Prologue
B lood.
There’s so much blood woven into her pale blonde hair that it drowns out the color.
“Baby,” I choke out, pushing her hair away from her face.
“Baby, open your eyes for me. I know you can do it.” Tapping lightly on her face that’s drained of its once vibrant color, I place my head on her chest, praying to a heart that has long ceased to beat. “Solnyshko, please.”
Her cold hand lay still against my thigh, her wedding ring, still on her fourth finger, dull— its sparkle muted with the shade of crimson red. The blood drips between her fingers, some of it is trapped under her nails.
“Niko, let me take her—”
“No one is taking my wife away from me!” I cut off my cousin and second in command, Sergei, and pull Helana closer to me, my body covering hers as much as it could.
“Nikolai,” Sergei cautiously lowers his voice. “I’m not taking her away. Let’s… take her home and get her cleaned up, ok?”
Right. He’s right.
I need to get her out of these dirty clothes, wash her and get her into something dry. Why didn’t I think of that?
When I stand with Helana cradled in my arms, one of her heels slides off her foot.
I slightly adjust her against me until her head is resting on my shoulder and I glide us briskly to my blacked-out, bulletproof SUV with Sergei right behind me.
He opens the back door for us and I climb in, my nose is instantly assaulted by the scent of copper.
Death. Once Sergei closes the door behind me, he rushes over to the driver’s side and removes Ivan, Helana’s driver, from behind the wheel.
He had a quick death—one shot to the head—killed from inside the car.
It was a complete sign of a setup. Helana’s favorite coffee café was shot up in broad daylight, at the same exact time and day she comes here.
The Arbatov District is neutral territory where most of all the wealthy and elite men— whether they’re vampires, werewolves or humans— come to conduct business while their women shop at the nearby boutiques.
So why in the fuck was it, or she , a target?
Sergei removes Ivan from the driver’s seat and places him outside on the streets. He wastes no time jumping behind the wheel and speeds off, driving us back to my family’s compound.
“Just hold on a little longer,” I whisper in her ear while her body lies limp in my arms. “Solnyshko, we’re almost home.”
We get to the compound faster than normal. There were no corners my cousin didn’t cut, no light he didn’t run, he just sped here. I’m out of the car with Helana before Sergei can round the side of it.
“Good afternoon, Boss—”
“Get the fucking doctor now!” I order to my butler, Boris.
“Of course, Boss.”
I climb the steps five at a time, no six at a time. Even my blurred movements can’t get me to our suite fast enough. When I get to our door, I kick it open, unceremoniously, walking us straight into the bathroom.
Gently, I take off Helana’s dress before placing her in the tub, I fill it with warm water while she lies in it.
She wore a yellow form-fitting sundress today that showed off the extra curves she’s put on lately.
She said she felt radiant today and wanted to dress like it.
Little did she know that she looks radiant every day, at every moment.
She shines brighter than any star or the moon reflecting off the sea past midnight.
Even in the dark, I could find my way to her with the light that dwells within her alone.
Rubbing her rose-scented shampoo into her scalp, she doesn’t wince. She would complain that my touch is too rough when I wash her hair. Or that my nails were too sharp when I massage her scalp.
Not now though, she’s quiet, still and compliant.
Pouring body wash on a cloth, I wash her neck, then her chest, back, arms, legs and feet, until every inch of her is clean. Standing, I grab a white towel from the rack beside me, then lift her out of the tub and wrap her in it.
After drying her off, I dress her in a black, long-sleeved gown that barely goes past her knees. It’s her favorite one. She’s had this gown since we were much younger, when we bathed ourselves in reckless love and unrealistic dreams.
She was always the sentimental one between us.
She would keep, dry and scrapbook every flower I’ve ever gifted to her.
From the start, she would document in her journal about any and everything pertaining to us, to our story.
And for thirty years, she kept the nightgown I bought her when we were celebrating our wedding anniversary in Paris.
We were dreamers. We were fools to believe in happily ever after.
Just as I pull her gown down, there’s a knock at the door.
“The doctor is here, Boss.” Boris announces.
It’s about damn time. “Let them in.”
A tall, scrawny man with a black medical bag walks in. His hair is peppered with grays, his complexion is the hue of rich amber wood, and his eyes are brown with gold flecks.
