Chapter 41 | Anna
The balcony looked out toward the river, the Isar moving steadily through the trees below. It was a view meant to calm people. Today, it reminded me that everything kept going whether we survived Munich or not.
It was late afternoon when the two men left. Pinks and purples bled across the indigo sky. I stood on the balcony—another balcony, another city, another body of water in the distance—and pretended like Ludwig’s comment about my hair didn’t bother me.
It bothered me.
Because Ludwig was right. My white hair was nothing but a way to stand out like a neon banana in a fruit bowl.
And if the Brotherhood or Knights operatives were hunting for us—because why wouldn’t they be—I needed to do something about it.
To blend in, the way these men seemed to blend in without effort.
Behind me, he was at the table, breaking down a weapon that absolutely did not need breaking down.
I wasn’t interested in that.
What I was interested in was whether there was a drugstore within walking distance.
“Is there a store nearby?” I asked, not turning.
“Yes. A few blocks.”
Of course, he knew. He’d probably mapped the entire area the second we landed.
“I need necessities.” I turned from the balcony, closed and locked the doors. Decision made.
That got his attention.
“What kind of necessities?”
“Girl stuff,” I said, hoping that would throw him off enough to stay here and let me do this on my own. I could find my way to a drugstore without help.
He blinked. “Girl stuff.”
Did he seriously need me to explain? He stared at me, expression flat. I watched him scrolling through mental files labeled things I am not equipped to handle.
“What kind of girl stuff?” he tried.
I leveled him with my most innocent expression.
“Trust me,” I said sweetly. “You don’t want to know.”
Thirty seconds passed.
Then he said, flatly, “I’m coming with you.”
“It’s okay. I can—”
“I said I’m coming with you.” He rose from the table, the dismantled weapon forgotten. But I didn’t miss he grabbed another smaller handgun and put it at the small of his back.
I sighed. “But I—”
“This is not a debate.”
It wasn’t about not trusting me. I knew that wasn’t it. It was about letting me walk around, alone, in a strange city with a target painted on my back.
Or head, in this instance.
“Fine,” I said, yielding.
Ten minutes later, we were walking down the street.
Munich was quieter than Istanbul. Cleaner lines, less chaos, but no less watchful.
Me on the inside. Him on the outside. He scanned every face, every inch of sidewalk like we were heading into a war zone instead of a pharmacy.
Like buying stuff I needed required a combat formation.
I watched him. The utter control. The stiff demeanor. The way his sharp eyes took in everything and everyone.
This was not like Istanbul, when we’d walked down the street and ended up at a café. Then, he’d been relaxed. Calm. Casual.
This was different. Edgier.
“You know,” I said, “most guys don’t provide armed escort for necessity runs.”
“I’m not most guys.”
That was the understatement of the decade.
When we got to the store, I managed to edge him behind me so I could enter first. He didn’t argue. He fell in step behind me.
I grabbed a hand basket in case the impulse aisle was enticing.
Since the signs were in German, it took me several minutes of walking up and down the aisles to find what I wanted. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Tinny pop music played from hidden speakers. He kept pace, a silent shadow overqualified for pharmacy duty.
I snagged a few things I didn’t need. A box of crackers. A bar of solid chocolate. Cookies. Junk food. I missed junk food.
And then I found it.
An entire wall of boxed hair color devoted to identity crises and bad decisions.
I stopped. He stopped behind me. Silent. Waiting.
“This?” he asked. “Why?”
I lifted a shoulder. “Because I glow in the dark.” I pointed to my head. “White hair isn’t… subtle.”
His gaze slid over me in that slow, assessing way that always made my skin feel too tight.
“This is because of what Ludwig said.”
“No,” I corrected. “I don’t want to stick out. Besides, I was already thinking about it before he so helpfully pointed it out.”
He said nothing, as if accepting my explanation.
Rare.
I pretended to study the options, but I already knew what I wanted. Black. Because that was me. My gaze landed on the one closest to my natural shade—but I couldn’t read the box because German.
My gaze wandered over the other rows of boxes. There were various shades from black to sable to blonde to…
Red.
“You know what?” I said, then paused.
He stood half a step behind me, eyes tracking reflections in the convex mirror at the end of the aisle like we were in hostile territory.
“I should mix it up.”
That got his attention.
His expression went carefully neutral. “How?”
I picked up a box. Held it up. Red.
Cherry red. Deep, dramatic, definitely-not-subtle red.
“I’ll be a redhead this time.”
The reaction was instant.
A hard stop.
His entire body went still. He looked at the box. Then at me.
“No.”
I blinked. “Why not?”
“I don’t like redheads.”
“You don’t?”
“They attract attention.”
“So does white hair,” I pointed out.
“Different kind of attention.”
“A six-foot-plus walking menace attracts attention,” I said, “but here we are.”
He ignored that. “You’re not a redhead.”
“But I could be.”
Needling him was the single most enjoyable thing I’d done in the last few weeks.
His expression was flat. Like any second now he was going to call me out on my bullshit. I mean, he had an internal lie detector. He knew what I was doing.
And he was keeping a straight face.
It was an award-winning performance.
“Think about it,” I continued. “Very mysterious. Very femme fatale.”
“Like you’re not a problem already.”
There was warmth underneath the deadpan delivery. A hint of fondness.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “But I could be a bigger problem.”
