My Wild Horse King (The Russian Witch's Curse Book 4)

21. Katerina

“I’m so sorry,” the woman at the front desk says. “Because of the rodeo, we only have two rooms.”

“We’ll take them,” Aleksandr says. “How much?”

Almost as soon as she names an amount, he plonks the cash down on the counter. He’s not keen on using any plastic with Leonid following us, and I don’t blame him. But when he turns around, it’s not pretty. He extends his hand. . .to Gustav.

“Whoa,” I say. “I think I should get a room, obviously.”

“Obviously?” Gustav frowns.

“You can stay with your sister,” I say. “But I need my own room.” For once. I’ve been sleeping in a van for thirty plus hours, and before that, I was traveling, stuck in a cubicle, and then on a couch. I don’t point that out, but they all know.

“We’re newlyweds who have been traveling in a pack for a week,” Kristiana says. “We figured you two could share.”

“What about the Hideout?” I look at Gustav. “Didn’t that Flaming Gorge Hideout place have some rooms too?”

“Only two rooms as well,” he says. “And Grigoriy and Alexei snatched them so fast I almost lost a finger.”

“What is this?” I ask. “Are we characters in some kind of corny romance novel, and the writer’s panicking because she’s writing chapter twenty-one and she hasn’t even written a single kiss scene yet?”

No one laughs. Gustav kicks at a weird blotch on the carpet.

“Oh, come on,” Aleksandr says. “We’re adults, and you’ll be fine sharing for one night. You don’t even like one another. It’s not like you close the door to the outside and suddenly you fall madly in love.”

I huff, and I grumble, but he’s right. There’s not much I can do, if Gustav doesn’t offer to sleep on the floor in his estranged sister’s room. It’s not like I’d want to share a room with Boris if the roles were reversed.

“Fine.” I reach for my bag, but Gustav has already grabbed it. “If you think that carrying my bag is going to make me less crabby. . .” I snort. “Well, I guess you’d be right.”

We’re laughing as we circle the bend outside and walk right into room number eleven. “This is us.” Gustav dangles the key in front of the lock. “Come on, double beds.”

I suppress my laugh.

But when the door opens, there’s just the one big king size bed staring at us.

“This is ridiculous,” I say. “Really.”

“I’ll sleep on the floor.” Gustav breezes inside, sets our bags on the floor of the window-wall and shrugs out of his jacket.

For some reason, watching him taking clothing off sends a shiver up my spine, proving that I’m just as ridiculous as this situation. I turn to face the door, focusing an inordinate amount of attention on closing it and turning the deadbolt. For some reason, the simple act of turning the deadbolt makes heat rise in my face.

It’s a normal thing to do in a hotel, locking the door, but it feels. . .like I’m closing out the world so it’ll just be the two of us.

I shake my head and turn back, ready to just get it out there that we are clearly just roommates with a shared space, but instead of being halfway across the small room, Gustav’s standing right in front of me, his shirt half unbuttoned. He’s big—something I had never noticed before. The last time we were standing this close together, I was a horse.

“Oh.” I look up at his face, struck stupid by the curve of his brow, the strong, square shape of his jaw, and the deep golden stubble that has grown in on it. My stomach flutters. My mouth goes dry.

And he reaches past me and smashes some kind of bug on the wall.

I blink.

“Thank goodness you’re not the kind of girl who screeches for an hour because she saw a beetle.”

Except, I totally am.

I am one hundred percent that girl, when I’m not all choked up on hormones and, like, buzzing because for the first time since the early nineteen hundreds, I’m getting all hot and bothered over someone who isn’t the future czar of Russia. Someone who might one day like me back.

“You want to shower first?” He lifts his eyebrows.

“Uh, you can go first.”

He cringes a little. “That’s probably not wise. I need to use the toilet, too, if you know what I mean.”

I’m absolutely not sure whether to laugh or cry. I’m thinking about how hot he is, and how into him I am, and he’s thinking about how he needs to poop. I grab my bag and practically run into the bathroom.

The shower’s small and the tile badly needs to be redone, but the water’s hot, and it’s heavenly to finally feel clean. The single best thing about the twenty-first century is razors. I have never liked armpit or leg hair, but everyone I knew, every woman I’d ever met, always had both. Razors were not easy or cheap to find.