He’s a werewolf.
To the human eye, he could be perceived to be no older than his late fifties.
However, I know he’s pushing at least a millennium.
There’s always small tells of one’s true age.
Like how his steps are measured as if they’re reserving energy he can’t afford to waste.
Or how his eyes are multi-layered like they’ve lived through too many memories and have too many stories to tell.
“May I,” he motions his hands toward our bed where Helana lies now.
I nod my head.
He sets his bag down and looks at my hand clutching hers with sorrowful eyes. “I will begin now.”
He examines her from head to toe, taking notes here and there. When he lets out a sigh, I already know I won’t like what he’s about to say.
“Your wife, has sustained substantial trauma from wolfsbane gunfire.”
I nod my head, motioning him to continue.
“She was shot once in her back, twice in her left leg, once on her left shoulder and twice,” he pauses, folding his hands in front of himself.
“Go on doctor.” I rub my cold and clammy hands together, nervously. “Just tell me she’s going to be ok.”
“She was shot twice in her head. Mr. Volkov,” his breath catches. “Your wife has succumbed to her injuries. She’s dead—”
“No, check her again,” I demand, rebuking his words, his truth, his lies. “Do CPR, there’s no way she’s dead. My wife is a fighter,” I tell him. Standing, I run my shaky hands through my short, cropped hair. “Check her again.”
“Mr. Volkov, I’m very sorry but she’s been dead for hours now.”
My heart cracks, shatters and bleeds.
She can’t be dead. We were just laughing over coffee earlier. She begged me to try the new cinnamon roll iced coffee the café released this week since she couldn’t have caffeine. She said she wanted to live the experience through me.
“The baby didn’t—”
His voice fades out like my head is underwater. My eyes are on fire that even the tears that well within them can’t douse out the flames.
I don’t know how long I have been standing here beside her. When I blink, the sun has long set, and the room is filled with total darkness.
My darkness.
My shadows swallowing me whole.
Even though Helana is laying before me, I don’t think I have ever felt so alone before.
“Helana, Solnyshko, please don’t leave me.”
Don’t leave me in a world where you no longer exist. Don’t let me wander so far in the dark where your light can no longer reach me, where it can no longer guide me back home.
***
They lower her body slowly into her final resting place.
So, this is the distance between her and me.
Six feet of torment and hell with four tall walls covered in dirt as her home now.
When Helana’s casket thuds at the bottom of the ground, it echoes in the chamber of my heart where it continues to break.
Clenching my hands at my sides, it takes everything in me to not jump in and meet the same end as her.
To not open that casket and lie next to her.
To feel her one last time. To kiss her, one last time.
To whisper I love her in her ear. To sleep next to her.
One. Last. Time.
I still can.
Dirt is swept into her grave until it’s leveled to the ground we’re all standing on. Bending down, I press two fingers to my lips and then press them to the dirt, giving her my final goodbye.
She promised me forever. We were supposed to have fucking forever. Instead, we were robbed.
They stole our little family, our future from me.
We were supposed to be working on the nursery this week, painting the room in neutral colors.
But instead, this past week, all I dreamt about was her and her soft caresses.
Her laughter. How she thought kissing my furrowed brows could remove the tension of the day away.
Being my father’s executioner and the Pakhan’s heir, my days are long and gruesome.
However, she made those days lighter. She carried some of the burden and removed it all with a simple kiss.
I imagined what our child would have looked like. The final autopsy revealed it was a girl. We wanted to wait to find out the sex until Helana gave birth.
Would she have had Helana’s pale blond hair or my platinum strands? Would her eyes be silver or her mother’s grey- green ones? How would it have felt to hold her tiny hands in mine? Would she make me play dress up and try to put my short hair in many ponytails?
My eyes lift to the sky at the thought.
Who am I without her? Without them?
Small hands touch my shoulders, and for the briefest moment, I fantasize they’re Helana’s. I let myself imagine it’s Helana comforting me, telling me everything will be ok.
But it’s not, Solnyshko.
“Nikolai,” Quinn, Helana’s best friend, says softly from behind me.
I close my eyes tightly. The only voice I want to hear is my wife’s.
“It’s time to go,” she continues.