Chapter 20
Drenched in sweat, I wake on the cot. My mouth tastes like rust and ash, and every muscle aches as if I’ve been pried apart with a crowbar.
Hell.
That’s where I am.
A dry groan scrapes out of me as I blink against the gummy seal of my eyelids. The world swims. Walls, ceiling… Movement.
I’m not alone.
A man sits nearby, long legs sprawled, arms folded, back propped against the wall like he has all the time in the world to stare at me.
Shaggy black hair falls over his forehead, and his eyes… Good God, his eyes are so black and bottomless, like two endless pits, pinning me in place. He’s a burly, broad-shouldered, living mountain in a fitted shirt.
Kodiak Strakh.
Beautiful and brutal all at once. Probably wrestled grizzlies in the Arctic. And if the glare he’s throwing me says anything, he’d wrestle me just for fun.
Why is he here?
The bathroom door creaks, and a smaller figure slips into view. Red hair drapes around porcelain shoulders. Eyes big and green as emeralds. Childlike, but not fragile. No. There’s steel under those nursing scrubs.
Frankie Strakh.
Monty’s wife. Kodiak’s and Leonid’s, too, if the rumors are to be believed. Sitka’s favorite scandal.
Gracefully, she moves toward me, and Kodiak instantly tenses. He growls low in his throat, a territorial touch-her-and-die growl.
She hushes him with a small sound and leans over me, pressing the back of her hand to my forehead.
“Your fever’s still high.” She withdraws her touch and backs away. “I gave you antibiotics. Keep resting. Drink water. And stop using your hand like your wrist isn’t broken.”
My gaze drops to the aching thing, now splinted with a brace and neatly wrapped in fresh bandages. I flex my fingers, wincing. At least, they’re moving.
She clucks her tongue. “Nurse’s orders.”
Kodiak reaches for her arm, fingers closing gently but firmly, pulling her farther back.
She shoots him a glare so sharp I half-expect him to flinch. He doesn’t. He just holds her, his jaw tight enough to grind rocks.
“Thanks for coming, Dorothy.” Wolf pushes off the door and kisses the top of her head. “And your little dog, too.” He winks at Kodiak.
The big man grunts, but my attention is rapt on Wolf.
He turns to me like a fucking fever dream, dripping in drama. Black pinstriped pants hug his thighs, laced up the sides just enough to show skin. His Renaissance retro boots with pointed toes weren’t made for walking. They were made to step on a man’s neck and look good doing it.
Up top is some designer monstrosity, deep burgundy silk with high, exaggerated shoulders and embroidered gold thread twisting across his chest in baroque patterns.
No buttons undone. No glimpse of a defined torso.
Not even a sliver of collarbone. Just a smug, sculpted mouth and hint of untamed madness prowling beneath the fabric.
It’s infuriating. Don’t get me wrong. I love his eccentric aesthetic, but I want him shirtless. I want the tease stripped down and pissed off.
“This is a problem.” Kodiak glares at me and clamps a paw on Wolf’s shoulder. “Get it out of our town.”
“Heard you the first ten times.” Wolf shakes him off.
“I mean it.”
Wolf looks at Frankie and directs his chin at Kodiak. “Remember how he used to be a virgin?”
“Behave.” She gives him a teasing smile.
“Only if you watch.” His eyes sparkle.
Kodiak growls, and I’m tempted to growl with him.
“Alrighty.” Wolf claps his hands and shoos them toward the door. “You kids run along now. I got this.”
“I need to talk to you.” Kodiak plants his boots and shoots me a look that says I’m a diseased devil they should’ve left to rot. “In private.”
“Is this another one of those talks about how I shouldn’t be alone?” Wolf pulls on his pearl earring. “How I don’t spend enough time with you and the Strakh emotional-support brigade?”
“You’re not alone.” Kodiak spreads his arms. “You have us if you’ll let us in.”
“Sounds like you need some family time. Tell you what. I’ll pencil in a group hug after I deal with Satan over there.” Wolf jerks a thumb in my direction. “We have some marshmallows to roast over the barrel fire of his poor life choices.”
What the fuck? I’m lying here half-dead, and this is the guy who claims he is protecting Dove from me?
They go back and forth like this. Kodiak with his hell-dark eyes and quiet concern, and Wolf flinging sarcasm like it’s his sharpest weapon. It’s messy, uncomfortable, and genuinely charming.
I hate that their bickering makes me green with envy. I don’t have this. Brothers. Friends. People who care enough to smother me.
Kodiak shoves his face into Wolf’s, baring his teeth. “You spend too much time by yourself.”
“You think?” Wolf mutters, looking away. “I don’t need a babysitter. I need you to trust me.”
Kodiak blinks once, twice, then hauls Wolf into his arms and smashes an aggressive kiss against his cheek. “You’re still my little brother. Stop acting like you’re not.”
