Chapter 21 - Alexei
I woke before him.
That wasn’t unusual. Sleep had always been a shallow thing for me, more habit than need. Even when I was younger, I never understood how other people seemed to collapse into sleep. My mind didn’t trust the dark enough for that. It never had.
But this morning I didn’t mind waking early.
Marco was still asleep beside me.
He rolled slightly onto his side at some point in the night, one hand tucked close beneath his cheek, the other curled loosely in the blanket as if even asleep he needed something to hold on to. My shirt had ridden up one pale thigh.
He looked unreal. Like something that had been created somewhere far beyond this world. A piece of the heavens that had fallen into the wrong hands.
A star, I thought. My little star.
My fingers slid lightly into his hair, brushing the dark curls back from his forehead. I traced one away from his temple, then let my hand drift lower.
His skin was warm.
I ran my fingers down the side of his face with a touch so light it was barely there, across the curve of his cheekbone, the softness beneath his eye, the line of his jaw.
I wanted to memorize him like this. Not the frightened version of him that kept looking over his shoulder.
Not the one who braced before I even spoke. This one.
Soft. Defenseless. Beautiful.
His eyelashes fluttered.
Then his eyes opened. Fear flashed there.
Pure, instinctive, immediate.
It cut through me. I felt my mouth harden before I could stop it.
I hated that look.
Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes his fear was exquisite. Sometimes I could taste the way it tangled with that traitorous flicker of wanting he didn’t know what to do with. Sometimes I enjoyed watching it move through him because it meant I was there, under his skin, impossible to ignore.
But this wasn’t that.
This was simple terror.
Animal terror.
The kind with no warmth in it at all.
And I hated it.
Because I remembered another night. Another version of him. Small hands and fearless eyes and a smile offered to me without hesitation under a lemon tree, as if there had never been anything in me worth fearing in the first place.
That memory sat too close to the surface where he was concerned.
Where did that fearless boy go?
The fear receded when his vision cleared, but not completely. Marco was never entirely unworried around me, and I guess that’s my fault.
He blinked, then pushed himself up slowly on one elbow, curls falling into his face.
“Good morning,” he murmured.
I brushed one curl back again, unable not to.
“Good morning, little star.”
His cheeks warmed instantly. That was another thing I liked about him - how easy it was to make him blush. Embarrassment moved through Marco so visibly.
Before he could retreat into that blush or say something awkward and self-conscious, I leaned in and kissed him.
He startled.
It no longer surprised me, and yet I still found it strangely endearing each time it happened, the brief widening of his eyes before he gave in and let it happen. As if some part of him remained convinced I shouldn’t be capable of tenderness, and every time I offered it, it arrived as a shock.
Sure enough, when I drew away, he looked faintly dazed.
Cute.
I sat up fully and swung my legs off the bed. “I ordered you strawberry pancakes.”
His whole face changed. “Strawberry?” he repeated, like he thought he might have misheard me.
I gave him a pointed look. “No, Marco. I said cabbage.”
His mouth fell open.
Then he realized I was mocking him and made a tiny offended sound.
“You’re mean in the morning.”
“I’m mean at all times. You’re only noticing because you’re distracted by pancakes.”
He stared at me for one second, then all but scrambled out of bed.
He moved quickly enough that the oversized shirt slipped off one shoulder, hanging crooked over his frame while he pushed his curls out of his face with both hands and looked around as if the pancakes might run away.
I stood and followed him out into the kitchen.
On the counter sat a plate stacked with strawberry pancakes and sliced fruit, exactly where I had left them.
“You were serious,” he said softly.
“I usually am.”
He turned and looked at me with something so open and pleased in his face that I had to actively stop myself from touching him again right then.
He huffed a little laugh and slid onto one of the stools at the counter, still looking at the plate as if it might vanish if he blinked wrong. Then he picked up the fork and took the first bite.
I leaned one hip against the opposite counter and watched.
For a person so often consumed by anxiety, he had a very transparent relationship with happiness. When he liked something, you knew. He lit from the inside out.
I found myself wanting to guard that light.
***
A few days later I woke earlier than usual because a certain idiot had decided to become even more of a problem than normal.
The so-called idiot was Dimitri.
I knew it was him before I even checked my phone, because only Dimitri would call me six times before sunrise and leave voice messages that ranged from outright yelling to something that sounded suspiciously like a death threat directed at a flower shop.
I picked up on the seventh call. “What.”
