Chapter 28 Mattie
MATTIE
Pain woke Mattie before anything else.
It wasn't the sharp, jagged agony from yesterday, the kind that made her vision swim, and her stomach heave.
It was a deep throb that pulsed in time with her heartbeat, radiating from her right hand up through her wrist and into her forearm.
The pills had worn off sometime during the night, and the pain had crept back in.
She kept her eyes closed and breathed through it, the way she'd learned to breathe through the cramping in her scarred legs on bad days.
Slow inhale, slow exhale. Don't fight it. Let it wash through you and recede.
It didn't recede, but it became manageable.
She opened her eyes.
Warm light slanted through the window, falling across the foot of her bed in a bright rectangle.
Not the tentative glow of early morning but the full, unapologetic blaze of mid-morning sun.
She'd slept for hours. Twelve, maybe more, given that she'd taken the pain pills before the sky had turned dark.
Dimitri was asleep on the bed next to hers, which was no longer pushed flush against the one she was on.
At some point during the night, he'd separated them, pulling his mattress about a foot away and leaving a gap between them like a narrow moat, probably afraid of jostling her in his sleep, or rolling over and bumping her injured hand.
It was such a Dimitri thing to do. Thoughtful, practical, and heart-achingly endearing.
Mattie watched him sleep. His face was relaxed, the worry lines smoothed away, his dark hair falling across his forehead.
Even in the soft light, she could see the changes that the transition was working on him.
The sharper angles of his jaw, the broader set of his shoulders, the subtle thickening of muscle that was not the result of training with weights but the immortal genes rewriting his body from the inside out.
He was becoming something extraordinary, and she was still just Mattie.
Stop.
She wasn't going to spiral into that dark place again.
She needed to focus on all that she had to be thankful for.
Months ago, she'd been kidnapped and dragged onto this island, but miraculously had been saved from having to endure the unimaginable in the brothel.
Instead, she'd cleaned rooms and then served drinks in a bar full of immortal soldiers who'd looked at her like she was either furniture or prey, and she'd somehow survived that by pretending to be invisible.
Now she had Dimitri.
She had love. It was real, all-consuming, and terrifying.
It was the kind of love that she'd never expected to find anywhere, let alone in a place like this.
Love that made her feel alive in a way she hadn't felt since before the fire that had destroyed her legs and her childhood in one terrible night.
But it was a love under siege. Surrounded by enemies, trapped on an island they couldn't leave, with Dimitri's secret growing harder to hide by the day.
Mattie tried to flex the fingers of her right hand just to test if they were at all functional, but they didn't respond. The splints held them rigid beneath the bandage, but the effort sent a fresh bolt of pain shooting up her arm, making her suck air through her teeth.
That was stupid. Don't do it again.
She needed to get to the bathroom, and she needed to do it without waking Dimitri.
Mattie had woken up several times during the night to find him sitting on a chair and watching her. At some point, he'd given up his vigil and had gone to sleep, but she was pretty sure it had been in the early hours of the morning. He needed the sleep.
She wasn't the only one who had gone through a traumatic experience yesterday. He'd fought like a lion to save her, and it must have taken a lot out of him, not just physically but also mentally.
Dimitri wasn't a fighter. He didn't have the instincts of a trained soldier. Fighting those immortals must have taken a mental toll on him.
Carefully, she used her left hand to push back the blanket and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
So far, so good. The movement sent a dull ache through her scarred calves, the usual protest after lying still for too long, but that was old pain.
Familiar, manageable, and almost comforting in its predictability.
She planted her feet on the floor and stood.
The room tilted sideways.
Her vision blurred, her knees buckled, and then she was falling, stumbling forward with no way to catch herself because her good hand was grabbing at air and her bandaged hand was useless, and the floor was rushing up to meet her—
Arms wrapped around her waist. Impossibly fast, strong, and steady.
"I've got you."
How had he done that?
How had he caught her as if he'd been standing beside her all along instead of lying fast asleep two seconds ago?
"How did you do that?" She blinked up at him, her heart hammering. "You were asleep."
"Instinct." He held on to her. "Where are you trying to go?"
