She tasted like tears and determination and something sweet and pure. Her mouth opened under mine, and I was lost. The monster in my chest didn't roar—it purred, satisfied in a way violence had never made it. This was what it had been hungry for. Not blood or battle, but this woman in my arms, kissing me like I was salvation instead of damnation.
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together, sharing air and space and something more that neither of us could name yet. Her hands were still fisted in my shirt, holding on like I might disappear. My hand was still in her hair, thumb stroking the sensitive spot behind her ear that made her shiver.
"Kostya," she breathed against my mouth, and hearing my name like that—soft and wondering and wanted—broke something in me that had been locked away so long I'd forgotten it existed.
I kissed her again, gentler this time but no less desperate. Pulled her closer until she was practically in my lap, her slight weight nothing against my frame but somehow grounding me more than violence ever had. She made a soft sound against my mouth, and I knew with absolute certainty that I was ruined.
This broken, brilliant, fierce little creature had just become the most important thing in my world.
I would burn down anyone who tried to hurt her. Would reshape the entire city to keep her safe. Would feed her and guard her and give her soft things and sharp boundaries and everything in between. Would be the monster when she needed protection and the man when she needed gentleness.
She pulled back just enough to look at me, eyes wide and vulnerable in a way that told me she felt it too—this shift, this change, this irrevocable alteration of everything we thought we knew about ourselves.
"This is dangerous," she whispered.
"Yes," I agreed, thumb still stroking behind her ear. "Everything about this is dangerous."
"I don't care."
"Neither do I."
And that was the truth of it. The danger didn't matter. All that mattered was this—her in my arms, the kittens purring in their box, the moonlight making everything feel like a dream we'd both wake from but didn't want to.
"Stay with me tonight," she whispered. "Not for—just stay. I sleep better when I'm not alone."
"Yes," I said, because there was no other answer. Had never been another answer from the moment I'd seen her on the monitors, falling apart in a corner where no one could see.
I stood, pulling her up with me, keeping her close because letting go felt impossible now. The kittens mewed in protest at the movement, then settled back into their pile of warmth and safety.
Just like Maya would, curled against me. Safe, protected, mine to guard even if she wasn't mine to keep.
Not yet, anyway.
But the monster in my chest had already decided, and what the monster wanted, it eventually got.
Chapter 8
Maya
Threedays.
That's how long I mostly managed to avoid looking directly at Konstantin Besharov. Three days of staring at laptop screens and medical files and the fascinating pattern of wood grain on Maks's desk—anything but those gray eyes.
The kiss haunted me. Not just the kiss—the after. The way I'd melted into his chest like I belonged there. The way his arms had wrapped around me, turning his massive body into a fortress with me safe inside. The way I'd slept, actually slept, for the first time in months.
That terrified me more than Brand's assassins ever could.
The next morning, when I woke, alone, I made a decision. I would rebuild every wall Konstantin had started to demolish. Brick by brick, hour by hour, I reconstructed Dr. Maya Cross—competent, clinical, absolutely fine on her own. I wasn't the woman who'd sobbed in a corner. Definitely wasn't the womanwhose thumb had drifted toward her mouth, seeking comfort she was too ashamed to take.
I wouldn’t talk about the kiss, wouldn’t talk about feelings, basically wouldn’t talk to Kostya about anything.
Maks had given me workspace in his tech room, probably because Nikolai had ordered it. The room was all screens and shadows, the blue light turning everything slightly unreal. Perfect for disappearing into work. I transcribed Brand's horror show with mechanical precision—surgical schedules, buyer codes, the careful notation of which organs went to which anonymous monster. My fingers flew across the keyboard, turning atrocity into data, making it manageable, clinical, safe.
The door opened at exactly noon on the first day. I knew it was Kostya without looking up—something about the way the air changed when he entered a room, like barometric pressure dropping before a storm.
"Lunch." His voice rumbled through the space between us. The plate appeared in my peripheral vision—sandwich, apple slices, a bottle of water with condensation beading on the plastic.
"Thank you," I told my laptop screen. The cursor blinked. Patient 5, bilateral corneal extraction. I kept typing.
