Shaun’s POV
I couldn’t sleep.
Hours after I came into Lucy’s room, there I was on the bed, thinking about all the ways I had messed up things with her right from the beginning. It was one thing to have been unkind to someone, and it was another to have been unkind to someone who didn’t deserve such treatment at all. Someone who had already suffered enough.
I already held a grudge against my father for his indirect hand in his wife’s death, but finding out that he took Lucy to be his wife at such a young age further cemented all the negative feelings I had towards him. What kind of man does such a thing, if not one deeply damaged?
I turned to my side, finally allowing myself to get a good look at her now that she had fallen asleep. Her face in this position looked absolutely angelic. Her soft blond locks had fallen over her face, and her lashes shuddered every now and then when she took a deep breath than usual.
Beautiful as a word didn’t have enough meaning to fit in how breathtaking she looked.
The wolf inside of me desired a whole lot more than he was getting, but we had come for a different mission, and I wouldn’t allow myself to get distracted . . . no matter how difficult it was.
In fact, looking at her reminded me of that fateful day after the skirmish with the assassin. When she had taken that arrow for me. I couldn’t believe that after everything I had done to her, she would still have risked her life for me.
Back then, in that hospital, her eyes had been closed in a similar way. She looked asleep, except for the way her body had been shaking terribly. The doctor and nurses at the hospital had been attending to other serious emergencies, so they weren’t able to put their full attention on Lucy, who had been getting paler and paler by the second.
Frantically, I had asked the doctor for pointers on what to do, and the doctor just told me to create another incision on Lucy’s skin where the poison from the arrow could have been drained out.
My hands had never shook so much as I had put the little blad to her beautiful skin, and created a cut into her flesh. She had gasped in pain then, and grabbed my arm with surprising strength. It surprised me just how much strength she carried, and it stirred something inside of me that day.
She had opened her eyes at different times while I attended to her wounds, but never long enough to say a word to me. I preferred it that way because I didn’t know what I would have done if she had woken up to see me tending to her wounds.
Cleaning her up came easier to me than expected, and maybe it was because I had spent my childhood watching our mother do things like that before she died. She had been a doctor too, and was great at it. Many people had often came to our home to ask her for advice, and she, being the kind person she was, would take their issues so seriously that no one left without having a solution to their problems.
Lucy reminded me of her a little, and maybe it was the memory of my mother that spurred me to action, because if I looked at her face a certain way, I was reminded of my mother and all the sacrifices she made for other people.
I had to do better concerning Lucy. I knew that I couldn’t simply eease weeks of trouble that I had caused her, but now . . . I wanted her life to be easy. I wanted her to look at me once, and smile.
“Forgive me, Lucy,” I whispered to her soft, gently breathing form. I reached out without thinking and took a lock of her long hair between my fingers. Beautiful.
Everything about her was beautiful.
As I moved to pull my hand away from her, she frowned as she slept, and made a harsh sound inside her throat. She moved closer, closing the space between us on the bed, and reached out her hand.
I watched her, slightly shocked, as her arm fell over my body, followed by her leg.
“Mmm,” she said softly, even though her eyes were still closed. It might have been my imagination, but she also smiled a little. “Warm.”
Bewildered, I didn’t know whether to gently move her back to her side of the bed, or remain trapped in the cage fashioned by her beautiful body. The robe she was wearing, which had been securely closed before, had gotten a little loose, baring more skin to me. I could see the tops of her plump mounds in this position, but I didn’t allow my gaze to linger, lest I started having inappropriate thoughts.
Instead, I helped her close the gap, trying my best to not touch her directly, as the Mate Bond had started flaring up inside of me, and would have been triggered by any sort of physical contact.
But unfortunately, the more I tried to create a little distance between us, the more she got closer and closer to me, until she practically laid atop me.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or try to leave her on the bed. I wasn’t sure how she was going to take it if she eventually opened her eyes and saw herself draped over me more securely than a blanket.
She drew her head back, and her lips brushed my face as she did so. The simple act nearly drove me mad, and I couldn’t pinpoint the strength that was preventing me from moving to accommodate her form. I remained still as a statue, bewildered and with a growing realization of what exactly I felt towards this particular woman who had once seemed like an enemy to me.
She made that content sound in her throat again when she finally rested her head on my shoulder. I gazed at her face, finding the whole situation endearing. Her arm and leg which had been draped over my body tightened a little, bringing us so close that only the clothes we wore formed a barrier between our skins.
“What are you doing to me, Lucy?” I whispered to her, while shifting my body so that she could be more comfortable using my body as a cushion.
The only answer the night held was that of sleep finally wrapping me in its embrace.