Keeping his bride

Selina

IT’S LATE WHEN we get word that Nico and his men are on their way back to the compound. I’ve been holed up in my room all night with nothing but my nervous anticipation the only thing keeping me company. I worried for hours about so many things – about Nico risking his life for those poor women he was so desperate to save; and about the fact that he could be vulnerable from an attack from Constantine.

Even though I’ve kept my distance from Nico and made it some kind of mission to not taint him, I can’t help my feelings for him. I loved him once. Maybe I can love him again. Sometimes I think I don’t even know what love is anymore. The world has been cruel and unfair and full of monsters.

And a huge part of me thinks that he deserves better than what I can offer him. He deserves to be happy and with someone normal.

Sighing, I untuck my knees from my chest at the first sound of footsteps in the hall. My heartbeat stutters with every step. But when Nico passes by my open door without so much as a glance inside, the grin I had plastered on my face instantly falls.

Moving before I can even second-guess my decision, I follow him into his bedroom. He’s standing in the middle of the room, unmoving, barely breathing, and I know something is horribly wrong.

“Nico?” I whisper his name before stepping around him to see his face.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

The first thing I notice is the blood. He’s covered in blood. My entire world starts to tilt on its axis, sending me into a tailspin as the memory of me drenched in their blood comes rushing back.

No, no, no, no.

I can’t allow myself to break down right now. I need to help him. Yes, I must focus on that and only that one thing right now.

“Are you hurt?” I ask, my voice breaking.

He gives me an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Okay, so it’s not his blood. I swallow hard as I finally meet his eyes. The blank, distant look I see reflected in them scares me. He obviously had something terrible happen to him tonight.

Taking his hand in mine, I pull him towards me. He resists at first until I whisper, “Please, Nico.” He finally relents, his feet moving slowly across the hardwood floor as I lead him to his en-suite bathroom.

Tears fill my eyes as I slowly undress him, the blood making his clothes sticky and crunchy. When he’s completely naked, I go over to the shower and turn on the faucet, testing the water to make sure it’s hot enough before I go back and coax him inside the stall.

Leaving him under the spray of water, I take off my clothes, piling them on the floor beside his before joining him in the large walk-in shower.

The water is tinged red from the blood as I gently wash his hands first. He stares down at the copper-colored water swirling in the drain, and I whisper to him, “It’s okay. I’m here with you. I’m right here.”

God, I wish I would have had someone back then to take care of me after Constantine made me wear the blood of the family he murdered like some kind of fucked-up trophy and grim reminder of what happened. I didn’t have Nico back then, but he has me here now. And I’m going to help him through this.

I grab the bottle of shampoo from a recessed shelf and squirt some in my hands before lathering up his hair. I scrub his scalp gently, and he closes his eyes.

I help him rinse his hair then, wiping the water from his face. His gray eyes blink open and focus on me then. “I couldn’t…I couldn’t save them,” he says, his voice just above a whisper, so soft I almost don’t hear it.

“I’m sure you did everything you could,” I tell him even though I don’t know the whole story. All I have to go on is the devastated look on his face, and that’s enough for now. I know he tried his best even without him telling me anything.

“There was a bomb,” he says, and my heart skips a beat. “Miner went back in. I let him go back in.” He shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut. “I should have gone back in. It should have been me, not him.”

I grab his face in my hands and force him to look at me. “No, Nico. Then you would be dead.” I can’t even imagine a world without Nico in it. In fact, the thought terrifies me so much that I find myself shaking under the hot water. It might as well be ice cold on my skin.

Nico doesn’t speak any more while I continue to wash him until every speck of blood is gone. When we’re done, I pull him from the shower and dry him off first before myself.

I wrap a towel around my body and grab his hand, leading him into his bedroom. He’s so despondent, it’s scary. I’ve never seen Nico this way before.

Pulling back the blankets on his bed, I coax him under them before covering him up. And then I go to the other side and crawl under with him. He rolls over onto his side, facing away from me, and I curl up against his back, wrapping my arms around him and holding him. He’s tense at first, his muscles bunching up from my touch, but they slowly start to relax when he realizes I’m not going anywhere.

“Try to sleep,” I whisper into the darkness. I know it will be hard, but I’m sure he’s mentally exhausted after what he went through tonight.

It takes hours, but I finally feel his breathing even out. And only when I’m sure he’s asleep do I allow myself to drift off too.