“Get up.”
I stared at the ceiling above my bed, unimpressed. “What is this about.”
“It’s about Rei.” That got me out of bed.
Not because I cared about Dimitri’s problems. I didn’t. But when Dimitri said Rei’s name in that particular tone it usually meant I was about to be dragged into something idiotic.
I put the phone on speaker and walked toward the bathroom, setting it near the sink.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing,” Dimitri said. “Yet.”
“That isn’t reassuring.”
“I need help.”
“No, you need medication.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He ignored that, which was typical. “Just get here.”
“Why.”
Another pause. “I’m building Rei a garden.”
I lowered my hands from my face and looked at my reflection in the mirror. “You’re what?”
“A garden.”
I stared at myself for a moment longer, then reached for a towel. “Say that again.”
“I’m building Rei a garden,” Dimitri repeated, slower this time, as if I were the stupid one in this conversation. “A real one. The whole thing.”
“Hire someone.”
“No.”
“You own enough land to employ professional gardeners.”
“I don’t want a gardener.”
“Clearly.”
“I want to do it myself.”
That was when I knew my morning was ruined.
By the time I arrived behind Dimitri’s mansion, the situation had somehow become even stupider than I expected.
There were bags of premium soil stacked in rows. Exotic plants sat in black nursery pots all over the grass. Flower trays crowded the stone path in splashes of blue, pink, white, and violent purple. Several gardening tools had been dumped in a heap.
And standing in the middle of it all, wearing black sweatpants, was Dimitri.
He shoved a shovel into my chest the moment I approached.
“Is this a joke?”
“No,” Dimitri said. “Dig.”
I said nothing for a long moment. I would have understood if he had asked us to dig a six-foot hole to bury a body.
That was standard. Routine. Even respectable.
But this? We were deep behind his mansion, and Dimitri wanted to play gardener.
I stared at him, completely deadpan, my eyes unimpressed. “You could hire a gardener.”
Dimitri crossed his arms, looking deeply offended. “I don’t want a gardener. I want to do it myself.”
From a few feet away, Ilya was already crouched beside a cluster of vibrant blue hydrangeas, gently poking one of the petals with a single finger like it was a bomb.
Dimitri’s head snapped toward him instantly. “Hey!!! Don’t touch the flowers!!”
Ilya looked up. “So you want us to dig but not touch them? That’s some bullshit logic, Dima.”
“Yes! Only I’ll touch them,” Dimitri insisted, gesturing grandly. “You two are here for the manual labor. I’m the visionary.”
I studied him, leaning lazily on the handle of the shovel.
I nearly squinted at him. A few weeks ago this idiot had publicly declared Rei Kurosaki as “his” in front of half the school.
That little stunt had directly led to me choking the life out of him.
I didn’t particularly care who Dimitri chased or ruined on most days, but my uncle Ivan kept me around as the spare heir for a reason.
If Dimitri started making too many waves by openly pursuing a boy, there was a very real chance he’d be disowned.
And I had zero interest in inheriting that particular headache.
I kept my expression bored. “I’m not digging.”
“Well I’m gonna be your boss one day, so you’re digging,” Dimitri shot back.
I arched an eyebrow. “You’re not my boss yet.”
Dimitri opened his mouth to argue, but Ilya beat him to it, still crouched by the flowers. “He’s right, you kn—”
“Don’t touch the petals!” Dimitri barked again as Ilya reached for another flower.
Ilya threw his hands up dramatically. “You drag us out here at the ass-crack of dawn, give us shovels, and then won’t let us touch anything?”
Dimitri rubbed his temples, already looking exhausted. “You’re both impossible. I’m trying to do something nice here.”
“Nice?” Ilya repeated, snorting. “You set a guy on fire last Tuesday because he looked at you funny. Now you’re out here planting daisies because you want to do something nice.”
I drove the shovel into the ground half-heartedly, mostly just to watch dirt fly.
“Shut up,” Dimitri grumbled. “Just dig the damn holes.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw something small move on a leaf. Ilya noticed it at the same time.
“IT’S A MONSTER!”
He shrieked and sprinted behind me, clutching at the back of my jacket with both hands, using me as a human shield.
The “monster” was a completely ordinary garden spider, no bigger than a coin, calmly crawling across a leaf.
“Kill it. Burn the whole garden. This place is cursed.”
Dimitri looked up from his precious flowers, exasperated. “It’s a harmless garden spider. Leave it alone.”