Page 37 of Fanged Secrets
I felt her breath on my neck, the way her shoulders shook when she sobbed. She felt broken and jagged under my fingers, shattered porcelain sharp enough to cut. My wife, once riddled with hairline fractures, now lay in pieces in my arms.
There was so much I should have noticed.
After a long while, I detangled myself from Dylan, tentatively removing her hands and cupping her face in my own. She stared back at me, her features marred by smeared makeup and dried blood. Tear streaks cut through the grime and sliced down her cheeks. She looked deflated, spent. That unbreachable wall she had erected between us crumbled into dust.
Nose to nose, she was less intimidating, less incomprehensible. When her violet eyes were all I could see, she looked like someone I could love.
My fingers brushed a slight cut on her cheek and she winced, automatically recoiling from the touch. The scrape was small, but it had that same greenish hue as the injury on her leg when she’d burst into the apartment in the middle of the night. Upon closer inspection, I realized she was littered with cuts and bruises. A few of the deeper slashes were haphazardly stitched closed like she’d gone at them with her eyes shut.
Dylan had said those scaled creatures’ claws carried poison, or something like that. Her flurried hands had been difficult to read. But she had tried to sign an explanation anyway. For my sake.
The bubbling terror in my chest simmered down for a moment.
Releasing her face I sat back, gesturing at her patched injuries.
“You look terrible,” I signed, fingers splayed as my hands moved in circles. “We should clean those.”
Dylan’s brow furrowed and she glanced down at herself. I ignored her quizzical stare, already digging through her backpack for disinfectant. This was something familiar, some semblance of normalcy to cling to. I glazed over the fact that our “normal” involved tending to egregious wounds with questionably labeled concoctions.
“There’s a shower in there,” I signed, directing a thumb over my shoulder at the bathroom. “I’ll help you.”
Dylan looked dumbstruck, but she let me haul her to her feet and lead her into the cramped bathroom. At my request she perched on the sink, toes grazing the tiled floor, and watched me warily as I doused a hand towel in water and disinfectant.
I started on her arms, working my way down from the shoulder, and gently wiped away the dirt and grime. Each stroke revealed more pale, almost translucent skin. Thin blue veins snaked up her wrist like sewing thread.
Dylan sat still as I lifted her hand and traced the lines of her long, slender fingers. I inspected each one, searching for any sign of the claws she had wielded earlier. But her fingers were the same as always, tipped a pale blue as if tainted by frostbite.
I felt a small measure of relief at the sight and allowed myself to relax into the work. Dylan’s eyes never left my face, watching me with a faint curiosity like she couldn’t decipher exactly how I had gotten so close. There was an odd intimacy to the act, inspecting her inch by inch, clearing off the cover of dirt, and finding her underneath.
I noticed a particularly deep slash on Dylan's stomach where the fabric of her shirt was torn and dark with dried blood. I reached for the frayed hem and lifted it for a closer look, but as soon as I tugged at it, Dylan stiffened and jerked away. Her hand came up to ward me off, but my mind leapt to that monstrous form, slashing at the scaled shifter. My heart leapt into my throat and I staggered backward.
For a moment we were both frozen, and my heart pounded like a war drum in my chest. Dylan’s eyes were wide, an aching vulnerability plainly written in her features. She took in my stiff posture. Her eyes flickered from my stricken face to her raised hand and she dropped it.
Her arms hung at her sides and we stared at each other. A crushing sense of hopelessness crashed over me in waves. The both of us were made of so many broken pieces. How could we hold any of them without getting hurt?
I pushed those thoughts aside and signed a small apology. After a breathless moment, Dylan’s tormented expression softened and she shook her head. She mimicked my message, circling a fist against her chest.
Slowly, tentatively, I edged back over to her and Dylan dropped her gaze to my hands. I hesitated, fingers trembling slightly, before carefully tugging her shirt over her head. Dylan allowed it, but I could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers tapped a frantic dance against the edge of the sink.
My breath caught in my throat when I saw the extent of the damage. But the artist in me traced the balanced scale of her collarbone, the pale valley of her breasts. Her ribs were lined with sleek defined muscle, Iliac furrows housed between protruding hip bones.
I swallowed the surge of something electric in my chest, and lifted the hand towel, wiping away the dirt and blood with tender strokes. Dylan was stiff under my fingers and cool to the touch, but she let me continue, watching me with wide eyes while I ran light fingers over her shoddy stitching. I worked methodically, cleaning each jagged gash and trying to inflict as little pain as possible.
When I was done, I reached up to cup Dylan’s face, tilting her head to inspect the cut on her cheek. I tended to it quickly but kept my hands in place, cradling her face in my palms. Her dark makeup was smudged, mascara circling her eyes like dark bruises. Dylan sat stiffly, her eyes locked on mine. I could almost see that suspicious mind working to decipher my intentions. I didn’t entirely understand them myself. A part of me simply wanted toseeher.
I lifted the hand towel and gently cleared the makeup off her face. Dylan stilled as I wiped at her eyeshadow and ran a thumb over her lip, removing the last of her smudged lipstick. Revealing the woman beneath the armor.
Without the heavy makeup, her features were much softer – high cheekbones, a slight curve to her nose, the faintest scattering of freckles. Full lips slightly parted. My gaze lingered on those lips, and I bit down on my own. My mind wandered back to the first night she’d kissed me, nipping my bottom lip in a moment of passion.
With that frantic collision in mind, I wanted to see more of her. I hesitated for a moment, grappling with the gnawing anxiety that reared up in my chest, and then coaxed Dylan to open her mouth. Inconceivably, she obliged, parting her lips further and holding still while my fingers explored those pointed fangs. A jolt of fear spiked through me at the sharpness of them.
But those fangs didn’t snap shut on my fingers or close on my throat. Dylan was deathly still like any slight movement would send me bolting for the door. I tempered the knot of anxiety and lowered my hands.
Stepping away from her, I turned on the shower and waited until the water fell warm in my palm.
“Hot water actually works here,” I signed, and Dylan stared at me in bewilderment.
I gestured at her torn leggings and then pointed at the stream of water. Finally understanding, Dylan’s expression grew even more alarmed and, for a moment, she just stood there.
