18 | Protective

*“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray*


**GABRIEL**

Everything inside of me crashed and burned. A raw sense of possessiveness took over as soon as I perused the state Sienna was in.
Her otherwise bright and twinkling grey eyes were hollow and distant. The hair was already a mess, the face was swollen, and those pretty lips…there was a huge cut on it which was now bleeding. All the more reason because she tried to suck on it from the pain.
Jesus Christ.
*What has this girl done to herself?*
And most importantly, *why*?
Without pondering much about it, I quickly hauled to her Hattie, who took over the caregiving. And her reaction was pretty much the same as mine.
“Oh, girl,” she clucked her tongue and shook her head, reaching for the disinfectant lotion. “This one is bad. You should have come up first, missy. Your lips have bled quite already.”
Sienna didn’t reply. In fact, she sat demurely on the bed with her hands folded into her lap while I had to hold back her hair.
“Is she going to need stitches?”
Hattie eyed the cut thoroughly, taking hold of her chin and then slowly shook her head. “I don’t think so. But she needs to be careful. It will take some time to heal, though.”
She patched her up in no time, making Sienna flinch once or twice from the pain and listed down a few instructions as a precaution.
“Make sure you have soft foods for dinner and keep applying the ice pack every two hours. On a scale of one to ten, how’s the pain?”
Sienna murmured with a downcast gaze, “I am fine.”
“That’s not what I have asked, girl,” Hattie said with displeasure. “Now, give me a number.”
She shrugged casually as if wanting to escape the older woman’s censuring gaze. “One.”
“I will never understand this young generation. You younglings are either being very brave or very stupid. There’s nothing in between.”
With an exasperated huff of breath and glowering eyes, she reached for the drawer and fished out a bottle of pills. She then thrust them into my hands. “Give her ibuprofen if the pain gets too much, but make sure that she has eaten something beforehand. Pain reliever on an empty stomach is a poison. And my work here is done.”
“Thank you.”
I took hold of her elbows and mindlessly brought her back to my residence because I didn’t know where to take her. She was completely zoned out and unresponsive, and I could not take the risk of having this conversation in the common place. Of course, my office or empty classrooms were some of the good options or even the Chapel in the backyard, but it was still a distant choice.
I ushered her into the room and closed the door. When I had turned, the sight of her exhausted figure and dishevelled appearance almost broke my heart.
Six years ago, I had abandoned every emotion and feeling in order to get rid of my monstrosity and sick workings of my mind. And for the first time since, I felt insanely protective of someone. I wanted to ensnare her in my arms and did not let her go.
Even though she would not say a word, I had a feeling that she was asking for help. Something had happened…something disturbing enough to snuff out her fire and ashen her features.
“Sit down,” I directed and then dragged the chair for myself. “Now tell me what happened out there? Did anyone tell you anything?”
Sienna sat on the edge of my bed, legs dangling down and her hands folded in her lap. She was sitting exactly the way she was at the infirmary, closed off and refused to communicate.
But I’d have none of that.
In my previous life, I had made a submissive cry, whimper and begged at the will of my voice if they did not communicate openly with me and if I’d have to inject that much steel into my tone to make her talk, then so be it.
She continued to pursue her injured lip and shook her head in blatant refusal.
I seized her chin, thumbing the lower lip and forced her gaze on mine. “That will absolutely not work.” My tone tinged with dark threats. “Sienna, I want to hear you say it. Why did you pick up a fight with those girls?”
“Nothing.” Her voice was like grated sandpaper. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, too bad. You don’t have a choice here.”
The sad, hollow eyes sparked with indignation and glossy tears. “Yeah, well, then punish me. I am the one who punched and kicked them, and if I ever get a chance, I will do it all over again. And I am not fucking sorry about it. My only regret is that I didn’t break her goddamn face.”
She jerked her face away from my hold, averting my gaze as if she could successfully hide herself from me. Never. I had always craved to pry her open and know her secrets, now more than ever.
Instead of her chin, I cupped the side of her face and snagged her attention back. “You can’t—”
My eyes dropped to her tightly shut fist. She has been clutching onto something…something she held so tightly that her knuckles has gone completely white.
“What’s in your hand? Show me.” I didn’t wait for her to comply and tried to pry open her fingers. “Give it to me. Now.”
Maybe it was my tone or my forceful way, but her fingers slackened. Her palm splayed open, and I noticed that she was clutching some broken pieces of jewellery.
It looked *familiar*.
“It’s your pendant…your mother’s pendant, right?” I reminisced and stared into her eyes. “Who broke this?”
Her empty eyes stared back at me for a long moment, and as soon as it started to turn glassy, she tried to look away. But this time, I didn’t relent.
It gave me a clear view of the window of her tortured mind, the way she has suppressed her pain and how vulnerable she must have been at the moment.
Whatever happened was due to someone else’s provocation.
Sienna opened her mouth to say something, but the way her lips quivered and her locked jaw tightened, I didn’t need her words.
I pulled her to my chest, and immediately she shattered.
The brave and fiery Sienna Emerson, who had walked into my school and my office, promising me to give me hell, was curled into my body and crying uncontrollably. The wracking sobs were so violent that my heart could have been split into two if I had one. Still, it was harrowing. Even for a man like me.
I could not remember the last time I had held a crying woman like this, safely tucked into the expanse of my body until she found her sanity. But I have never held someone like her. So small and vulnerable and sad.
I let her cry her heart out for a while, knowing she needed to vent out and slowly petted the back of her head to calm her down. It took some time for her tears to completely dissipate, but eventually, Sienna settled down in my arms. She tried to squirm away, embarrassed, but I held her tightly.
It was both a heavenly feeling and torture to hold her so close. Even though there was nothing sexual, yet the hunger to maintain the touch was rolling inside my head. Her soft skin and lithe figure fitted into my arms so perfectly that it was giving her crazy ideas.
I wanted to see how the skin of her ass would bloom under my hand, to feel the tightness of her scalp when I’d pull her hair or the softness of her breasts against my palms.
*Fuck*.
I had lived an austere life for years, free from the evil snares of my twisted mind, and yet this girl made me want to break every one of the rules I had set for myself.
“I am…sorry…” she hiccuped through her strained voice and slowly straightened herself.
“Don’t be. Are you okay now?”
Her head bobbed feebly. “I am…better.”
Letting out a heavy sigh, I stroked the velvet skin of her hand that still held on to the pieces of the broken pendant. “I know you are hurt, Sienna. And while I don’t know the full story behind this, but I have an idea how much this means to you.”
She braved to meet my eyes, letting me see her raw emotions. “It was all I had.”
I could not resist and reached out to cup her face in my hands. “I am sure your mother has loved you a great deal, more than anything that could be trapped into a pendant. She is in your heart.”
Fresh tears spilt anew. “It…hurts.”
“It will get better. Trust me.”
“I don’t know if it will be ever…” The rest of her words got drowned in sobs. I plucked the glass of water from the table and brought it to her lips. Obediently so, her mouth parted.
“Take slow sips,” I instructed. “Be careful of your lip. That’s better.”
Sienna let me hold her for another long moment before letting out a tremulous sigh and angling up her head. There was a small wry smile on her lips that crushed me from within. Sadness was etched in every corner of her profile.
I would rather she fought with me.
“So, what happens to me now, Father Sullivan?” she asked brokenly. “You are going to punish me for starting a brawl?”
With a tortured smile of my own, I tightened my hold. “Gabriel,” I whispered, too close to her lips. “You can call me by my name.”

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