Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
KHARON
When we get back to the church, it’s night-time. I stoke the fire, then leap to gather more snow to boil for water. I note that the raging storm has finally ended. The skies are so calm, I can see all the stars.
Ksenia is huddled near the fire, her knees pulled to her chest.
I wonder if taking her to her father was the right thing to do. But surely knowing is better than not, even if it is painful.
“The storm has stopped,” I say quietly, sitting on the floor several feet away from her. All I want is to gather her into my arms, but it does not seem right to crowd her in her grief.
When she looks my way, the firelight gleams off tear tracks on her cheeks.
“Good,” she says, her voice hard. “As soon as it’s light out, you can take me to where my uncle lives so I can get my revenge.”
I nod slowly. “If you allow it, I would like to assist you.”
She blinks in surprise. “You would do that?”
How can she ask that? But then, I suppose, in reality, we are still nothing to one another. Even though she has transformed what it means to be alive for me. I have known true happiness, and it is not just the fucking. That has been—Yes, that has been quite wonderful.
More than that, this creature has shared herself fully with me and wanted me in return without judgment or condemnation.
She has found joy in my presence and my body, and for that, I will be hers forever.
Still, though, I know I am the moon to her sun in a sky they will not share except for this brief, rare eclipse.
“Of course,” I say simply.
Then her eyebrows furrow. “Do you think I’m not deadly enough on my own? It’s only because he took me by surprise that I—”
I chuckle. “I’ve seen you in action with your knives. I know you are plenty deadly. But from what you described, your uncle will not be unguarded. I have fought alongside many armies. You will be the commander, and I will follow your lead.”
“Oh,” she says, nodding. “Okay. Usually, I work alone. . . But it would be nice to have some help.”
“I am happy to be of help.”
She nods. “I’ll tell you about my uncle’s villa compound outside St. Petersburg then. Because you’re right. He’s a paranoid son of a bitch, and we’ll have to be careful if we want to get in unnoticed.”
I grin. “I can walk in shadow. I’m very good at going unnoticed.”
Her eyes narrow. “I remember. You followed me in the woods.”
I nod.
“And you’re a good fighter? I mean, I saw you with the wolves, but what about men?”
“My father often set my brothers and I against each other. I am a good fighter.”
Her eyes widen. “Well, if you grew up fighting them, I guess I can trust you to handle yourself. Plus the whole—” She waves a hand. “Reaper thing you’ve got going on. You can just, what? Send people to that shadowy place by touching them?”
It’s a bit of an oversimplification, but I nod.
She breathes out long and low. “Okay then.”
She moves to the fire and snatches up one of the thinner kindling sticks, then roots around in the ashes near the edge of the fire.
“So this is what my uncle’s compound looks like.
” Moving far enough away from the fire to be free of the sleeping bag, she begins to sketch on the stone floor with the ash.
“He’ll have his commandos stationed here, here, and here. . .”
For the next half hour, she discusses her plan. It’s well thought-out. Detailed. She has contingencies.
“We’ll strike at night, so he should be in his bedroom, here.
” With fresh ash, she circles a portion of the schematics she’s sketched out.
“But sometimes he stays up watching movies, so he might be in his home theater down here.” Another circle.
“We must keep quiet at all costs so he doesn’t have time to get to his safe room. ”
“What happens if he gets to his safe room?”
She huffs out a breath, making a lock of hair that’s fallen in her face flutter. “Then I have to use the explosives, which gets messy. The walls are a foot thick. Concrete with reinforced steel. It will take time we don’t have.”
I nod. “So we need to be fast and quiet.”
“Exactly.”
“It is a good plan.”
“It has to be a perfect plan.”
I tilt my head at her. “There’s no such thing.”
She frowns. “There has to be.”
“I have fought many wars with many commanders who were excellent tacticians. Including Napoleon. There are no perfect plans.”
She frowns and lifts up from her crouch, dropping the ashy stick to the floor. “That’s why I bring the explosives along. There’s always a plan B.”
She stands up, and so I do too, which she notices, eyes narrowing.
“I’m going to go for a walk.”
I frown. “Where?”
She walks towards the pack and grabs the flashlight from the floor. She gestures towards the dark part of the church. “Around. I need some space.”
My chest tightens. “Don’t go far.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snaps. “You don’t fucking own me.”
“Of course I do not own you.” Her words confuse me, and she sighs, running a hand down her face.
“I’m sorry I’m being snippy. I just need some space. I’m never around people so much. Even if it’s just one other person.”
“But it is not safe,” I continue, anxious. “The church is old and half buried in a landslide. The walls are unstable.”
“Oh.” I see her blink in the firelight, then she switches on the flashlight. “I’ll be careful. Don’t worry about me.”
I can only stare at her. I will worry about her for the rest of my existence. She is all I will think about.
She gestures with the flashlight. “I won’t feel like I’m alone if you’re watching me the whole time.”
I nod, releasing a heavy breath, then turn my back to her. I will try to honor her wishes. Even though there is an entire castle to roam, I know the feeling of not being able to escape my brothers in my desire for what she calls alone time.
I crouch by the pack to see what I can gather for a meal.
And try not to listen to each of her footsteps crunching on the stone floor, even though I know that I am.
Even that feels invasive, so I start to lightly whistle to cover it up and give her the privacy she deserves.
I have had privacy while she sleeps and I lay awake, but she has had none.
I do not like alone time apart from her because it reminds me that this time with her will soon come to an end, and I’ll be alone again. I, who thought not so long ago that to be alone was all I wanted. It was like the gods heard my thoughts and then decided to mock me.
Without meaning to, the tune I’m whistling turns into a lament.
If I was a miserable bastard before, I’ll be insufferable to live with now.
After I help her with the revenge plot. .
. what then? My mind tries to work it out.
Could I somehow stay with her? Haunting the shadows of her life, never able to live out in the open with her?
Would that be anything she would even want?
Immediately my mind rejects the possibility.
No one has ever wanted me except for her.
But wanting me in this place, when there is no one else, and she needed comfort, is one thing.
Back in the world, she’s a beautiful, exceptional woman.
. . No, it is foolish of me even to dream it.
I am a monster, and a monster I will always be.
A name does not change the fact that I was born a thing.
My hands move automatically, filling a pot with snow, when Ksenia suddenly screams from behind me.
My heart drops to the floor as I spin and look, not seeing the light of her flashlight anywhere. “Ksenia!” I shout her name and sprint toward where I heard her cry.