The first movie I saw after waking up was called How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, and I immediately noticed the blonde woman had smooth legs. When, a week later, I saw an advertisement for a Venus razor, I sent Boris to the store with threats if he didn’t come back with a whole handful of them.

They’ve changed my life.

I no longer feel clean if my legs are hairy, and for the first time in days, I feel both clean and moderately attractive. I’ve almost forgotten about my embarrassing moment of weakness earlier, swooning right before Gustav smashed a bug. I throw on my clothes, towel dry my hair, and shoot out of the bathroom, leaving the door open so some of the steamy air the fan couldn’t keep up with can escape.

“Your turn.”

But Gustav isn’t there.

I’m about three seconds from a meltdown—visions of Leonid hauling him out and dicing him into a million pieces or torching him into a pile of ash crowding my mind—when he waltzes through the door, not a care in the world.

“Where did you go?”

“I remembered there was a bathroom in the lobby,” he says.

He doesn’t even look embarrassed. Is poo not embarrassing to men? “Oh.”

“Is it fine if I shower now?” He points.

I nod, dumbly.

It must not be. He flashes me a half smile as he breezes past me, bag in hand, ready to get totally naked and stand under running water three feet from where I’m standing. I’m staring at him when he turns to close the door.

He tilts his head, winks at me, and shuts the door.

He winks.

I want to huddle under the covers and cry. Only, would he see that as some kind of invitation? I feel like Gustav is some kind of game I did not get the rules to interpret. Also, in movies that I’ve seen, men and women in the same room do sometimes just tear clothing off one another after a long glance, and. . .

I shake my head.

That’s not what is going on. I’ve gotten confused. He’s a wealthy, smart, professional man who knows we’re just stuck here for a night, and he respects me enough—but wait. Does he respect me?

He should at least be afraid of me.

I can turn into a horse.

Yes, I’ll be fine. What’s wrong with me?

He’s out of the bathroom shockingly fast—men must not do half the things we do in the shower—and I still haven’t even claimed a side of the bed. Although his pajama pants are dark and perfectly respectable. . .he’s not wearing a shirt. I mean, he’s holding a shirt, and he’s in the process of putting it on, but it’s not on yet. There’s so much perfect, smooth, almost shining skin on display that my brain just quits working. While he stretches the grey t-shirt out, shifting it to slide his arms inside, I stare, transfixed. His skin isn’t totally dry yet—tiny droplets of water cling to the side of his left chest muscle, his neck, and his shoulder. One droplet on his stomach slides, slowly, down his abdominal muscles.

Which are glorious.

I can’t help swallowing.

Not that he can see me. He’s pulling the shirt over his head, and the muscles in his stomach all seem to be involved in that one movement. They’re rippling, and instead of focusing on the six defined muscles right there in the center of his stomach, I’m stuck looking at all the things at once. I suppress a shiver and blink repeatedly before he pulls his shirt all the way down to make sure he doesn’t notice how shamelessly I’m gawking.

I need to get it together. He’s putting the shirt on, not taking it off.

My plan was to just ask him which side of the bed he wants, but there’s no way I can even say the word bed right now. He didn’t even seem to notice that I’ve been staring at him. No, he goes right along his merry way, whipping a clean towel outward, and laying it down on the floor near the bathroom.

Wait. He’s doing what? “What—uh—whatcha doing with that towel?”

He freezes. “Did you want this one for the morning? I figured if we each reused our towels, I could spread this extra one out so I’m not just lying on the carpet. It doesn’t look the cleanest.”

“You can sleep in the bed,” I say.

“I’m certainly not watching you sleep on the floor.” He picks the towel up and folds his arms, the little white towel clearly inadequate as any sort of bedroll for someone his size.

“We can share the bed,” I say. “It’s not like I’m going to attack you or something.”

“Oh.” He frowns. “But wouldn’t that make you uncomfortable?”

I shake my head.

“So you’ve slept with a guy before?”

My heart races.

“I mean, have you shared a bed before?” Now even Gustav looks uncomfortable.

“No.”

“I’m a bit heavier than you,” he says. “So when the mattress looks like that.” He points.

It doesn’t look very thick.

“You may roll toward me.” He brings his hands together, palms flat, and I can’t help wondering what it would feel like to be between them.

