Sacred Scars (Book I)

Wings...Mended

Warning* Smut ahead! You have survived along side our girl, and think it is high time John made the dark journey worth it. Long chapter, Enjoy

     The warm days bled into chilling nights and there wasn't a moment Lilah woke when John wasn't there with his arms wrapped protectively around her. Dutch had to make him leave to run even the smallest of jobs, with Lilah bound to his tent. He still walked with the slighted swagger from his injured leg and had even once or twice tried, to pull that excuse to keep from leaving her side. But Dutch would just grin at him, pat his broad shoulder, and shoo him off to pull in money for the camp. "We can't help your little princess if we can't provide for her Marston." He would tut and walk away, the smile still creeping beneath the dark mustache coloring his lips.

     After several weeks, John had returned to camp tired, his shoulders drooping a little from the coach he and Arthur had scored from earlier. When he huffed into his tent, his eyes found Lilah and all the exhaustion seeped from his body. She was standing. Her small framed shoulders exposed in a white flowing sundress. Its rippling lace hugged her curves now plumped from John's pampering, and trailed like stardust at her ankles. Sharp black boots covered her small feet and a single thick black ribbon circled her waist contrasting her outfit into an hourglass of beauty. She turned at him as he stood in the doorway, her dark black curls rivering and shiny over porcelain skin.

      John blinked, meeting her eyes, unable to speak. Her bow of a mouth, curved up in a small petal pink smirk that stretched to her glistening sea grass eyes. "Why Mr. Marston, you look like you've seen a ghost?" Her voice was clear and sultry. No cracks, no broken whispers. The song of a nightingale captured on the wind and carried to his hungry ears. "Lilah?" He barely breathed the word, afraid that she would disappear at the slightest sound.

     She tilted her lovely head at him, her sculpted brows bunching worriedly at his shocked expression. "John, are you alright?" She had turned her whole body toward him now, her little hands raising to her chest in concern. He scanned her from the top of her head to the tips of her feet. No blood, No bruises. Her darkened eyes and broken lip were flush with color. Her cheeks pink with his penetrating gaze. John blinked twice again, shaking his head and noting her clasped hands. "Oh..no..I...I'm fine." He walked over finally tossing his satchel and gun and jacket and hell anything else that may restrict him from touching her, to the waiting wooden chair.

     Gently, he took both her hands in one of his and pulled her to him by her shoulder with his other. "You look.... Lilah, you..." He was speechless. She gazed up at him standing over her looking down at her searching eyes. "John?" She still wore a mask of worry on her face. He let go of her hand and took her jaw in his palm, stroking his thumb over the cheek that was now free of the nasty bruise from before. "Beautiful. Lilah sweetheart, you are breathtaking." Her face relaxed, a broad smile stretching across her glorious lips.

     She blushed under his thumbs. "Thank you. The girls thought, since I could stand that it may make me feel better to get out of that gown and dress up a bit." John was shaking his head in approval, looking her over for the slightest sign of pain as she stood. "Do you...Does it hurt? Are you hurting anywhere?" his voice trembled with worry.

     She reached up circling his wrists with her slender fingers, as he still held her face and shook her head no. "I feel good, John. For the first time in so very very long, I feel good." And for the first time too, since he could remember, a huge smile spread across his weary face. Here she was, this little angel fell to earth. Her wings broken, her body destroyed and yet, she still stood despite it all. Warm and soft in his rough hands. Her sweet face just gazing up at him like he was the only thing in this world and all else around them had disappeared.