and became fit and healthy again, strong like he should be. If it had been anyone else, if it had been any of her other sorry excuses for children, she would have let them die, watched them die, she would even have sped the process along. Valentín was different, though, he always had been and always would be. Her very favourite. Her most precious.
“Good.” Nadya’s hands moved up to rest on either side of his neck. “They were weak.” And Valentín was strong. To have faced a slayer and survived was quite a feat, he had defied the odds and done what few vampires could. “You are not.”
VALENTÍN: Most would have balked at the idea of being chosen over their younger sibling, at being chosen at the expense of that sibling’s life, but Valentín was not most people. When Nadya had shown her preference for him over his sister he had jumped at the opportunity to prove himself worthy of that attention and that approval, he had wanted to show her she had made the right choice and he had wasted no time in doing so. That had never faded, that desire to impress and please her, it never quieted or dulled, if anything that flame only burned brighter as time went on and Nadya was right that it had played a part in his fight for survival, it had certainly pushed him to hold himself together long enough to get here tonight, to last long enough to get to her. No one else could be permitted to see him in this condition, Valenín would never dream of dishonouring her that way, of tarnishing her impeccable reputation. Her progeny, her children, were strong and powerful and Valentín had to be able to show that to the world at all times. For her sake more than his own.
The faintest trace of a smile touched his bloodied lips when she said that, somehow still managed to praise him even after he had been so badly wounded by a mere mortal. A human. Slayers were more than the average human, that was true, but they were still breakable, every bit as killable as every other insect scuttering the surface of this planet they thought they owned and ruled. “You taught me well.” Because if anyone deserved the credit it was the one who had taught him everything he knew.
In lifting his head to look at his maker he shifted enough to pull the muscles down his back and the stake still buried between his shoulder blades. A hiss of pain through his teeth was the only audible reaction but he couldn’t keep his face from twisting into a grimace.
NADEZHDA: Someone might be forgiven for thinking that the loyalty and desire to impress was all she had looked for in finding suitable humans to change, to birth into a new life without the rules and laws that governed the one she rid them of. That was not so and Nadya was not the forgiving sort. It was about more than a hunger for her attention and approval, it was a quality she had been searching for, something special and singular. Often it was only after she had turned someone that she found out whether they had it or not, the ability to see the world for what it was, to see humanity for what it was. Valentín saw the world the way she did, he understood that the fragile human laws that held their society together were nothing to be concerned with, that anyone could do anything at any time and it was only the prudish convictions of the populace kept everything from spiralling into complete chaos. A frightening notion for most humans. A liberating one for a young Nadya.
Nadya stood up slowly, a hand from his neck slid down his back so that she could find the source of the pain. There it was sticking out of him. Without speaking she took hold of his shirt and tore it out of her way, dropping the scraps of it to the floor. She took hold of the end of the stake that was jammed into his flesh and yanked it out without a word. It was better to just pull it free now, let the healing start, get some hot, fresh blood in him. Nadya dropped the stake to the floor and placed her bloody hand on his hair.
“You would not dare die without my permission.”
There was affection in her voice, oddly.
VALENTÍN: For Valentín there had been nothing but rules and boundaries when he had been young and human, nothing but limitations and restrictions impressed upon him by an archaic and outdated system that had separated people strictly into very clearly defined social classes: poor, middle-class, and the wealthy. Clean cut and indisputable everyone had known exactly where they stood and Valentín had been reminded time and time again that he and the rest of his family belonged well and truly at the bottom of the social ladder, they existed to serve the whims and desires of their betters, they were what they could do and little more. Nadya had seen in him more than anyone else ever had and in recognising that she had invited Valentín into a world he had never once shied away from, captivated as he had been by her in the very beginning once he had discovered her true nature he had become, quite simply, obsessed with her. That obsession had not waned over the years, his maker was rarely far from his thoughts, she was influencing him in the smallest ways at all times, she had moulded him and without her he would not be the man he was today. The vampire he was today. Without her teachings and encouragement and guidance he would not have survived the clash that had claimed the lives of three other vampires.
