A/N: I apologize to my Readers who are reading more than just this one of my stories. I seem to be on a roll here with this one. I'm also positive that I've said sorry to you guys about a thousand times in all my books so far. Pfft. Should I dogeza?! Nah, it would hurt.
Lily Clairmount:
I'd placed him on my bed and had Celia go grab something for me to mix the medicine in. Helena was curled up in the sofa chair across the room with her chin resting on her knees. She was slightly shaking.
Unfortunately, this was the first time she'd seen this much blood let alone someone injured. There'd been one time she'd fallen while running but after being berated by Damon she'd never run in the halls again.
"Celia, please bring Helena out and make her a warm cup of soothing tea," I'd instructed her as soon as she handed over the items I asked for.
She immediately complied and picked up my shaken daughter before exiting. I let out a sigh and brought my attention back to the young boy.
As I begun to wipe the blood off him I started uncovering wounds, scars, and bruises. The only thing left unmarred was his tiny face. If you didn't look at the rest of his malnourished body and only focused on his face you'd think he was perfectly fine. What didn't escape my eyes though, and one of the things almost as shocking to me as the wounds marring his flesh, were the massive amounts of Markings on his tiny body. Or the four stars that were between his shoulders, almost barely visible because of how weak he currently was.
His dark grey hair hung down to the middle of his thighs in a ratted mess with all kinds of dirt, trash, and hay sticking from it. I'd have to cut it completely off and allow it to regrow in order for it to look normal again.
When I'd finished cleaning him and put a new set of pajamas on him that Celia had gotten from one of the male servants, he'd fluttered his emerald eyes open.
At first he'd stiffened within my arms and slid away from me to rest against the headboard with his knees drawn up. His eyes flashed with wariness and I noticed he had a black beauty mark under the right one.
"Why'd you bring me here, lady?"
I was shocked at his tone. Not entirely though, since I knew he had been not only abused .. but sexually abused. He was only 8 years old from what I can remember. There was no way to hide the pain on my face and I felt close to crying as I grabbed the drink I'd made.
"This is a healing drink. It'll help regain your strength and close the wounds on you." I'd bandaged them but that didn't mean they were healing. There wasn't any way to get him to swallow the drink while he'd been unconscious.
He glanced at the drink suspiciously. "How do I know that's not poison or something to make me docile?"
Apparently this was going to take a while for him to trust me. I simply put the drink to my lips and swallowed a bit of it before showing him that it was perfectly fine. Then I reached to hand him the cup again.
He still looked wary but reached a hand out tentatively. One thing I was certain of was he didn't ever receive a name from his parents nor the people who had caged him but I still needed to ask.
"What's your name?"
"..."
His glare that he shot me could probably kill a weaker soul but I knew that he'd been through hell.
"If you don't want to tell me than I'll just choose one for you. How about Nathaniel?"
This was his name in the game and I figured it would be fine to call him that now.
He'd only given me a simple nod. I could see that he wasn't going to rest unless I left the room.
"I'll leave so that you can rest," I let out a sigh as I gave him a sad smile, "If you need anything, Celia my maid, will be just next door. I'll be down the hall in my daughter Helena's room. Feel free to join us if you feel lonely."
Before leaving, I reached over to grab the cup from him and noticing he didn't flinch away I patted his tiny hands.
"I'll also have someone make you some porridge. Right now your body is too weak for anything more substantial."
Then I left him in my room.