And then… He isn’t the only one there.
A second figure slams into him from the side hard enough to send both of them crashing into a parked car.
A shout. A brutal, familiar fist.
It comes out of nowhere and cracks across the man’s jaw with enough force to send him sideways into the parked car. The sound is sickening. Metal rattles. The attacker stumbles, and before I can even process what I’m seeing, someone grabs him by the collar and slams him hard into the hood.
Aleksei.
For one stunned second, my brain refuses to catch up. Then it does, all at once.
Dark coat. Hard face. Violence moving through him like it belongs there.
He hits the man again, sharp and vicious, then wrenches his arm behind his back so fast the attacker screams. A knife skids across the pavement under the streetlight. Aleksei kicks it away without looking.
The man tries to twist free. Bad choice.
Aleksei drives him face-first into the car and growls, “You touched her.”
I have never heard his voice like that.
This is something else. Raw. Furious. The kind of anger that doesn’t need volume because it is already deadly.
The attacker chokes out something I can’t hear.
Aleksei doesn’t care. He pins him harder, one hand at the back of his neck, the other fisted in his jacket, and for one horriblesecond I genuinely think he is going to kill him right here on my street.
“Aleksei,” I say, but it comes out weak, breathless.
His head turns. His eyes hit mine. And everything in his face changes.
Not the rage. That stays. But now it has direction.
He shoves the man to the ground hard enough to keep him there, then crosses the distance to me in three strides.
“Zatanna.” His hands are on me immediately, everywhere and nowhere, checking. My face. My shoulders. My arms. One hand at the back of my head, gentle and trembling with restraint. The other flattening over my stomach.
“Are you hurt?”
I blink at him, still trying to breathe. “He—he?—”
“I know.” His voice is low now, roughened by anger and something worse. “Look at me.”
I do. Barely.
My head is throbbing. My groceries are all over the sidewalk. I can feel my pulse in my teeth. But his hands are warm and solid, and somehow that keeps the panic from taking me all the way under.
“He hit me,” I say stupidly, because apparently that is the best my brain can do.
His jaw clenches so hard I hear his teeth grind. Then he looks at the man on the pavement and all that fury comes roaring back into his face.
“No,” I say quickly, grabbing the front of his coat with both hands. “No, don’t—” He looks down at me. “I’m fine,” I lie.
He stares at me for one beat, sees straight through it, and then lets out a slow breath through his nose like he is physically forcing himself not to turn around and finish what he started.
His hand slides back to my head. Fingers parting my hair carefully now, searching. When he finds the swelling near my temple, his eyes go black. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s not a lot.” That is not the correct thing to say.