The fact that there was no warning beyond the disposal of his shirt was for the best, it gave Valentín no time to tense or even so much as think before it was over and done with and even though he gave a loud cry of pain and jerked physically by the time her hand was coming to rest on his hair he had pulled together the tattered edges of his composure and his body was simply trembling in response to the shock and the fresh rush of blood that spilled from the wound in his back, sliding down the length of his spine to the base of the chair upon which he sat. That too would pass, that tremor and the drone of pain through his body.
“Of course not,” he responded, his voice little more than a whisper, the faintest thread of a laugh in the words. His eyes had been closed until then and when he opened them he lifted them towards her face, admiration and relief and gratitude plain to see in his gaze, things no one else had -- or would -- ever see in him. No one else was worthy.
NADEZHDA: As much as she was loathe to admit it sometimes pain was necessary, particularly for vampires of a certain age, to remind them what it was to feel anything at all. That was how it felt to her at least. Nadya had been around for eons, decades upon decades, and at some point it began to euthanise her. Numbness started to set in. That was why she needed Valenín with her, at her side forever more. All this pain that he was going through now it would all serve to remind him that they were not indestructible Sometimes she forgot that herself, the hundreds upon hundreds of years stacked in her favour made her forget that she too could be injured like this.
Though her expression did not change Nadya did stroke her fingers through his thick hair before she turned away and went into the kitchen proper. Instead of picking up a towel or something else to mop up his blood she pulled a knife from an expensive looking block on the counter, carrying it in one pale hand she went back to his side. Of course she could have used her teeth, let her fangs pop the flesh of her arm but she raised the knife and ran the sharp blade over the inside of her wrist where blood bloomed and beaded and started to flow. Nadya had fed recently, within the last hour, and rather than go fetch him a human to drain she wanted him to use her, to drink from her. Silently she raised her wrist towards him, gazing down on him with the protective gentility of a mother. “Drink.”
VALENTÍN: The world was not a soft and comfortable place, they were vampires, ruthless killers who tore their way through everything keeping them from whatever it was that they truly wanted. They knew the cruel reality of the world, the danger and the blood and the visceral barbarity of it all. Valentín had never had such a naive and cosy view of the world to begin with but Nadya had opened his eyes to how harsh and severe things could be, she had shown him all the worst case scenarios and the ruinous possibilities but she had also shown him his real place among it all, where he belonged. By her side. Through it all, whatever happened, that was where he would remain. No hunter or slayer could change that.
When the light caught on the blade as she turned it in her grasp Valentín lifted his gaze and saw the knife, the way she drew it across her wrist to spill the blood from her own veins. If his heart had been beating it would have skipped then, if he had needed to draw breath it could have caught in his throat, and as it was his eyes were fixed for several moments on the swell of blood upon her slashed wrist. It was only when she spoke, closer to him now, that he looked up to her face again. For a short time he hesitated, thinking to politely and respectfully refuse but quickly enough he saw the gesture for what it was, the real power of the gesture. Nadya Zakharyina did not so readily offer her blood to just anyone, in fact in the time he had known her and been by her side he had never seen her do such a thing with anyone else.
Valentín lifted his left arm not because he needed to steady her hand or guide it closer but because he wanted the contact of his fingers against her skin, his eyes remaining on hers for a time before he dropped them to that swell of blood. When he bowed his head to accept the offer it was with an overwhelming sense of gratitude but also awe and an undeniable rush of exhilaration. Strange though that would seem to some it was a huge honour to receive such a gift and Valentín was smart enough to recognise that.
