Page 51 of The Pakhan’s Stolen Bride

"Via."

The voice is quiet, but it sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a deep well.

I slide down the kitchen counter, my knees hitting the cold linoleum floor, my hands coming up to cover my ears as another wave of thunder rolls over the house. I’m shaking, my shoulders tensing, my head tucked down toward my knees.

Please. Just stop. Make it stop.

A pair of warm, solid hands gently takes my wrists, slowly pulling my hands away from my ears.

I blink through the tears blurring my vision, my chest heaving as I look up. Ilya is crouching in front of me, his eyes filled with worry as they search through mine.

He’s in a pair of loose grey flannel trousers, his massive chest bare, his dark hair messy and falling over his forehead. He looks smaller like this, softer, the harsh angles of his jaw smoothed out by the dim light of the stove's blue flames.

"Breathe, little bird," he says, his voice feels like a physical anchor in the middle of the storm. "You're in the kitchen. The doors are locked. The guards are at the perimeter. There are no guns here."

I clutch at his forearm, my fingers digging into his thick muscle as another flash of lightning lights up the room. "The... the noise. It sounds like..."

"I know," he says, his hand coming up to cup the back of my neck, his thumb rubbing the soft skin behind my ear. "It’s just the rain on the glass. It’s loud, but it can’t get inside."

I rest my forehead against his bare shoulder, my breath coming in short, panting hitches as the rhythm of my heart slowly begins to match his. He stays perfectly still, letting me lean my weight against him, his warmth slowly cutting through the cold sweat on my skin.

"Why are you awake?" I whisper, my voice shaking against his shoulder.

"I heard the kettle," he says, his eyes fixed on the blue flame of the stove. "And I know you don't sleep well when the sky looks like this."

I pull back slightly, looking at his face. The cold, unyielding Pakhan is gone, replaced by something raw and quiet. "How do you know that?"

"Because I don't sleep either," he says, his jaw clenching slightly.

He slowly turns his body, his back facing the light of the stove. The dim amber glow from the hallway catches his skin, and my breath catches in my throat.

His back is a map of violence.

I’ve seen his scars before, but in this light, they look different. Running from his left shoulder down to his lower spine is a thick, jagged trench of white, puckered flesh, looking like a branch of lightning frozen in his skin. It isn't a neat knife cut, and it isn't a clean bullet hole. It’s a messy, horrific ruin of a scar that looks like his flesh was literally torn away.

"October fourteenth," he says, his voice flat, completely devoid of emotion as he looks over his shoulder at me. "I was seven. My father was at the docks, and my mother was in the conservatory, trying to save her orchids from the frost. The Russos didn't use rifles that night. They used three pounds of military-grade plastic explosives under the foundation."

I reach out, my hand trembling as my fingers hover over the jagged white trench on his spine. "Ilya..."

"The glass from the roof came down first," he says, his eyes staring blankly at the dark kitchen floor. "It was like a silver rain. I was hiding under the cast-iron bench, but a piece of the copper frame caught me across the shoulders. I couldn't move. I had to sit there, pinned to the stone, watching her..."

He stops, his chest rising and falling in a slow, heavy breath.

"She didn't die quickly," he murmurs, his hand clenching into a fist on his knee. "She stayed alive for twenty minutes, her hand holding mine through the iron slats of the bench. She kept telling me to stay quiet. She kept telling me that if I made a sound, they’d come back to finish the job. My father found us three hours later. He didn't cry. He didn't even touch her body. He just looked at my back, told me that weakness was a disease, and handed me my first blade."

My heart aches with a sudden, crushing pain that has nothing to do with the storm. I look at his massive, scarred shoulders, and for the first time, I don't see the Pakhan. I see a seven-year-old boy pinned under a burning greenhouse, holding his mother’s hand while she bled out on the stone.

"He never let you grieve," I say, my voice barely a whisper.

"He told me that if you love something, the world will find a way to use it to break you," Ilya says, his hand slowly relaxing on his knee. "He made me spend the next ten years learning how to kill the men who did it. He made me into a weapon, Via. And weapons don't have room for anything else."

"He was wrong," I say, my fingers finally touching the rough, puckered flesh of his scar.

He flinches slightly at the contact, a shiver running through his massive frame, but he doesn't pull away.

I slide my hand up his back, my thumb tracing the line of the old copper burn. I lean forward, my breath hot against his skin as I drop my mouth to his shoulder. I kiss the edge of the scar, my lips soft against the rough, white tissue.

Ilya lets out a low groan, his body going completely rigid.