Chapter 32 Dimitri
DIMITRI
Dimitri was drifting in a pleasant haze, with Mattie's warm body pressed against his and her head pillowed on his chest. The narrow bed forced them to stay tangled together, legs intertwined, arms wrapped around each other, and he couldn't think of anywhere he would rather be.
This was the happiest he'd ever been.
Lying in a cramped bed in a cramped room on an island prison with a woman he'd known for mere days, and he was happier than he'd been his entire life.
He wanted to tell her he loved her, the words pressing against the back of his teeth, demanding to be spoken, but that would be ridiculous. She would think he was superficial with his feelings, the kind of man who fell in love with every pretty face.
Except he wasn't. He'd never said those words to any woman, not even to Mila. He'd come close, but her betrayal had beaten him to it.
"Your healing is just amazing." Mattie's fingers brushed against his neck, feather-light. "Unbelievable. I was sure you were going to have nasty scars, but it doesn't look like you will."
He opened his eyes and found her propped up on one elbow, staring at the side of his neck with an expression somewhere between wonder and alarm.
"Are you looking at the right side?" He was still too sleepy to remember which side of his neck the deranged immortal had bitten.
"Of course, I am looking at the right side, and I'm telling you that it's healed. There's almost nothing there. A faint line that is not even a scar."
That couldn't be right. The wound had been deep, and even though it had stopped bleeding the day before and Mattie had said in the shower that it looked much better than it had any right to so soon after the bite, it couldn't have disappeared completely.
It should have taken months for the scar to fade.
Dimitri pushed himself up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
The vertigo he'd experienced yesterday was gone, replaced by a vitality and clarity that made every sensation feel heightened.
The scratch of the sheets against his skin.
The scent of Mattie's hair. The dust motes floating in the shaft of light that crept through the window.
He crossed to the bathroom and leaned close to the mirror, tilting his head to expose his neck.
Nothing.
The skin was smooth, unmarked. There was just the faintest discoloration to show where Tarik's teeth had torn through muscle and vein, and it could be mistaken for a scratch. It was as if the attack had never happened.
"How is that possible?" Mattie stood behind him, her reflection joining his in the mirror. She'd wrapped the sheet around herself, but it was slipping, revealing the pale curve of her shoulder. "It looked great yesterday, but the difference today is just astonishing."
"It must be the venom." Dimitri touched his neck, half expecting to feel at least tenderness, a ridge of scar tissue, anything. But there was only smooth skin. "Its healing properties must be more extensive than what I was led to believe."
He stared at his reflection, seriously considering pinching himself again to prove that he wasn't dreaming.
Even the pallor from his illness was gone.
His skin had healthy color again, and the dark circles around his eyes that had been a permanent feature since his early twenties were gone.
He looked better than he had before the attack. Better than he had in years.
Was that the effect of the venom or was it from feeling happy and in love?
He should know more about the venom since he was working on enhancing immortal soldiers. Later today, when the eight came for their enhancement shots, he would probe them about their venom.
He would have to be careful and make it sound as if he was asking all those questions for his research and not for himself, framing it as scientific inquiry rather than anything personal.
The last thing he needed was Dave figuring out that he'd been bitten.
That would lead to questions about how and why, and those questions would lead to Tarik, and Dimitri needed to hide the details of the attack as much as Tarik did, probably more.
Tarik wouldn't suffer any consequences because he hadn't actually killed Dimitri, but Dimitri had attacked the immortal with a syringe, and that might spell lots of trouble for him.
If only the toxin had been more potent.
The evil barbarian didn't deserve to live, not after attacking Mattie. The memory of walking into that bar, seeing the immortal's hands on Mattie, his mouth smashed over hers, made Dimitri's blood heat with anger.
His grip on the sink tightened until his knuckles went white.
Mattie needed protection. Real protection, not just the hope that Tarik would be too afraid of consequences to try again. The immortal was a predator, and predators didn't give up on prey just because their first attempt failed.
"I'm going to prepare syringes filled with toxin for you." Dimitri turned from the mirror. "I'll adjust the dosage so it works faster. You need to carry them around wherever you go because the bastard could attack you anywhere."
Mattie shook her head. "I can't."
"Mattie—"
Her expression turned pained, and she pulled the sheet tighter around herself.
"If I use a syringe on an immortal and kill him, I'll be put to death.
It doesn't matter if it was self-defense.
It doesn't matter what he was trying to do to me.
A human killing one of her masters is punishable by beheading. "
"So, you'd rather forgo defense altogether?"
"What would you have me do? Despite everything, I don't want to die, so if I have to suffer an assault, it's better to surrender and survive than fight back and die. This is our reality on this island."
Dimitri wanted to put his fist through the mirror, through the wall, through anything that would let him vent the fury raging inside of him.
"That's not acceptable to me," he said.
"It's reality." Mattie moved past him to retrieve her clothes from where she'd left them yesterday before getting into the shower. "Regrettably, you are nearly as powerless as I am in this place. Your only advantage is that Lord Navuh needs you, and you are not easy to replace."
"Then I'll come to the bar and sit there throughout your shift." He followed her out of the bathroom. "They won't dare try anything with me there."
Mattie opened the dresser drawer and pulled out a pair of his undershorts. "May I?"
"Of course." In fact, it excited him that she was going to wear his boxers under her uniform.
