“I was short on choices.” He advanced toward the bed, his gait purposeful. “We need to get you out of these wet clothes. I didn’t come to your rescue just to have you die of pneumonia.”
As much as she wanted to argue, Roksana had to agree that getting out of her wet clothing sounded heavenly. Already the soaked material was beginning to cool and goose bumps formed on her skin. The weight of the sodden clothing alone was agony on her sore muscles. “How are we going to do this without you bearing witness to my breathtaking nakedness?”
His silence was strained. “Can you stand?”
“I have to go on a quest in two days’ time,” she said, pressure settling on her chest. “If I can’t stand, I better start learning how to fly.”
Elias’s frame tensed. “Say more about the quest.”
“One thing at a time, temnota mo—” Alarmed by her near slipup, she patted him on the shoulder harder than intended. “Put me down.”
He did as she asked, slowly, keeping her steady with an arm around her waist. When she glanced back at him over her shoulder, to see if he’d noticed the nickname, he only regarded her with grave eyes and a stiff upper lip. “I’m going to take this old sheet off the bed and wrap it around you,” he said, his gaze never leaving her as he stripped off his own drenched shirt, letting it slap down to the floor without a smidgen of self-consciousness.
Warrior.
That single word whispered through her mind. This was her first time seeing his naked torso, and man alive, he was a sight. Of course he was engraved with muscle, deep grooves forming a V starting at the tops of his hips and disappearing into his pants. A generous patch of black chest hair, flat brown nipples on either side. Lethal arms cut with brawn and decorated in ink. A puckered knife scar bisected his abdomen.
Souvenirs of his past life? The skin beneath his clothes must be paler than the first time she’d met him, but it could be no less rugged. Male. Elias.
How could someone who pulsed with such vitality have no pulse?
“You need a minute, Roks?”
Her tummy flipped. He rarely shortened her name, but the raspy intimacy of it never failed to jump-start her libido. “I’m merely sizing up an opponent.” She faced forward again before he could see her blush. “Don’t get it twisted.”
He scoffed lightly and crowded close once again, banding that strong arm around her waist. Keeping his hold in place, Elias leaned past her, whipping off the top white layer off the bed and shaking it out. Grateful he couldn’t see her face, Roksana let her eyes drift shut so she could heighten her sense of touch. Because my God. The ripple and swell of his pectorals against her back was incredible. Even in her injured state, she wasn’t immune to the flex and dip of his strength. His sinew. She could feel it all, even through her layer of wet clothing.
Elias eased away from her only momentarily to secure the sheet over her shoulders and around her body, then drew her back to his solid wall of muscle. “All right.” Was it her imagination or did his fingers clutch at the sheet a little desperately? “Can you…” He paused and she couldn’t help fantasizing that he needed to gather himself, to prepare for being this close to her while she stripped. “Can you unfasten your pants and push them down?”
Being pressed to Elias made her limbs feel languid. She’d never been taken care of in her life and despite who this man was, despite the fact that she would kill him in the near future, she couldn’t help but want to give in. To let him care for her fully. But no good would come of indulging that temptation, so she pushed through the haze of comfort and unbuttoned her leather pants, lowering the zipper. Upon sliding her thumbs into the tight waistband, she winced, her forearms shaking and seizing up when she tried to push them down.
“I can’t,” she gasped. “I can’t do it.”
A vibration traveled through his body. “You’re not supposed to get hurt, goddamn you.”
Her teeth started to chatter. With cold, irritation, residual fear. “Considering the alternative was death, I think I fared pretty well.”
Elias remained still for several seconds, then the sheet was twisted in his hands and ripped straight down the middle, the thin material falling in tatters to the floor.
She clucked her tongue. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but we are short on linens.”
The floorboards creaked as he came around, stopping in front of her, his eyes glowing like copper fire. “You knowingly came here to die?” One more step and he’d completely invaded her personal space. “You came here to die over your failure to kill me?”
In lieu of a yes, Roksana lifted her chin. “And your cronies, da.”
His pupils expanded, blocking out the color. “Why were you allowed to live?”
Because I was given a second chance to kill you. “I was given a different task,” she said, amending the truth slightly. “One that is more important than ridding the planet of a few inconsequential bloodsuckers.”
“One of those bloodsuckers is the king now.” Elias raised an eyebrow. “Your mother no longer wants him dead?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Nyet. She does not.”
“Interesting.”
“Why?”
Elias didn’t answer her—and his anger was far from dissipated. “Enough with the bullshit. You’re shaking.” He took her by the wrists, guiding her hands to his shoulders. “I’m going to take your shirt off.”
She braced herself with a breath, at this point prepared to remove the chilled garments by any means necessary. “Okay.”
Roksana glued her attention to Elias’s throat while he lifted the wet shirt, easing it over her aching shoulders. “All right, reckless brat,” he instructed gruffly. “Drop your head forward.”
“Fine,” she grumbled, tucking her chin to her chest. “Homicidal ass.”
With a grunt from Elias, her wet shirt was pulled forward over her head, smacking into a saturated bundle on the ground. Leaving her in nothing but a red demi-cup bra and leather pants. Elias’s only reaction was a sharp leap in the line of his jaw. “No bustier today?”
