I straighten, body going taut at having been caught. I hope she doesn’t think I was snooping, though I’m not sure why I care what she thinks of me at all.
“Hi,” I say, pushing the door open and stepping into what seems to be a library.
“How are you? Come, sit with me,” she says.
“Mikhail needs a doctor. You said I could come to you for anything, so?—”
She frowns, her feline-like features twisting with concern. “Yes. And I meant it. Is he not well?”
“Please; don’t act like you don’t know what your husband did to him. He’s badly hurt, and he’s burning up. Is this what ‘family’ means to you people?”
Victoria stands, taking a step toward me. Not in an intimidating way, but, rather, determined.
“I don’t know what you’re referring to, but you should know there’s a lot of...history between the two of them. Most of it isn’t pleasant. Still, that doesn’t mean they want to kill each other.” She looks to the side, as if she’s remembering something, then back at me. “Let me go talk to my husband and see what happened. I’ll make sure Mikhail gets that doctor.”
“And if your husband says no?”
She shakes her head. “He won’t. I won’t let him make that mistake.”
Later, I’m sitting on top of the covers next to Mikhail’s patched-up body. The doctor was indeed called, and Victoria apologized profusely for what happened, even though I know it couldn’t have been her fault. Her husband never showed up by his side—not that I wanted to meet him anyway—but at least he let the doctor come.
Twisted as they might be, I can tell they care about each other. Perhaps Victoria is right, and their past is too dark not to overshadow the present.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Mikhail murmurs, drawing my gaze to his lush mouth, to the tattoos that stretch across his neckand his beautifully rough exterior. Even now, in the state he’s in, he makes my heart skip a beat.
“I think the words you’re looking for arethank you,” I say. “You were developing an infection. You could’ve died.”
“Had a talk with the devil this morning. Fucker didn’t want me down there. Where else would I have gone?”
I roll my eyes, bringing my knees to my chest, the exhaustion of the past few days finally catching up with me. Leaning my head against the headboard, I take in a breath and close my eyes for a minute. Mikhail’s energy coils around me from where he’s lying, even if we aren’t touching. He’s under the sheets, and I’m not. Neither of us has mentioned anything about this odd proximity, and I’m not going to be the one who does.
Helping him was a transaction, nothing more.
“You should’ve let me die,” he says, his voice groggy, thick with his own exertion. “Because you might refuse to accept it,Lastochka, but that’s the only way you’ll stop being mine.”
My body goes loose and taut at the same time, his words brushing something dangerous—lethal—against my better judgment. I don’t respond, don’t entertain his nonsense. Instead, I keep my eyes closed for a minute longer, telling myself I’m only here to ensure his fever doesn’t spike.
My own screamis the thing that wakes me up.
I thrash and stretch, fighting an impossible force that presses down on my body. My voice scratches my throat raw as the lingering feel of blood flooding my hands overpowers me.
Thick. Gross. Familiar.
I try to bring my arms up, but my wrists are locked in place. When I kick my legs, my thighs crash into something hard as rock.
I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can’t?—
“Cecilia! Cecilia, wake up!”
My eyes jolt open, chest heaving with loud, ugly breaths as I turn my head from side to side. Eventually, Mikhail’s face appears above me through my clouded vision, green eyes flashing with concern in the dark.
“You’re safe,” he says, his voice too careful, too calm. “You had a nightmare. Breathe.”
I blink, my body immobile under his weight. His eyes shift across my face and then lower to my naked neck. His heartbeat drums against mine, loud and uneven. Or is that mine?
Neither of us utters a single word for what feels like forever. The room is quiet, a testament to the walls that hold their own breath. My mouth goes slack, cheeks flushing with the intense way he watches me, at the way he holds me down.
The nightmare dissipates from my memory like ash from a dying fire, and suddenly, I become aware of the position we’re in, of how safe I feel under this gaze that used to terrify me.