NADEZHDA: Biting her own wrist to release the blood for him would be what the modern media would depict, what they would imagine a young teenage girl wanted to see in her supernatural fantasy, the allegory of intimacy between two supremely powerful beings but Nadya never much liked the way her species had been appropriated by the youth of humanity. It was more intimate to her to slash her own skin, to share in the damage that had been done to her protegé in some small way. Intimacy between their kind could not be boiled down to the mechanics of vampirism, they had thoughts and feelings, not only fangs and bloodlust. As Valentín drank from her wrist she slid the knife to the tabletop with her other hand and then placed it on top of his head and let her eyes close, relieved. If anything were to happen to him she would not only be livid but inconsolable. Nadya did not admit many weaknesses to herself but she knew that her progeny was her most glaring, causing him harm, wishing him ill, those were the most efficient ways to raise her ire.
From the shadowy arch between the dark living space and the kitchen area in which she and Valentín were occupied a human moved into sight, looking towards the two of them. Nadya heard him, smelled him coming closer and opened her eyes again, turning her head to look at him. When Valentín had come clattering into her home she had been with the half dressed human, basking in the difference of their body temperature while she drained the life out of his neck. Now was not the time or place for him, though.
Nadya made a sharp hissing noise with her teeth, the type of sound someone would make at a cat shitting on the lawn. Go. Now, the twitch of her head told him and in his dim and compelled state the handsome young male turned to go.
VALENTÍN: There was a very good reason Valentín didn’t care for the depiction of their species in books or films or any other medium humans chose to indulge themselves in nowadays, vampires were always shown in some absurd light that was in no way accurate. Brooding romantics who simply wanted to be understood, vicious monsters who lost their souls when they were turned, both of those extremes were sickening to him for various reasons and neither one of them was even close to the truth. Vampires, at the end of the day, were as varied and unique as humans themselves were and with good reason, that was how they all started out and when they were changed, when they left their mortal lives behind and started down the road of immortality they did not magically transform into some dark and mysterious creature of the night, a switch was not flipped to erase everything that they had been as a person. Valentín was the way he was because of who he had been as a human, the traits he had possessed as a man had been carried with him across the void separated life and death and as a vampire he simply now had the power to take what he wanted for himself. As a mortal he had lacked that, he had had neither the strength nor the status. Now he had both. Because of Nadya he was a force to be reckoned with and one day soon he would find that little blonde bitch who had done him so much wrong tonight and snap her scrawny little neck.
For now though such thoughts were far from his mind and until Nadya elicited that sharp sound from between her teeth he was lost in the rush of emotions consuming her blood provoked in him. It was intoxicating, first and foremost, more powerful and potent than any drug or alcohol, and the strength in it was undeniable. It wasn’t the first time he had accepted it, obviously, but the effect it had on him now was no less than it had been when she had offered it to him in the beginning, when she had offered to change him. There was very real power running through her veins, after all, and as he drew it into himself he felt it, that charge like electricity.
That sound snapped him out of it not only because it was sharp and sudden but because Nadya’s presence in and of itself was so commanding, when she gave any sort of order it was to be obeyed and even though he was not being addressed Valentín could not help but take notice. Lifting his head and taking his mouth from her wrist, his hand still on the underside of her arm, he looked up first at her face turned away from and then across the room to the human who had stumbled in. They were ambling out now with the almost staggered steps of a creature not fully in control of their own actions: compelled. “What about his blood?” he asked because there was no way to suggest she take what the human had left in his system without it coming across as some sort of command of his own and Valentín did not issue commands to his maker.
NADEZHDA: As the human left the room her eyes were following him. It was only when Valentín spoke to her that she turned her attention away from where her compelled evening meal and companion had disappeared and down to him. Nadya lifted her hand from his hair and touched his face with the cold tenderness that was so characteristic of her. There was still a small amount of heat in the blood on his lips but it was cooling quickly as it passed her from cold veins to his. Nadya smudged it across his bottom lip with her thumb, considering him and his words, the tone of them. So careful not to command her. So careful not to sound as though he would tell her what to do. Valentín knew better, he would never attempt such a thing and yet unlike those she had turned and discarded for this reason or that one she sensed that it was affection that brought the words from him, concern for her wellbeing only. There was no need to chastise or reprimand him when he wanted only to be assured of his maker’s health. His affection for her was obvious.