Roksana straightened with a groan and pursed her lips. “I like to feel cozy when I fly.”
“Comfort mattered on the way to your own death?” Elias snapped.
“What is it to you?” Roksana blurted, wishing she had the strength to shove him backwards. “Why do you care? With me gone, you’d have been cleared of any favors owed. You could already be on your way back to New York. What should my death matter to you?”
Elias gripped the meat of her arms in a whip of color. For just a fleeting second, there was such torture on his face, she forgot to shiver. She could only chase that expression like a hound, stunned, and then it was gone. Had it ever been there to begin with? The swift presentation of something—some feeling for once—and then the quick removal of it rocked Roksana back on her heels.
“You are a close friend of the king’s wife. And I serve the king now,” Elias said quietly, dropping his shaking hands from her person. “To allow something to happen to you would…upset things.”
There it was. The truth. He wasn’t there because of some star-crossed, unrequited love. Stupid girl. He might have come to repay a favor, but he did so out of pride. He cared for her out of duty to Jonas and Ginny. Nothing more, nothing less.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
His blanch was a slight, infinitesimal thing. As imaginary as the agony she’d glimpsed just seconds ago. “That’s fine,” he said in a clipped tone. “Just stay alive.”
Roksana stared woodenly at the wall as Elias peeled down her leather pants, going down on his knees to remove her shoes, socks, pants. When he finished, it took him longer than necessary to stand, but he did, features tight, fists bunched. Refusing to read anything more into a single thing Elias did, she closed her eyes and ignored him, willing her body to restore its balance. Taking her misplaced gravity back from the man.
But all the fight went out of her when Elias wrapped her in his warm coat, swee
ping Roksana off her feet and laying her in the center of the bed, cradled in his scent. “Rest now.”
For now, she didn’t have a choice, did she?
Soon, though.
Soon she would have nothing but choices—each of them harder than the last.
What else was new?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Roksana stared at the door of the apartment, her body paralyzed—and not because of her injuries. After Elias broke off the kitchen cabinet doors and nailed them up over the windows, he’d left to go find food, clothes and painkillers for Roksana. She’d shrugged when he announced he was leaving, not even bothering to roll over. Or attempt it, anyway.
How could she have been so flippant about him going outside this close to morning? When would she learn not to let her emotions win out over reason?
There was approximately five seconds until the sun came up and he wasn’t back.
He wasn’t back.
She shouldn’t even give a damn. It was only a matter of time before she killed him!
“Kozyol,” she breathed shakily, using her grip in the mattress edge to haul herself upright, her joints grinding together like rusted engine cogs. “Asshole. Where are you?”
Voices meandered by down on the street and she closed her eyes, babbling the rosary, though she had no beads. If people were awake and going places, it was morning time. Or close. There was no clock in this empty apartment to alert her to the exact time. Maybe he’d holed up somewhere because he couldn’t make it back in before sunrise? Her cell phone was stuffed in her luggage somewhere, but she’d left the suitcase in the basement of the library, hadn’t she? There was no way to call Elias and scream at him for being a careless idiot.
Roksana clenched the cheap memory foam tightly, using her grip to twist sideways and throw her legs over the edge of the bed. “Oh. God,” she screeched through her clenched teeth, dizziness rattling her brain. Her infirm status was unacceptable. She’d never been so badly injured she couldn’t get up and be useful. Not even the time she hunted a vampire at a rave and fell off the pedestal they were battling on, landing two stories below in a pit of glow sticks.
There wasn’t even a way to look out the windows and see if he was coming, since they were all boarded up. But she couldn’t just lie there. This helplessness was like trying to do a cartwheel in an MRI machine.
She placed both of her flat feet on the floor and took a deep breath, calling on the discipline of her training. Remembering the afternoon she’d knelt at her mother’s feet in the courtyard of their home, her hands bandaged and bleeding from hours of combat.
When you are at your weakest, that is when the true strength finds a path.
Her mother’s words. Words she’d been so determined to live by, but she’d lost her way. Lost sight of what was important; avenging the fallen. Her friends.
Roksana tilted her head slightly and listened to the growl of her stomach, the back and forth glide of her big toe in the grooves of the floorboard. She took stock of each finger, each muscle, the hunger plaguing her bones—and having reacquainted with her body, she ordered it to stand. And it did.
One foot moved in front of the other, bringing her across the floor at a snail’s pace.
What the hell did she hope to accomplish by leaving the apartment?
She didn’t have a clue.
But it went against every facet of her nature to lie dormant when death was imminent.
It didn’t matter whose death it was. Really, it didn’t.
Roksana gathered Elias’s coat tighter and pressed it to her face, the rattling of a shop gate opening outside making her scream with her mouth closed. Any second now. Any second now and he would poof into a dust cloud. She’d seen hundreds of those. She’d been responsible for them. Staking vampires had been an enjoyable pastime until her mother deemed her ready to go after Elias.
“Elias,” she juddered through her teeth.
