His warm, liquid chocolate voice washed over her ears almost the same way that his strong hands moved over her back, and both things combined to soothe her soul as he continued to mutter quiet reassurances and simply let her lean on him. After a while– it could have been minutes or hours, she lost track completely– her breath hitched and hiccuped but she reached up to wipe at her face.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry." She pulled back out of his arms and sat up, burying her face in her hands to hide. She heard a soft rustling, then water running in the attached bathroom. She swiped at her face again and cursed at the smeary mess she no doubt presented now.
The bed dipped when Aldric sat back down. He pulled her hands from her face and gently wiped at her tears with a warm washcloth. Surprised, she just blinked up at him as he cleaned her up, then placed a cup in her hands. It was the cup that she had stuck her toothbrush in, but was now full of cold water.
"Thank you." Faith wasn't certain she had said it out loud or just meant to, but Aldric just smiled and nodded at the cup before getting up to take the washcloth back to the bathroom.
Once she had swallowed all the water in the cup and put it down beside the books, she drew a deep breath to clear her lungs, pleased when it only hitched once.
"I'm sorry I sobbed all over your shirt," she said quietly. Aldric just smiled and sat back down.
"You needed it." He reached out and squeezed her shoulder and her breath hitched again. "You have been so strong. A determined protector, a leader for your niece. You have learned that the world is bigger than you imagined and has far more frightening things in it, and you carried it all through with grace and courage. I have known trained warriors to do less well. You and Kaylee both have deeply impressed all of us."
Another tear escaped and started to roll down her face, but Aldric reached up and caught it with his thumb and wiped it away. Faith could only blink at him. She had seen him slice through two monsters as if they were barely animate, let alone living, breathing creatures. She had seen him turn himself into a terrifying monster that would put any special-effects makeup artist to shame and could no doubt haunt nightmares.
But now, he was here, carefully tending to her, offering her his strength to lean on. She could see the honest concern in his eyes, and remembered the way he had cajoled smiles from her all afternoon. And then she stopped thinking so damn hard and just kissed him.
It was clear that he wasn't expecting that when he froze statue-still. Faith didn't plan to seduce him into bed right this second. Hell, she didn't have a plan at all. Still, she melted with relief when he came back to life a moment later and his fingers slid up the side of her face to hold her gently in place.
Neither of them moved to deepen the kiss, both just enjoying the contact. Aldric drew back slightly, then returned to kiss her again, then a third time, gently, before backing up. When Faith's eyelids fluttered open again he was still just barely a few inches from her face, his own eyes still closed and his fingers still softly caressing the side of her face.
"Well," Faith said softly. "I can already tell you one thing that those books are going to get wrong."
Aldric's eyes blinked open and it took a moment for him to focus on her. "Oh?"
She swallowed and nodded. "They're going to try to tell me that vampires are cold." She shook her head slightly and felt his fingers slip against her skin. "Nothing about you is cold at all."
As if to prove her right, she saw a fire blaze in his eyes for a moment before he blinked it away. He smiled and leaned his forehead against hers and let it rest lightly there for a moment.
"Faith," his voice whispered over her skin.
They sat like that for who knew how long, and unlike when she was sobbing on his shoulder, a small part of her hoped this moment would never end.
Somewhere downstairs a door closed loudly, and Aldric was instantly sitting up, alert and lethal for a second before relaxing again with a shy smile. “Just Marc coming back inside. He went to patrol around the lodge property and check in with the enforcers we have set to watch overnight."
"Oh, that's good. That actually makes me feel better, a bit," Faith wondered if she sounded as breathy as she felt, so she swallowed "Um, how do you know that, though?"
"We discussed it before I came upstairs," Aldric answered.
"No, I mean, who it was that closed the door downstairs."
"Oh, I can hear him walking through the kitchen, and I know the sound of his walk. We have lived together here for many years." Aldric smiled again and drew her head close again to kiss her forehead. Then he stood and, with that small, shy smile he walked to the door and softly closed it behind him.
"Well," Faith muttered to herself, brushing her fingers over her forehead where his lips had just been and staring at the back of the door. "Now I won't be able to sleep for a completely different reason."
12
Aldric stepped into Marc's office and raised an eyebrow at his friend. "Anything?"
"Nothing that would upset us, no. Tamika's going to do a few more laps, then sleep with her door open in case," Marc said. "I touched base with the patrols out there, and they haven't seen anything either, though they have scented several strange wolves in the area