“Later.” Nadya’s thumb continued its motion against his lip and she took in his appearance in the dwindling darkness. “You are my only concern, kalinka.” Little snow. Her pet name for him. Later she would think of feeding again, perhaps she would kill the human she had shared a bed with just minutes ago, she had not yet decided and had not thought quite so far ahead with Valentín needing her attention and her aid. “It is too early for you to leave. You will stay here while you heal.”
VALENTÍN: There were vampires out there, so many of them, who defied those who had made them, bucked against their rules and guidance, pulled away from the cool steady hands that could lead them into their new lives and the better futures that had been provided for them. Valentín was not one of those foolish creatures, he had known from the very beginning that Nadya would never lead him astray, everything she had to offer was worth accepting and he had taken it all eagerly and gratefully, knowing better than to refuse or resist. Why would he do such a thing? Every time he looked at the much older, stronger, wiser vampire before him now he was reminded of just how much she had given him, all that she had yet to give him in the forms of knowledge and experience. What person in their right mind would deny someone like Nadezhda Zakharyina?
As she spoke his eyes were fixed on her face, the human once again all but forgotten with something much more important taking up the entirety of his attention. That name of hers for him brought a faint touch of a smile to his lips, the feel of her thumb tracing that gentle line back and forth putting him fully at ease, stripped away all the tension he had brought into the house with him. The fight felt like so long ago now, a distant memory, and though the injuries would not heal instantly, though they would still plague him tomorrow and the day after that they would mend and he would regain his strength, return to his rightful place as Nadya’s trusted right hand. “As you wish,” he said to her, his voice little more than a whisper, filled with reverence and admiration as well as respect. If Nadya wished for him to remain in her house while he healed then that was what he would do without a single word of argument or complaint. Honestly there was nowhere he would rather be.
NADEZHDA: By now she was accustomed to his agreeing with her no matter what she told him, informing him of what was going to happen rather than asking him what he thought or if that was what he wanted. Nadya knew best, in her mind, and thus she made the decisions. Valentín was loyal enough and trusted her enough that he did not argue. Valentín also knew better than to do so. All those things came together with so many other little details to form the full picture of the man, the monster, that she had created, cultivated, and cared for so very much to this day. Whether he was battered and bloody like this or all dressed up and on her arm for business.
“I do.” Nadya said softly, much more so than was usual for her. For the next few days she intended to keep him close by, where she could watch over him, keep an eye on his healing. Nadya wanted to protect him, even though such a thing was impossible at all times, just as tonight had proven already, and to do that she would keep him with her in her own home until she was satisfied that he was strong enough to go back to his own routine. “Are you fit to walk now? Come upstairs. I will clean you up.” If necessary she was capable of simply carrying him upstairs but his pride would hardly allow it and she would rather see him on his own feet than have to drag him up there himself. Nadya wanted to see that he was strong enough to support his own weight.
VALENTÍN: At the end of the day Nadya could have told him to walk into the sun and Valentín would have obeyed her, such was his devotion to her, his loyalty, complete and absolute, not once over the years had he doubted or questioned her and that was never going to change. Her decisions, whatever they might be, were the right ones and there was no Elder who could convince him otherwise. If any other vampire ever tried to break his bond with Nadya they would have one hell of a fight on their hands, Valentín would never be loyal to any other and their only choice at the end of it all, their best bet, would be to kill him and be done with it.
The notion of spending an extended period of time in Nadya’s house was not a negative one to him, on some level he was glad for it but there was no questioning the fact that he would rather have avoided injury and not failed her in the first place. All things considered it could have been much worse but ultimately it could have been much better as well. With a nod Valentín confirmed that he could stand, that he could walk, and though he might not be able to ascend the steps alone without her help he was not so badly beaten that he couldn’t move under his own power. Nadya had taught him better than to show such weakness. It was only with one arm that he pushed himself up from the seat in which she had settled him but he was determined to get his feet under him without having to be lifted. Her blood would work wonders when it came to his healing but it would not happen instantaneously, nor would it happen overnight. Still he managed to get to his feet and stand with only the minimum amount of unsteadiness.
