Blood of Eden

Chapter 21

For the first time in years, Katherine slept in until noon the next day. She slept fitfully, dreams tearing into her subconscious and keeping her far away from true rest.

Quinn was there, beside her or in the room somewhere nearby, whenever she woke, sometimes screaming, sometimes covered in a cold sweat. He brought her glasses of ice water and damp cloths to wipe her forehead. More importantly, he held her and sang her back to sleep over and over, without complaint.

From time to time, Sylvie would drop by and knock softly at the door. Katherine remembered each quiet question and each response as if she'd watched it happen through a fog. The sound of her mother's voice each time soothed her back to sleep for a little while and kept the dreams at bay.

When she finally got up, Katherine was shocked to find her body whole and healthy. She wandered to a mirror and pulled her nightgown up around her breasts. She traced a finger across her skin where Raphael had skewered her but found no imperfections, no trace of the brutal assault.

For one moment she wished desperately that the marks hadn't faded because now people wouldn't see the physical after effects of his attack. Only the mental effects remained and no one could see those. She wondered how long it would take her soul to heal.

"It won't happen overnight my love," Quinn's voice came from the corner where he sat in a wicker chair watching her intently. "It'll take time, no one can say how long, but eventually you'll let it go and feel whole again. I'll be here for you; I'll always be here."

Katherine felt her eyes fill with tears and she wiped them away roughly. A surge of anger suffused her and she felt a moment of strength as she embraced the feeling and focused more on revenge than pity for herself. She gritted her teeth and narrowed her eyes, feeling ready to fight.

Quinn stood and walked to her side. He brushed a finger against her cheek and tipped her chin up so her eyes met his. He smiled. "There's my girl. We're going to get him and make him pay for everything he's done."

Katherine could feel her cheeks stained red with a barely controlled rage that felt amazing, especially compared to the heightened sense of fear that had been her constant companion since the moment Raphael had taken her. She whirled around and grabbed a small statue from her dressing table and threw it at the floor. The porcelain exploded into a million fragments and just lay there.

"That felt good." She smiled.

Multiple psychology classes in University had taught her the stages of acceptance and she knew damn well that her anger was perfectly normal so she embraced it with everything she had. It felt better than being weak, being fragile and unable to function. Anger was good.

She grabbed Quinn's hand and ran to the door then down the hall. She took the stairs three at a time, almost killing Quinn who still hung on for dear life, and burst into her father's study.

Pierre and Anthony looked up from the desk with twin expressions of worry then, as they saw her face, happiness. Pierre straightened and grinned crookedly at his daughter then asked, "Clay pigeons?"

Pierre looked to Anthony who just gave a nod then rushed out of the door, giving his sister a big kiss on the cheek as he passed her. Quinn looked around a little confused.

"We have a tradition in this family Quinn," Pierre explained as he closed the file he and Anthony had been studying and walked over to Katherine who stepped into his embrace then grinned up at him. "We take our anger out on clay pigeons instead of this house so that my beautiful wife doesn't kill us, though in this case I'm sure Katherine could wreck the entire house and Sylvie wouldn't so much as bat a lash."