Between Wolves & Doves

Chapter 32 Agonies

She doesn't remember much of being carried out of the night and back into the warm safe solace of the castle. She dreams in crushing darkness. Shadows, the dark woods, and all the things that lurk under the canopy of the gnarled trees. All that she'd seen-

Sleep catches on her wearied bones quick and hugs her tight.

She can only just recall the smell of congealing copper ichor and the smudge of dry blood sticky and staining on her skin. Her head against the cool musk of her husbands naked chest as he held her.

Something flushes botanic and lazy into her dreams. Disturbing the crushing valley of her sleep. A curl of plainly sweet spice. Floral. Purple. Oil of lavender and a wet warmth rouses her.

Her eyes open sluggishly slow, taking in the blue dawn splashing an almost shade of mauve up their crimson walled bedchamber. Prickles of warmth and needles of pain shoot through her lower legs. She looks down her body and she sees Kylo's hand with a washcloth bunched into his big fingers. Wiping away the dirt and the blood at her knees. He's wiped her arms and hands. Scrubbed around her nails to get rid of the mud crusted there where she dug her fingers into the earth.

She winces where she lays on the pillow. He's knelt by her side of the bed. Dewy from a bath of his own. Wearing a dark pair of breeches sitting up his hips.

The dutiful husband is back. The animal is gone. It fucked it's lust out on her and stalked away. Taking with it, it's influence. Tuscan gold eyes and claws all now vanished.

His damp hair is clinging wet to his head and still dripping a little down onto his shoulders. Beads of water rolling away down his scrubbed skin. He scrubbed and scrubbed away the mess dried

upon his chest until the soapy-cloudy milk of the water was pink as roses. He's still warmed for now. But soon the heat of him will fade. Turning back into the usual cold. The natural state of his skin is cold like stone. Like sun leaving a hulking grey stone church. Warmth soon bleeds out of him.

He's concentrating on her minor cuts and scrapes with tender care. He pauses to turn around and wring out the cloth in a porcelain bowl of steaming water by his side, set on the floor where he knelt. The water was rosy pink and swirled with grains of gritty sticky mud.

He rinses the cloth and squeezes it under his large grasp. Wet fingers retaking the cloth and sliding the wet warmth higher up her thighs. The pillows rustled and the sheets under her crumpled with her movement. His warm eyes - now walnut brown and kind - flicked up to find her face.

She still loves their shade when they are a startling gold, she always had. Eyes as bright gold as a field of sunflowers under a cloudless sky.

"You're awake." He smiles gently. She returns that smile. Hers is weaker.

She tries to shift and a lightning storm of sudden pain throbs through her body. She breathes and winces through the sharpness. He bolts up to the bed and helps her sit up. His slightly warm damp hands fall soft on her skin. He'd managed to slip a new clean nightgown on her. He needed to purchase her more of them - a whole stack - he's ripped so many away from her skin.

The light tissue-linen of them posed no challenge to his hungry strong hands. It rather posed the greatest temptation to him. Such a thin seductive barrier. Soft and delicate as spun spiders silk. Kissing the contours and climes of her body in a way he can't help but envy. Wrapping her up in washy fabric so translucent he swore some nights he could hear her heartbeat quaking, thumping at the gentle material. He's always loved her in - and immediately out - of her nightgowns.

"Do you need something for pain?" He asks her carefully. Brushing stray hairs from her brow. Sat perched by her hip. Big hand solid and comforting on her stomach.