Her father’s gaunt features told a story of torture, but the rope tied around his ankles offended her most.
Kat fell to her knees, crippled with grief and guilt, blended together in a poisonous brew that threatened to pull her into a darkness from which she’d never come out of. Years of searching for her father… and she’d chosen to let him die.
“I drew the water out of his lungs,” Prince said, starting another round of compressions. His wet shirt stuck to his body, and strands of hair had fallen from the band that held it.
Kat looked at her father’s lifeless body. Shifters were hard to kill, but by no means were they immortal. Shifting allowed their body to speed up the healing process, so if they were injured, a few shifts would make them good as new. But if her father’s heart had stopped…
“Papa!” Nadia shrieked, stumbling toward them. She put her arm around Kat, clinging to her and trembling with fright.
Prince blew another breath and then checked her father’s pulse before he started compressions again.
Seconds turned into minutes. Nadia was shaking and whispering incoherently in Russian. Nothing could have prepared Kat for this moment, and she looked on in disbelief. She’d spent decades searching for her father, never giving up hope that one day they might be reunited. She wasn’t ready to let him go. She reached down and took his hand, pressing it to her cheek.
“Please,Papa. Please… you can’t die. Not like this. Not on the edge of a riverbank; it’s not supposed to happen like this. I have to tell you I love you one last time.Don’t leave me.” Tears burned her eyes as she kept repeating the last words.
When Prince began to tire, she pushed him away and took over. Kat had never learned CPR, but she’d just taken her first crash-course lesson by watching him. She went to blow a breath and whispered, “Please, Papa. Come back.”
On her eleventh compression, he sputtered out a wet cough.
Prince pushed his eyelids up, his alpha voice becoming a fierce command. “Shift.”
Her father shifted into a red wolf, and once the healing magic began to take hold, Prince forced him to shift back. While he did this several times to help with the healing process, Kat fell back and covered her face with her arms. She’d never been so exhausted in her life, so overcome with emotions from opposite ends of the spectrum.
“He’s going to be all right,” Nadia whispered like a prayer.
Someone pulled Kat’s arms away, and a dark shadow loomed over her. “Are you injured?” Prince asked.
“No.”
“My apologies.”
This was too much if he thought he was going to stand there and apologize. “What are you sorry for?”
“I made you a promise I wouldn’t let Vlad get away, no matter what. I had to break that promise.”
“You saved my father; you’re off the hook. Where the hell did you learn CPR?”
He sat beside her and threaded a strand of wet hair away from her forehead. “I may be almost a thousand years old, but I know how to work a remote control, and I know how to perform CPR. Not every wolf can shift, and certainly not the children in my pack.”
Kat reached out, cupping his cheek and stroking her fingers along his contoured features. “You’re a remarkable man. I completely underestimated you.”
“In what way?”
“So stupid,” she said to herself, shaking her head. “I thought money meant you weren’t as strong—that you have people do thingsforyou. But you proved me wrong. It’s not just that; it’s everything. I shouldn’t have judged you like I did, but most men with that much money and power don’t really know how to live life or fight their own battles. I thought you’d go after Vlad—I really did. All that hate you have for him goes way back… I figured revenge would be more important to you than saving a man you haven’t seen in centuries. Thank God you have long legs; you must’ve run really fast to reach him on time. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find Nadia underwater, and for a second there, I thought I was a goner.”
He slid his hands behind her back and pulled her into a sitting position. “A woman like you is hard to kill. You’re solid as a rock.”
Kat burst out laughing. “Either you have a subtle sense of humor, or bad taste in music.” She noticed the bewilderment in his eyes and stroked his arm. “Never mind.”Thank you, she mouthed.
When Kat looked over her right shoulder, her father and Nadia were holding each other in a tight embrace. He’d put on his pants, and his raggedy button-up shirt was undone. He was the same man, but he appeared older because of his overgrown beard and gaunt appearance.
Damn Vlad for what he’s done.
Her father turned toward her and she saw the spark of life in his eyes. It gave her a rush of satisfaction knowing Vlad hadn’t won. He obviously didn’t realize that he’d never be able to break Alexei Kozlov.
Her father reached out, curling his fingers inward and summoning her. “My Katarina…”
She crawled toward him and fell into his arms. Somehow her father’s arms always felt like the strongest embrace in the world.
