A soft laugh escaped him and I nearly sobbed in relief. He hadn't responded to me once since I'd come in here.
Halina started cleaning him up and then helped him stand up. He was weak, but managed to get on two feet. She started walking him away, more carrying him than helping him. They walked into the bedroom and then she surprisingly turned to the window. Picking Teren up and slinging him over her shoulder, like he weighed nothing, I watched her open the window and prepare to jump. Confused, I exclaimed, "Wait, where are you going with him? Shouldn't he rest?"
She paused and looked back at me, her face hard. "No, he needs to eat. They all...need to eat, now." Deep understanding rang through me, as I suddenly saw the real reason Halina had skipped dinner.
It wasn't that she wanted a bite in town. It wasn't that she didn't want to go through what Teren and the others just had. It was that one of them needed to stay strong, to help the others. Their love for each other was overwhelming, as was my guilt, that they'd felt the need to do this in the first place. I couldn't imagine having the foreknowledge of how painful something you were going to do was, and then doing it anyway. It would be like knowingly shoving your hand in a fire. But, as my hand automatically drifted down to the twins in my belly, I reconsidered that. The end result of my situation certainly wasn't going to be easy, but sometimes, the ends justify the means.
I nodded at Halina and watched her step up onto the window ledge; I guess they couldn't really just walk out the front door, what with Teren soaked in blood like he was. Before she jumped, she turned back and looked me over. Shaking her head, she muttered, "Shower, change, and then go tell your friends that he's fine and he's sleeping." She raised an eyebrow at me pointedly. "You're going to be a member of this family. You must now play your part."
I nodded again and then she turned back to the window and jumped. They were gone by the time I looked outside.
Chapter 6 Pre-wedding Jitters
I stared at the ceiling of our bedroom, waiting. I mentally traced every raised section of the textured walls, making images out of the patterns, where there really wasn't any. Anything to distract my mind. Anything to stop myself from wondering how Teren was doing, if he was feeling any better. That last horrid image of him covered in blood wouldn't leave me. Several of the patterns on the walls reminded me of the pool of red liquid we'd been huddled in. God, I hoped he was okay.
As I shifted for the thousandth time in the too quiet room, I finally heard the door crack open. It was late, several hours past the time everyone had called it a night, and the hallway behind him was dark. His eyes glowed at me until he walked into our dimly lit room. I sucked in a sharp breath when I saw him.
He softly closed the door and stood beside it, letting me take him in. He looked like something straight out of a Steven King novel - splotches of dried or drying blood covered him, his jeans and shirt saturated with it. His face had deep red smears and smudges, both from the act of being sick and my bloody hands caressing him. He stood slightly hunched and his face looked worn, close to exhaustion, if not already there. His pale blue eyes were slightly unfocused as he looked at me, but a small smile was on his lips.
"Hey," he whispered hoarsely.
My eyes instantly watered at the sight of him and I flew out of that bed to throw my arms around him. My forcefulness made him stumble back a step, and I choked back a sob at how frail he seemed. His arms swept around me securely though, as he held me tightly.
"Teren, what were you thinking?" I murmured in his ear.
He didn't answer, only softly stroked my back. I pulled away, my hands going to his blood smeared cheeks, cupping them and searching his eyes. He tilted his head and gave me another small smile. Hating the evidence of his painful night all over him, I grabbed his hand and pulled him into the bathroom. He willingly followed, his feet shuffling heavily on the padded carpet, as he forced his body to move.
I closed the door behind us, not really expecting any distractions, but playing it safe anyway. He watched me, almost blankly, and I thought only sheer will power kept him standing. I came back to him and gently swept his shirt over his head. His chest was smeared with dried blood from where the wet shirt had stuck to his skin. Some sections of the shirt were still wet, and I threw it in the corner of the recently cleaned bathroom. Bringing my eyes back to his chest, I bit my lip and felt mine start to water. His fingers came to my chin, lifting my gaze to his. "I'm fine, Emma." He shrugged in a tired, but casual manner. "Just a little...discomfort, but it's gone now." He smiled softly again.
My mouth dropped open as the sounds of his muffled screams earlier filled my ears again. A little discomfort? I shook my head. "You didn't have to do that," I whispered, my voice sounding loud to me in the quiet room.
His fingers, still tainted red, brushed over my cheek and he tilted his head as he regarded me. "Yes, I did. We couldn't have all walked out on dinner with your family, especially Mom and me. We had to appear normal."
My hand grabbed his hand, flattening his cool fingers to my cheek. "No, none of you should have had to do that." I shook my head again as I stepped into him, bringing my warm arms around his cool body, wanting him to feel the comforting heat I provided. Looking up at him, I bit my lip. "We could have gone somewhere else, or eloped. I was so selfish to ask for this."
He immediately grabbed my cheeks, shaking his head. "No, Emma. We wanted this. We all wanted to give you this."A warm smile lit his tired face. "You deserve a normal family dinner. I wanted to give you that, we all did. We crave normalcy too." His eyes stared intently into mine. "And we want to give you a normal wedding experience."