“Stop fooling around.”
He wasn’t mad. He was done with my shit.
God, this was fun.
“I’m not. I think red.”
His eyes darkened enough to make my pulse stutter.
He leaned in, voice low enough to scrape the linoleum. Close enough that I felt the words more than heard them.
“If you decide to go red, I will spend the rest of my existence assuming every man who looks at you is thinking about touching you.”
My pulse spiked. We were in a pharmacy. Having this conversation in the hair dye aisle.
I tilted my head. Kept my voice steady.
“And that bothers you because…?”
His mouth brushed my ear. “Because I don’t share.”
Oh.
A tremor shifted through me. Right. Okay, then.
I replaced the red box back on the shelf.
Reached for black. The practical choice. The safe choice. The me choice.
“Fine. Dark and broody it is.”
He straightened. Satisfied.
I glanced at him sideways.
“So to confirm,” I said. “You’re possessive, controlling, and anti-redhead.”
“I’m selective.”
I smirked. “And you picked me.”
He sighed, took the box from my hand, and dropped it into the basket.
“Let’s go.”
I smiled.
I wandered the store for another twenty minutes—the man was indulgent—dropping things into the basket. A hairbrush. A comb. More hair ties, because they tended to disappear into the ether. Hand lotion. Other girl things he definitely pretended didn’t exist.
At the counter, the young woman spoke German. Since I hadn’t a clue what she said, I smiled and said nothing. He, however, answered her easily, which surprised me until it didn’t. Of course he spoke German. Turkish, too. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he knew half a dozen more languages.
I also realized there was a whole lot I didn’t know about him.
He said something that made the woman smile, flutter her lashes at him—get real, he’s mine, don’t even—while he paid and she packaged up my things.
As we walked back, I dug into the bag for the cookies.
“Read the instructions,” he said.
I glanced at him. “Is that your love language? Orders?”
“It’s my survival language.”
I handed him the cookies to hold while I grabbed the box and pulled out the paper, squinting at the German. “It says… apply… thing… do not panic.”
“That last part isn’t on the page.”
“It should be.” I shoved the instructions back into the bag, took the cookies from him, and continued to indulge. “How hard can it be?”
He didn’t answer.
He kept walking like a man escorting someone toward a minor disaster he’d already predicted.
He glanced at the bag like it contained a live grenade. “You’ll stain everything.”
“I will stain nothing.”
He made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “We should buy gloves.”
“There are gloves in the box.”
“We should buy more.”
I crunched a cookie. “You have so little faith in me.”
“Wrong,” he said. “I have extensive experience with you.”
And annoyingly, that was correct.
Forty-five minutes later, I stood in the bathroom with a hair dryer in my hand and a sink stained black. And the floor. And the towels. When I rinsed my hair in the shower, it looked like black ink had exploded all over the walls.
It was a total disaster. I’d deal with that later.
Right now, I stood wrapped in a towel staring at a face I hadn’t seen in months.
The woman in the mirror looked like me.
Not the me I’d been for the past six months. Not the woman with white hair and haunted eyes who’d survived the impossible.
Me.
With violet eyes and long black hair.
The way I used to look. Before he showed up unannounced and claimed his place beside me. Before prophecy demanded my life. Before Vormund. Before the alteration that had rewired my nervous system and stolen pieces of who I was.
I’d forgotten what I looked like.
I stared at myself for a long time, trying to reconcile that with who I was now.
There were hints of the new me—the scar on my cheek. The ever-present fatigue lining my face. The shadows under my eyes.
Something in my chest loosened. Something I hadn’t realized was wound tight.
I steadied myself.
“Hello, there,” I whispered. “I remember you.”
For half a second, I considered walking out there wrapped only in a towel. Then I decided that wasn’t the best idea. In case he decided to entertain visitors again. So, I dressed in clean clothes. And when the ensemble was complete, I took one last look at myself, gave myself a nod of approval…
…and opened the door.
I don’t know why I was nervous about this. It wasn’t a big deal. It was just hair.
The faint chemical scent of hair color followed me as I stepped into the hall.
He sat at the table sharpening one of his knives. He looked up. Froze.
And for the first time in the history of ever, his expression was unguarded.
Not desire or want or relief.
Recognition.
Like something in him had reached backward and forward at the same time and found the same point in both.
His gaze moved over my face. My hair. The familiar lines of me that hadn’t existed for months.
He didn’t smile.
He stilled.
He remembered me this way. Before the white hair. Before the rewiring. Before the constant vigilance etched into my bones.
Before everything broke.
“Well?” I asked, impatient. “Is it bad?”
His throat worked once. “It’s you.”
That’s all he said. Like he’d known I was still in there.
Then he rose from the table and crossed the room toward me. I don’t know why, but my heart skipped a beat. I stood there, watching him, waiting, holding my breath.
He took the strands in his hand and let them fall through his fingers like black ink. Like he had to check to make sure it was me.
“I forgot,” he said.
“Me, too,” I whispered.
The way he was looking at me was doing things to me. I had to diffuse the situation.
“Good thing I didn’t pick red,” I said.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “It would’ve complicated things.”
I smiled.
His hand was still in my hair. Still touching me, like he couldn’t believe it.
Yeah. Red would’ve complicated everything.