“The old man has the same voice as my stepdad.” Ranger exhaled acrid smoke through his nose. “That same foot-stompwith that fake backhand. You don’t know how many times I wished that fucker would just hit me and get it over with.”
“I do not know,” I agreed. “But you can tell me any time you need to.”
“I don’t. You asked.”
Not quite, but I didn’t argue. I went back inside and made him coffee, and hot food.
Then it was time to take Lida to Katya and to train. I led him to the clearing that had become our battle ring, muscles buzzing in a way they had not in a long time. I felt different. Faster. Stronger. Darkness began to fall as we circled each other, and I knew Ranger felt it too.
In me, not him. He had always been fast and strong. Too swift and agile for me to contain.
But I feltdifferent. Lethal. In motion before I made the conscious decision to strike. On him before he had time to react.
Ranger hit the ground, my blade at his throat. He laughed, but the slow clap that pierced the air was not his. The voice that joined it wasRussian, though the words were for him.
“Very good, nomad. Perhaps Vitya is ready after all.”
[ 24 ]
RANGER
Alexei leaned against a tree, gaze hawkish and deadly as Viktor straightened and I rolled to my feet. Something that looked like approval glittered in his eyes, but with this dude, I was never sure.
I rubbed dirt from my elbows. “You could’ve called.”
That earned me an arched brow. Just one. “Why would I do that?”
No idea. But if the maddest, baddest Russian thought spying on us from the bushes was fucking normal, I didn’t know what to say.
Reading me, Alexei switched his appraisal to Viktor.
He said something Russian.
Viktor nodded and extended a hand to the house. Apparently, we were going inside.
I had no desire to sit there like a thick-as-mince bellend while they talked over me. I took a shower, rinsing off the dirt from Vik’s brutal put down. Washing away the hours we’d spent in bed together.
Sweat. Cum. Love.
Feels wrong.
But kinda right now Alexei was here.
Alexeiwas here. What the fuck?
It was right up there with Satsuma Island.
I shut the shower off, water dripping from my sodden hair and disappearing down the drain, taking with it the sanctuary me and Vik had found over the last few days. Weeks. A month. I didn’t know how long it had been. I’d stopped counting eight seconds after I’d laid eyes on him. I’d stopped fucking existing as the man I’d been before, and now here I was, about to go to war with him, and I’d have bet my left kidney that Alexei was here to tell us how to do it.
Wasn’t sad I was missing that. But... I missed Viktor, and it was enough to propel me out of the shower with a heavy sigh.
I dragged some clothes on. Deathly silence filtered from the kitchen, but I couldn’t see Vik and Alexei kicking it on the couch, so I headed there anyway and found them at the counter, studying blueprints while Alexei scratched Lida’s ears.
She remembered him.
Liked him.
I guess I did too.
