She felt tears rolling down her cheeks as the first bullet fell from the bloody tweezers and clinked loudly in the ceramic bath as it landed- she hoped he did not notice.
Catherine had carefully stripped him from waist up and sat with him in the empty bath tub attempting to gently prize the bullets out of his back. This was proving to be most difficult. She could tell that every small movement caused him immense pain as she could feel the tension in his whole body and see the small flinching movements he made each time she touched his flesh- but still he was completely silent. In fact there was no sound at all between them apart from her concentrated breathing and the occasional clatter of another bullet falling into the increasingly blood splattered tub.
In many way it was this silence that was upsetting Catherine the most. Here she was, knelt in the cold and damp, knees aching, fingers bloody, extracting bullets from Lucian's back, burning with questions, burning with the need to know what had happened and why and yet he would offer her no relief. He would offer her no answers.
It was a very selfish and foolish thing, Catherine mused, to be upset by this silence to the point of tears when he- badly injured and clearly in a lot of pain- shed no tears of his own. Still she couldn't help it. She was stung by his silence.
Wiping her cheeks angrily with the back of her hand she let the final bullet clatter noisily to the floor as her grisly job was completed.
Lucian relaxed, his shoulders visibly lowering as his body began to recover from the silver poisoning. He turned now to face Catherine. Her fingers were bloody and her eyes sad.
"Thank you." He whispers, touching her neck with the palm of his hand. At this sensation she closes her eyes and leans into his touch, goose pimples appear on the flesh of her neck. He marvelled again at the generosity of her desire for him when he had done nothing to deserve it. She was so open and warm in her want for him, so happy and pleased at the sight of him. It made whole being soar at the thought of being wanted again.
At the same time he knew that she was covering up her disappointment at his silence and that she was smarting at being excluded from his secret. He wished he could assure her, wished he could tell her that it was better, safer this way, but he dared not. Better for there to be silence, the distance of a void of information between them. Still, he wondered at her forbearance and patience. He knew she would not ask him to share his confidence with her although it was burning her up inside. Lucian smiled to himself and looked at her with growing admiration- she really was something else. She was the true other-worldly creature.
He took her hand, lifted it to his lips and kissed it. Catherine opened her eyes to watch and smiled at him, adoring the sight of him. He sees his own blood stained into her skin and turns on the warm tap. Dutifully she moves closer so that he can wash her hands- still there is silence between them, but now at least it is a happier, more comfortable silence. They sit now at the edge of the tub as the hot water flows, creating plumes of steam that raise into the air like curls of smoke from a fire. Catherine's feet get wet but she barely notices as she watches him meticulously wash her fingers, mesmerised by both the strangeness of it and the beauty of it.
"Perhaps this was what medieval knights did to prove their chivalry." She mused, and the immediately wondered where that thought had drifted from.
On turning her hands over Lucian discovered small, regimented red and blue bruises covering both of her delicate wrists. They were finger marks…his finger marks. He started at them angrily and looked up at Catherine. She simply shrugged and smiled.
"Angelic." He thought, shaking his head. "She might truly forgive anything."
"What a brute I am." He says aloud. Lowering his head he kisses his handy work and wishes it away with all his heart. She stops him by placing her left hand in his hair, tilts his face toward her and kisses his lips gently.
Shivers spread like lightening across a stormy sky.
Standing now and stepping swiftly out of the bath, Lucian sweeps her suddenly into his arms and carries her very gently out of the bathroom.
Catherine's heart hammers in her chest and butterflies fill her stomach as she allows herself to be carried by him. As he had turned she had seen his back…there had been no blood, no wound, no marks, no remaining trace of where only seconds before there had been 4 bullet holes in his flesh.
"Danger." The voice inside her head whispers.
Catherine chooses to ignore it.
Lucian lays her gently, very gently on the bed. He looks at her now to gauge her reaction- she must have noticed. He touches her gently and feels her wild heartbeat. Fear and desire. She reaches for him.
"She is only human after all." He thinks.