The apartment door opened and there he stood, outlined in the doorway, stuffed plastic bags in each of his hands. “Yes?”
Roksana’s legs chose that moment to protest her standing, liquefying beneath her.
Distress spilling across his features momentarily, Elias’s figure became distorted with speed and he caught her in his arms, the grocery bags spilling onto the floor seconds later. “What are you doing out of bed?” he gritted.
She forced down the apple-sized lump in her throat. “I was bringing a broom and dustpan outside to sweep you up!”
Carefully, he lifted her against his chest, her useless legs dangling over the crook of his arm. “Sunrise isn’t for another twenty-eight minutes.” He started toward the bed, though his curious gaze never left her. “Worried you wouldn’t get breakfast?”
Not trusting herself to speak, she only nodded.
Elias laid her back down on the bed and stepped back frowning, appearing as if he wanted to say something. Instead, his mouth formed a grim line and he backed away from Roksana, crossing the room in a vampiric haste to collect the fallen groceries. “Nothing was open so I helped myself,” he muttered, snatching up the bags and dropping them onto the kitchen counter. “Painkillers, some decent clothes, a few ready-made sandwiches—”
Roksana whimpered.
The corner of his mouth ticked up into a smile, though he was partially facing away and Roksana suspected she wasn’t supposed to see it. A flower sprouted in her belly. On his way back to her, he unwrapped the sandwich, hesitating before handing it over. “Can you hold it?”
She nodded, reaching out slower than her appetite begged her to, taking the sandwich as if it were a rare delicacy and sinking her teeth into the cold yet crusty bread. “Ohmygod.” Elias chuckled, coming back a second later with two blue pills and a bottle labeled Baikal, causing Roksana to pause mid-chew. “This was my favorite drink growing up. I was only allowed to have it on my birthday.”
“That’s pretty strict.”
“Pleasure in abundance is gluttony.” She tossed the blue pills into her mouth, uncapped the bottle and took a long, satisfying pull of the carbonated soda, sending the painkillers tumbling down her throat. “My mother would say that all the time. I think she even had it laminated and taped to our refrigerator.”
Elias leaned back against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, watching her closely. “Based on my credit card statement, you’re only a glutton for shopping.”
“Yes, well.” Reluctantly she twisted the cap back onto the Baikal and set it aside. “I obviously pick and choose which of my mother’s lessons to follow, don’t I? It is a great fault of mine, this selective learning.”
“It was a joke, Roks,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t pointing out a fault.”
She shrugged off his sort-of apology. “My positive attributes are in much greater supply.”
“There you are,” she thought she heard him say under his breath.
Roksana ate in silence for a couple of minutes, far too hungry to be self-conscious about the too-observant, annoyingly sensual vampire watching her eat. “What about you?” She took the final bite of the sandwich, then collapsed back onto the bed, her strength spent. “Did you keep a strict household in Los Angeles?”
She turned her head to find Elias chewing the inside of his cheek. “How did you know I was from Los Angeles?”
Because you flashed your badge once to get me out of trouble with the police.
You called me havoc wreaker.
Remember.
Why did the loss of him feel as fresh today as it felt three years ago?
No. No, it was worse.
It got worse every time Roksana thought she detected traces of his past self.
“Los Angeles,” Roksana hummed, trying not to be obvious about gathering the scent of his coat into her nose. “Jonas or Tucker must have mentioned it.”
Several beats passed. “My household was not strict, no. Not growing up, anyway. No one really paid attention to my comings and goings. Got into a lot of trouble that way.” A line f
ormed between his eyes. “Trying to get someone to notice me and give a shit.”
Roksana realized she’d been holding her breath. Had he spoken to her this honestly or at this length since Vegas? Definitely, positively not. She would have remembered every word. “And did they? Start to notice you?”
“No,” he said simply.
Her heart panged when he didn’t elaborate. “I’m wondering which is worse. A parent who notices everything, controls all. Or a parent who washes their hands at the beginning.” She laid a hand flat on the mattress. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. Look how we ended up in the same apartment in Moscow. One of us dead, one of us halfway there.”
His nostrils flared. “You’re nothing like me, Roksana. You’re alive and…”
He trailed off, visibly reining himself in.
“I’m alive and…courageous. Fashionable. The perfect shade of natural blonde.” She gave an exaggerated sniff. “You may keep going.”
Amusement crept into his expression. “Wild, impossible, argumentative.”
Roksana bit back a smile. “You spoil me with these compliments, vampire.” Why are you flirting with him? He is meant to be your enemy. She forced her features into a frown and huddled deeper into his coat, desperate for a reminder of why she hated him in the first place.
“Didn’t you have friends that noticed you growing up?”
The scar on his lip lightened a shade. “Yes, I had one.”
A change in his tone perked up her sixth sense. “You’re no longer friends with him because you were Silenced?”
His puff of laughter was humorless. “No. I cut ties with a lot of people when I was Silenced, but Jaxson and I stopped being friends long before that.”
She shifted on the bed, trying and failing to get comfortable. “Why?”
“Are the painkillers working yet?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
This Time Tomorrow Page 8