NADEZHDA: Failure from any other would have been met with swift punishment but Valentín was special. Nadya had seen that when he had been a boy, the bloodthirst had been in him young and it had been in him strong and she had worked on that, cultivated it into something even more potent and here he was today. Minor failures could be overlooked for someone who would fall on a stake for her if she asked it of him, she could not and would not see that as a weakness on her part.
Despite the fact that he got to his feet with the minimum of help from her she still slid an arm around his waist so that she could guide him through the house that he knew as well as if it were her own. Nadya took him upstairs and into the en suite bathroom off from her master bedroom, shooing the human away again with a hand wave and nothing more. Everything that was not Valentín could be dealt with at a later time, especially humans. Silently she got rid of what was left of his shirt and then took a towel and a facecloth -- neither of them cheap, both of them pristine and pressed white -- and she started to wipe the blood off him. It was the type of thing she would usually leave to those she considered of a lesser standing than herself. Nadya no longer partook in menial labour, she had done more than enough of that as a weak little human girl herself, but for her favourite she would make an exception. In fact she would not let anyone else touch him.
“If you require one of them, the virgins are in the cellar. You are quite welcome to any you like.”
VALENTÍN: Nadya had encouraged and nurtured in Valentín every dark and brutal instinct that anyone else would have been desperate to quash and erase. In him she had awakened and raised a killer, savage and ruthless, and Valentín liked to think he had done her proud in the way he had turned out, he had taken every single one of her teachings on board and done everything in his power to be more like her in any way possible. Granted he could never be quite so perfect or devastating as her but he could come close, or at least that was the aim, that was his intention. Honouring her by being like her was all Valentín wanted in this unlife of theirs and in failing to kill the blonde tonight he knew he had fallen short of that. The fact that Nadya would spare him any repercussions did not keep him from feeling bitter disappointment and anger, all of it aimed inward at himself and no one else -- save for the blonde of course -- but knowing that she was not cross with him removed a little of the sting of the defeat. The next time he crossed paths with the girl she would not get the best of him, not a second time.
There was a maternal note to the attention she paid him once they got to the bathroom, something no one else was privy to, he knew, and briefly his eyes closed as Nadya went about wiping and washing the blood from his skin, allowing himself to take comfort and solace in the intimacy of the moment. Maternal and yet not. There was something more there, something deeper, something no mortal mother and child could ever feel or trigger in one another. Valentín felt it, the hum of it through his frame, the low crackle like energy.
“Perhaps later?” A question rather than a statement, as if Valentín was asking whether Nadya thought it was necessary that he take more blood so soon after receiving hers. That was exactly what he was doing.
NADEZHDA: They shared many of the qualities of a real mother and son and yet there was something so much more to them than that. They were not related, they shared no blood or family lines. Nadya was hundreds of years older than Valentín and she was his Maker, not his mother, she had created him only in the sense that she had liberated him from the shackles of a brutal mortal life. Yet she had raised him, nurtured him, sheltered him and his sister until the point she had wanted to choose between them, see which one of them wanted it more but it had always been Valentín, really. Nadya did not much believe in destiny but she looked at him and she had to think that he had been brought into her life by some form of divine intervention.
That was not what had helped him survive a fight with a slayer, though, that was sheer determination not to leave her, not to fail her completely, that was purely Valentín, her very special boy. Despite everything she was proud of him.
“Later.” With a small smile she agreed with him, touched his face with one of her hands. There was a blonde girl down there, she thought that perhaps Valentín would like her, that it would take the edge off the defeat. Nayda was just glad he had come back to her. After a lingering moment, contact that lasted too long to be familial, she turned away from him and walked over to the large panelled shower and turned the water on. “Wash yourself off.” He was still bloody, he had been stabbed in the leg as well and the towels were not going to be enough to clean him up enough for her liking. They had let her see the wounds better, however, and she was satisfied that they would heal well enough. “And then you may come to bed.”