He would have offered her more items from his limited wardrobe to replace the crumpled black trousers and white blouse of her uniform, but regrettably, she couldn't parade around wearing his clothing.
"For how long do you think you can keep it up?" she asked as she buttoned the blouse. "You can't sit in the bar every day, Dimitri. You have work to do that keeps you valuable to these people, which is the only reason you're still alive."
She was right.
He hated that she was right.
"I'll figure something out," he said. "I'll talk to Petrov. Maybe we can take turns in the bar."
"Konstantin is drunk half the time."
"More like all of the time." Petrov was unreliable at best, but he was important to the research and therefore also untouchable. "He cares about what happens to you, and they can't kill him either. That's his main advantage."
She finished tucking in her blouse and looked at herself in the mirror, grimacing at the wrinkles. "I need to go back to my room and change into a fresh uniform before my shift. I can't show up looking like I slept in my clothes."
Dimitri caught her arm as she moved toward the door.
"Don't go. There is still plenty of time before your shift begins.
Let me talk to Petrov and see if we can work out some kind of schedule.
" He rubbed his hand over his neck where the immortal had bitten him.
"I'll talk to the enhanced soldiers I'm helping.
Perhaps I can request your transfer to the lab. I'll say that I need an assistant."
Mattie's eyebrows rose. "You think they would agree to that?"
"I don't know. Probably not. They might offer me an immortal assistant instead, which would be worse than having none, but I have to try something, Mattie. I can't just leave you unprotected."
She studied his face for a long moment. Then she rose on her toes and kissed him softly. "You're so sweet, Dimitri Volkov. Don't let this place change you."
When they got to the lab downstairs, Russian music was blasting from the loudspeakers, and it smelled like coffee in addition to the regular smells of lemon and ammonia that the cleaning crew used, and of course, Petrov's vodka.
His boss was at his workstation, singing along with a beaker of amber liquid in one hand and a half-empty bottle of vodka sitting conspicuously beside his keyboard.
"There you are." His gaze swept over both of them with a knowing, almost lecherous grin.
"The lovebirds emerge from their love nest." He pointed at the lab table where he'd set up a makeshift breakfast spread.
There was a carafe of coffee, a plate of sandwiches wrapped in paper napkins, and three ceramic mugs.
"When you didn't show up for breakfast, I figured I should feed you because you'd be hungry when you finally woke up. "
Mattie ducked her head, but she was smiling sheepishly.
Now that he knew her shyness was a deliberate act, she was no longer bothering with it around him.
"Thank you, Konstantin," she said, crossing to the table and pouring herself a cup of coffee. "You're a lifesaver."
"That's me." Petrov raised his beaker in a mock toast. "A lifesaver." He got up and joined them at the makeshift breakfast table. "You look better, my boy," he said quietly. "Much better. Two nights with Mattie did wonders for you."
"Konstantin, please." Dimitri glanced at the surveillance camera in the corner. He doubted anyone could hear them over the loud music, but they needed to be careful and talk with their heads turned away from the camera so no one could read their lips.
"I'm just making an observation." Petrov's grin widened.
Mattie sat on one of the tall stools, her legs dangling above the floor, and wrapped her hands around her coffee mug. Dimitri poured himself a cup of the lukewarm coffee and took a long swallow.
The clock on the wall read eleven-thirty, which didn't leave him much time.
"We need to talk," he said in a near whisper. "About protecting Mattie."
The grin faded from Petrov's face. He swiveled his stool so he was facing Dimitri, looking much more sober than the low level of vodka in his bottle suggested.
"Mattie told me about what happened," he said, glancing at her. "And I know that the animals who attacked her might come back for more."
Mattie grimaced, and her grip on her mug tightened, but she said nothing.
"I'm going to prepare a more potent version of the toxin," Dimitri said quietly. "Adjust the formula so it works faster and hits harder. But I can't be there for her throughout her shift. I need you to help me protect her. We will take turns watching over her."
Petrov sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.
"I can do that for one day. Watch over her from one until four, then switch places with you for the evening.
We can probably manage tomorrow too, maybe the day after, but that's not a long-term solution.
" Petrov held up a hand before Dimitri could interrupt.
"We have work to do, Dimitri, and it's not like we can neglect it. We need to show steady progress."
Dimitri had almost forgotten about Dave's compulsion, which affected him much less than it affected Petrov.
"He's right," Mattie said. "You can't do this forever. You have your own lives, your own work. I can't ask you to sacrifice everything just to watch over me. Perhaps you can make some stinky potion I could rub all over myself? Something that is the opposite of pheromones?"
Dimitri glanced at Petrov. "We worked on something like that. Remember?"
His boss nodded. "I don't know if we have the ingredients." He looked at Mattie. "The downside is that you will have to smell yourself all day, and it could also create a problem for you with the customers. You might lose your job."
"I don't mind. I'd rather return to being a maid anyway. I liked it much better than serving drinks in the bar."
Petrov nodded. "That will probably be for the best."
"I was planning to speak with Dave about Mattie becoming our lab assistant." Dimitri unwrapped a sandwich. "I need to convince them that we will work faster if we have someone cleaning the equipment after our experiments."
Petrov smiled. "That wouldn't even be a lie. Half our day goes on cleaning the equipment and preparing it for another experiment."