I sighed and then cocked an eyebrow at him, rubbing a smidge of dried blood off his chin pointedly. He grinned crookedly and shook his head. "Well, as normal as we can give you." He shrugged and then looking too tired to keep standing, sat on the edge of the tub.
I watched him sitting, looking up at me with a content face, and sighed again. Turning from him, I stepped over to the shower and turned on one of the dual heads. Under the sound of the water, I again said, "You didn't have to do that."
As I turned back to him, he smiled, and I knew he'd heard me. He didn't comment though, only slipped his stained shoes off. I helped him remove the rest of his clothes and then helped him get in the shower. It felt a little odd to help him, when he was usually the supernaturally strong one, but the evening had sapped a lot of that strength, and as he sagged against the shower wall, I slipped my pajamas off and hopped inside, to continue helping him.
He laid his head back against the wall, his eyes closed and his usually nearly tanned face pale. The spray of water hit his chest, droplets landing on his face and mine, the dried blood starting to break apart and run like rivulets down his body. I shook my head at the red streams and grabbed some soap, determined to see that bloody mess gone. He exhaled contently as I worked the soap into a lather and spread the bubbles over his chest, pausing, to scrub harder in the more concentrated areas. The bubbles forming on his body turned pink from all of the blood, and the water streaming around us went through various spectrums of the shade.
Noting the haggard look on his face and the shallow way he was breathing as I scrubbed his cheeks, I lifted a corner of my lip and wryly said, "You finally look hung-over."
He cracked an eye at that and smiled. His eyes glanced down my nak*d body once, before closing again. "Totally worth it," he muttered.
I ran some soap in his hair, watching my fingers turn pink as the dried blood in the blackness came clean. "I don't see how anything could have been worth that," I muttered.
Hearing me, he opened his eyes again. His hands came up to my hips, pulling me into him. "You're worth it. You're worth anything."
I sighed at my pinkly suds-up fiance, and laced my arms around his neck. I ran my fingers back through his wet hair and just took a moment to appreciate him. For me, he and the women had willingly done something that they knew would cause them intense pain. And as Halina had explained, while cleaning up the bloody mess he'd left, Teren had made the situation worse, by allowing the nearly toxic food to stay in his system much longer than was necessary, or healthy. She'd explained that anything but blood in their system now had a nearly acidic effect on them, and what Teren had done had literally eaten holes in his body. If it weren't for his super healing ability, it would have killed him. Sort of brought new meaning to the word allergic. Well, I guess we had a viable excuse for him to not ever eat out with us again - extreme food allergies.
I smiled and shook my head, kissing him softly and resting my wet head against his. His hand came up to grab some suds on his chest and teasingly, he plopped them on my hair. I laughed and he smiled, then closed his eyes again, too tired to keep them open.
While he continued to lean against the wall for support, I cleaned the rest of him, paying close attention to his fingers, ears and neck, anywhere where blood would pool, and be visible to someone else. When he was sparkly clean, I shut the water off and helped to dry him.
Looking half asleep on his feet, we crawled into our oversized bed, nak*d. His lukewarm from the shower body wrapped around me, and his head dropped down to rest in the crook of my neck. He sighed contently and buried himself further into me. I cradled his head, kissing him softly, before shutting off the lamp and closing my eyes.
Before sleep took me, I started replaying the evening, again marveling at what he'd done for me. As I smiled and stroked fingers down his back, I whispered, "Thank you."
Thinking he was already asleep, I was a little surprised to hear him murmur, "You're welcome," into my skin.
I hugged him tighter and then a thought struck me. "When did you guys realize you'd have to do this?"
His body stiffened and I adjusted myself to look at him. Cautiously lifting his head to look at me, apprehension was clear on his face. I furrowed my brow at seeing it. He sighed a cool breath and then closed his eyes for a second, before meeting my gaze. "We've always known this would happen this weekend, Emma." He shrugged. "We've been preparing, since you first said you wanted it here."
Horror and guilt went straight though me. I pushed him away and brought my hands to my mouth. "Why didn't anyone...?" I couldn't even finish the thought, but Teren understood.
His hands came to my face, lowering mine. "We didn't want you to worry about us. We knew we'd be fine...once it was over."
I shook my head, tears forming again. "We could have gone somewhere else. We could have gotten married at a courthouse, Teren."
He stopped my sputtering with his lips. When I was calmer, he muttered, "This is what you wanted, what you deserved to have. Our...problems were manageable."
I stared at him, speechless. Then irritation flared in me, like it does sometimes, when I'm really worried. "You could have given me a heads up! I could have been told what would happen, instead of finding you covered in blood and not knowing why!" My tone got especially heated on the end as I replayed my fear.
He blanched and looked guilty again. "You're right...I'm sorry." He shook his head on his pillow, his fingers coming up to move a strand of hair behind my ear. "I just didn't want to you to worry...and I honestly didn't know it would be that bad. I'm sorry if I scared you."