"Bathroom."
"Let me help."
"I can walk. I just—"
"I don't think so." He shifted so his arm was around her back, her left hand braced against his chest. "You just proved otherwise. Lean on me."
She wanted to argue, but the floor still seemed crooked under her feet, and her legs felt like they were wet noodles, so she let out a breath and leaned against his solid body.
He walked her to the bathroom slowly, letting her set the pace, and when they reached the door, he released her carefully, making sure that she was steady before letting go.
"Is it okay if I come inside with you?" he asked. "I don't want you to fall."
She nodded. "Falling would be bad."
He helped her to the toilet but then turned his back to her and got busy brushing his teeth to give her privacy.
When she was done, she joined him at the single sink and looked at her reflection in the mirror.
It wasn't a pretty sight. She had dark circles under her eyes, and there was a bruise on her cheek that she hadn't even noticed yesterday. It must have been from when she fell.
In comparison, Dimitri looked as good as new. Better than new. The changes were subtle, but it was undeniable that he was becoming more and more handsome with each passing day.
"I need to brush my teeth," she said. "My mouth tastes as if something died in it."
He laughed. "That's a pleasant image."
"You asked."
"I didn't ask."
"I will need help." She lifted her injured hand and grimaced. "I can't squeeze toothpaste on the brush with one hand."
He reached past her and retrieved her toothbrush from the cup by the sink, then squeezed a line of toothpaste onto the bristles. She took it from him with her left hand and raised it to her mouth with the careful concentration of someone attempting brain surgery.
The first stroke was acceptable. The second veered sideways and smeared toothpaste across her cheek. The third nearly went up her nose.
She glared at the toothbrush.
"This shouldn't be this hard." She tried again, and this time managed to actually brush her front teeth before the brush slipped and poked her in the gum. "Ow."
Dimitri's lips were pressed together, and his eyes were doing something suspicious.
"If you laugh, I will stab you with this toothbrush," she said around a mouthful of foam.
"I would never laugh at your discomfort." His voice was remarkably steady for a man whose shoulders were shaking.
She tried one more time. The brush skidded across her bottom teeth and launched itself out of her hand, bounced off the edge of the sink, and clattered to the floor.
That did it.
Dimitri's composure cracked. He tried to disguise the laugh as a cough, which only made it worse because the cough turned into a snort, and the snort turned into a cackle.
Mattie felt a smile tugging at her own mouth.
She was standing in a cramped bathroom with toothpaste on her cheek, defeated by a toothbrush, and the man she loved was laughing so hard he had to brace himself against the door.
It was absurd. The whole situation was absurd.
She tried to pick up the toothbrush, but Dimitri got there first.
"Let me." He rinsed it under the faucet and reloaded it with paste. "Open."
"You're going to brush my teeth?"
"Yes." He tilted her chin up with one finger. "Open."
She opened.
He brushed her teeth with the same precision he brought to everything, careful, systematic, thorough.
Top teeth, bottom teeth, the sides, the molars.
His free hand cradled her jaw, holding her head steady with gentle fingers, and he was so close that she could smell the minty toothpaste on his breath.
"Spit," he said.
She did.
"Rinse."
She did that too, and when she straightened up, she caught another glimpse of herself in the mirror. The pale skin was marred by the bruise, dark circles, and hair that desperately needed to be washed.
"I need a shower," she said.
"I was working my way up to suggesting that."
"Are you saying that I smell?" She sniffed at her armpit but smelled nothing that was overly gross.
"I said nothing of the sort," Dimitri said. "You'll just feel better after a shower, and I'm offering my services as the washcloth guy." The grin was back, the cocky one that did things to her pulse even when she was in pain.
"How am I going to shower with this?" She lifted her bandaged hand.
"Wait here." He disappeared and returned a moment later carrying a strip of plastic wrap. She recognized it as the cling film that covered the trays delivered from the kitchen to the lab.
"First, let’s get rid of the t-shirt,” he said.
She worked her good arm up through the sleeve opening and he pulled it over her head and gently down over her bandaged hand.
“Now, give me your hand," he said.