“And nothing says brotherly love like oral affection.” He turns his head and slowly licks a line up Kodiak’s neck.
As intended, Kodiak jerks back, stumbling to put space between them.
“There we go.” Wolf mimes spraying perfume in the air. “Boundaries restored.”
“Remember what I said.” Kodiak clasps Frankie’s hand and pulls her toward the door.
She glances back once, worry wrinkling her brow. He doesn’t let her stop.
When they’re gone, the silence they leave behind is anything but empty.
“Show me how you’re monitoring Dove.” Wolf casts a glance around the sparse break room. “Where’s all your equipment?”
“You’ve seen my equipment.” I wink. “But I’ll gladly show you again.”
“Spare me the punchlines, Pornhub.” He crouches beside me, arms resting on his knees, a glint of the Arctic in those too-blue eyes. Persistent. Unamused. He’s not going to let this drop.
With a sigh, I fumble with my phone, swiping through some of my security programs. His eyes flicker over the screen, narrowing when I pull up the mechanic shop camera.
There she is, skating lazy circles around the grease-stained bays, headphones on, lost in her own world. Her hair is loose today, blue waves streaking down her back, catching the fluorescent lights.
Stunning.
Wolf’s gaze softens, almost imperceptibly. “She’s safe.”
For now.
But I’m not watching her. I’m watching him.
The sharp planes of his face. The full mouth that never stops twisting into sardonic shapes. The tension riding his shoulders like a mantle he never sets down.
He called his family to mend my hand. No one’s done anything like that for me. Ever.
“Who’s following her?” He pins me with a murderous stare. “If it’s not you, then who knows she’s here and what do they want?”
I know who’s following her. I’ve known since the moment the feed glitched for three seconds at 2:14 this morning, just long enough for a fingerprint to brush across a relay node I built myself.
They found us.
If I tell Wolf the bad news, it’s over. He’ll react. Explode. Bring the whole fucking circus down on us. He’s too impulsive, hot-blooded, and emotional.
Just like she is.
She can rebuild engines in her sleep and hotwire a city block with a screwdriver and a paperclip. But when it comes to survival, real survival, she’s still that little girl in the system, trusting the wrong foster brother, seeking affection from the wrong family.
She trusts too easily. Loves too hard. And she’ll get herself killed if she knows who’s hunting us. So I keep my secrets and stick to the plan. Like always. It’s muscle memory wired into my fucking DNA.
“Tell me what you know.” He points at the screen. “You’re hacking private cameras. How? Where is all your computer shit?”
“Blue princess.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Whatever you want.”
“I want answers!” He punches the mattress.
“So protective,” I murmur, voice roughened by fever and something hungrier. “If I ask nicely, will you climb on my lap and make me forget how you broke my wrist?”
“In your dreams, kitty cat.” His eyes remain on the screen. On Dove.
“Oh, I dream.” I grin slowly, feverishly, delighted. “You, me, and the make-out booth I built for you. Bet you’re curious how soft I can purr when you’re on top.”
He snaps his gaze to me, eyes wide, before he narrows them. “Didn’t peg you for a bottom.”
“Depends who’s doing the pegging.”
“Sorry to disappoint. I don’t fuck homicidal stalkers. Or stepbrothers. Or men, in general.”
“I’ll change your mind.” I stretch out on my back, watching his eyes trace my bare stomach as it flexes.
Nothing shy about the way he regards me. The man is confronting, openly hungry, and beneath the uncultured mannerisms, deeply curious. Almost innocent.
I’m certain he’s never been with a man. But is it possible he’s never fucked a woman?
Could he be a virgin?
He’s had six months to take care of that problem. Six months to shed his animal skin, tame his feral impulses, and acclimate to civilization.
Okay, that’s not long. Especially if he’s dragging around some heavy-ass trauma baggage. Torture, rape, whatever flavor of fucked-up his snow cabin captor fed him in the Arctic.
Holy fuck.
I bet this beautiful, damaged man has never had consensual sex.
Lust trips in my belly and stiffens my cock. He marks it immediately, his gaze locking on the growing, twitching bulge tenting my thin sweatpants.
“You can’t stand me, and you can’t look away.” I wet my lips. “Fun little problem, isn’t it?”
He rises from his crouch and sits against my hip on the cot, bracing his hands on either side of me.
“You’re playing a game you’ll lose, Step-psycho.”
“Oh, pup. I only play games I don’t mind losing.”
Our eyes meet and hold as a quiet storm drops between us. Fuck if I don’t grow harder, the throbbing in my erection rivaling the pounding in my head.
“It’s yours.” I lift my hips, my whisper sticky with want and wickedness. “Satisfy your curiosity.”
The camera feed with Dove continues to stream, but his eyes don’t shift. They’re on me. Stark and wild and sparking with furious need.