Suddenly, sharing the bed with him seems like a monumentally bad plan. I can’t even look at his hands without wanting to slide in between them. I’m clearly cracked. “All that sliding around sounds like it would be annoying. I don’t mind sleeping on the floor. I’d fit on the towel better than you would, anyway.”

He sighs. “Alright, let’s just try it and we’ll see.”

“What will we see?” What’s wrong with my heart? It thinks we’re about to be in a footrace or something.

“How bad the mattress is?” He arches one eyebrow. “Or, not? Are we back to the towel?”

I can’t help smiling at his nervous question-statement. At least it’s not only me who’s struggling. “Let’s just try sharing the bed. If it causes any problems, I’ll take the towel.”

I shoot forward, claiming the side closest to the bathroom. If I have to wake up in the middle of the night to pee, I’m always really bleary and tired. I’d hate to trip and fall flat on my face, or worse, stumble over him and wake him up.

Gustav quietly circles around, sitting down on the edge of the bed near the window. The mattress creaks, predictably, because his frame is not small, but it doesn’t appear to be collapsing down on his side or anything concerning.

I keep my eyes trained on my side of the bed, notably not looking at him or any part of his delicious body, and then I slowly lower myself toward the edge. And then we’re both sitting on the bed at the same time, which feels like a coup. Gustav snags one of the pillows from the pile behind us—of which there appear to be four—and repositions it a little bit so it’s in between us. “Look. There’s a little barrier. I’ll stay here on my side, and if you feel like you’re rolling, you can lean on that.” His easy smile’s reassuring. That’s not the face of someone who would do anything nefarious.

More’s the pity.

I nod a bit, and without meaning to, I lean back at the same time he does. Now we’re both lying down, but I realize that we never turned the lights off. The lamps on either side of us are both blazing. I sigh a little and sit back up.

“What’s wrong?” Is it me, or does he sound nervous?

“Lamp.” I shift over and shut mine off.

“Right.” He’s sitting up to turn his off as I lie back down.

And then we’re lying beside one another, in the dark, on the same bed. The world isn’t ending, and it looks like everything’s going to be just fine. “No rolling at all.”

“What?” His voice sounds deeper and even more unnerving in the dark.

“I just mean that the mattress is fine.” I cringe a little, hearing myself.

“Yeah, it appears my worries were for nothing.” His chuckle relaxes me a little, thankfully.

“Let’s hope lots of things we’re fretting about turn out like that,” I say.

“Do you mean Leonid?”

I wish. “No, I think he’s coming, and I doubt it’ll be no big deal when he finds us.”

“Do you care about him?”

“That’s a complicated question,” I say. Though it’s easier to think about it in the dark. “I’ve known him for a long time, but he’s made some really bad decisions.”

“Like what?” he asks. “What’s the worst thing he’s done?”

“Other than stealing Alexei’s powers?” I ask. “He’s held bizarre trials and executed people? He stole the throne from Alexei, twice.”

“And didn’t he kill the Romanov family?”

“I’m not sure,” I say. “The thing is, there were a lot of complicated things happening at the same time. The world was weird—famine and unrest caused by some bad moves on his father’s part. The world war. Russia was in a weird spot—it hadn’t modernized like most countries had. People were angry. The Kurakins and my family were all angry, too.”

“But—”

“I asked Leonid when I woke up—he was the first person I saw—what he had done. He said he had broken the rules. He had tried to force the powers like Baba Yaga told him never to do, and he said we’d all paid the price.”

“So maybe he didn’t kill the Romanovs.”

“I think something about what he did killed them,” I say. “I’m just not sure what or how much of it was his fault.”

“But from his perspective, they stole the Rurikid powers—you all did—from him.”

Not much of an excuse. “And, he’s killing people now, in the present.”

“Good people or bad people?” Coming from Gustav, who shares the same power with him, the question’s a strange one.

“Good people don’t kill people,” I say. “It’s a basic superhero tenet, isn’t it?”

He sighs. “Maybe.”

“He’s murdering dictators, but only so he can steal their countries. That’s sort of his MO. He justifies the bad things he does by doing them to bad people.”

“So he is a bad man,” Gustav says. “I’m just wondering how bad he really is.”

“Don’t wonder,” I say. “If you do, you might hesitate when it matters. He’s bad. Really, really bad.”

“But if stopping him makes you hate me, is it worth it?” Gustav’s last words haunt me. It must be the reason I toss and turn with disturbing dreams all night.