A quiet knock distracts me from the gorgeous view. Before I can say anything, the door swings open and Nikolai steps in, a warm smile curving his sensual lips as he sees me awake.
My heart rate kicks up again, but with an emotion far more complex than fear. He’s changed yet again, this time into one of the perfectly tailored suits he favors at dinnertime. A crisp white shirt and a skinny black tie complete the formal outfit, setting off his masculine beauty in a way that should be illegal—not that he’d care about something as trivial as legality.
Given what I saw him do earlier today, my captor is not exactly big on the rule of law.
At least I suspect he’s my captor. We still need to have that conversation.
“How are you feeling?” he asks softly, stopping next to my bed. Before I can reply, he feels my forehead with the back of his hand and frowns, then pulls out a thermometer from the inner pocket of his jacket.
Huh. I guess I do feel a bit feverish.
“Open,” he instructs, bringing the thermometer to my lips, and I obey, feeling incongruously like a child as he sticks it in my mouth and orders me to hold it. A few seconds later, the thermometer beeps, and he glances at the small screen on the side.
“Ninety-nine point two,” he says, looking relieved as he hides the device back in his pocket and sits on the edge of the bed. “The doctor warned you might run a low-grade fever before the antibiotics kick in.”
“Really? Is that a thing? I’ve never been shot before.”
His white teeth flash in a dazzling grin. “It is—I know from personal experience.”
My unruly heart picks up pace again, and my skin warms in a way that has nothing to do with the low-grade fever. “Great. I guess we each have our war stories now.”
“I guess we do.” His smile fades. “How are you feeling, aside from the fever?”
“Like someone’s used me as a tennis ball in a match with Serena Williams,” I say without thinking, only to regret it as his expression darkens, his jaw going dangerously taut.
“Those motherfuckers. If only I’d gotten there sooner…” His fingers flex menacingly on his thigh.
“No, don’t.” Instinctively, I reach over to cover his hand with mine. “If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have—” I swallow, the jumbled images from the nightmare invading my mind. “I wouldn’t have made it.”
And it’s one hundred percent true. I haven’t had the chance to really think about it, but if he hadn’t come after me, if he hadn’t used his scary “resources” to track me down as quickly as he did, I would already be six feet under, after first suffering through a brutal rape.
Nikolai saved me.
However terrifying his methods, he saved my life.
His gaze drops to my hand for a second, and his expression shifts again, the menace in his tiger eyes giving way to a dark heat that feels infinitely more dangerous. “Zaychik…” His voice grows softer, deeper. “I—”
“So thank you,” I blurt, pulling my hand back. Savior or not, I can’t let myself fall under his spell again, can’t let myself forget what he is and what he’s done. “I’m sorry I haven’t said it before, but I’m so, so grateful. I know I owe you my life and more. You didn’t have to come after me, but you did, and I hugely appreciate it. If you hadn’t been there, I—”
He presses two fingers to my lips, stopping my rambling. “You don’t need to thank me.” He leans over me, propping one palm on the pillow beside me and curving the other over my cheek. His gaze is darkly intent, his tone grave. “I will always protect you, zaychik. Always.”
I stare up at him, my chest ballooning with a contradictory mixture of emotions. Relief and worry, gratitude and fear, joy and pain—it’s like a pendulum inside me, swinging back and forth between the two extremes, the two versions of Nikolai that exist in my mind.
The one before Alina’s story and the one after.
The caring lover and the brutal killer.
Which one of them is real?
With effort, I curtail my spinning thoughts and blink to break the hypnotic pull of that golden gaze. The most important thing right now is to figure out where we stand.
“You don’t have to protect me,” I say, injecting my tone with a confidence I’m nowhere near feeling. “Mom’s killers are dead, and even if Bransford sends others, there’s no guarantee they’ll find me. I can just leave the country, disappear and—”
“No.” The word is filled with harsh finality as he straightens and pulls back his hand. His beautiful face is set in hard, uncompromising lines. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“But you’re in danger with me here. Your family’s in danger.”