Chapter 5 Svetlana #3
I jerk my leg back, self-consciously tucking it back under the table. But when I look at Kazimir, he doesn’t look disgusted. His pupils have blown dark, his jaw tight, his expression one of mingled hunger and rage that sends a buzzing of awareness through me.
“No,” he says finally, his voice low and rough. “It doesn’t look like you have frostbite.”
We finish eating in silence. Kazimir sets down his spoon and looks at me, our eyes meeting, and for a moment, neither of us moves.
The air between us feels charged, heavy with everything we're not saying. With the past, and the present, with the sins he’s committed and the horrors that have happened to me, and the awareness of the fact that we’re alone here together until the storm passes.
He stands abruptly, turning away with the dishes in his hands. "You should rest more. We're not going anywhere until this storm clears." He walks back over to the woodstove, pouring some water into a cup. “It’s just going to have to blow itself out eventually.”
I nod, swallowing hard. I could try to tease him more, push and flirt a little, but I’m too tired.
I go back to the bed and lie down, pulling the blankets around me.
My body is exhausted, and I close my eyes, wanting more sleep.
More uninterrupted rest where no one will hurt me, wake me, or want anything from me.
Kazimir might want me, but right now, all I want is peace.
—
When I wake again, it's late afternoon. The light coming through the window is gray and dim, and the storm is still raging outside. Kazimir is back, sitting in his chair by the window, watching the snow fall.
"How long was I asleep?" I ask, my voice still rough with sleep.
"A few hours." He doesn't look at me. "The storm's not letting up. We're stuck here for at least another day."
Another day. Another day trapped in this small cabin with him, with this tension between us.
I sit up, trying not to wince at how badly it all hurts, and he finally looks at me. His expression is carefully neutral, but I can see the way he’s trying not to let his eyes linger on any one part of me for too long.
"Are you hungry?" he asks.
"A little."
He heats up more of the canned stew, and we eat together again.
I watch him as he eats. He's attractive.
I can admit that to myself. There's something compelling about him… the danger he represents, the violence he keeps leashed until it’s needed.
He's the kind of man who could protect me or destroy me, and right now, I need his protection.
I don’t trust him, and I haven’t forgiven him, but I can admit I need him right now. And I can admit that flirting with him is far from the most terrible thing in the world.
After we eat, the afternoon stretches out with nothing to do but wait for the storm to pass.
Kazimir maintains the fire, then, while I’m awake, finally lets himself doze off in one of the chairs, his gun in his lap.
I watch him from the bed, wrapped in blankets, thinking about how to make sure my plan works.
I need to keep him interested. But I also need to be careful not to push too hard or too fast. If I'm too obvious, he'll see through it.
If I'm too aggressive, he might pull back entirely.
It's a delicate balance, and one I used to be skilled at… enticing men without ever letting them too close. I’m afraid I might have lost the trick of it.
When he goes to add wood to the fire, I let the blanket slip off my shoulder when I see him glance over. Just a little, enough to let him see the line of my collarbone where the top of the shirt is open. I see him notice. His eyes flicker to my exposed skin, then away.
"Cold?" His voice is flat as he looks back toward the fire.
"A little." I pull the blanket back up, slowly. "Thank you for keeping the fire going."
"It's nothing,” he repeats.
“It means a lot that you’re doing all this for me,” I say quietly, and he grunts, still staring at the fire and not at me.
Later, when he brings me water, I let my fingers brush his as I take the cup. He goes still, and I see his jaw tighten.
"Thank you," I say softly, looking up at him through my lashes.
He nods and moves away, but I can feel the tension radiating off him.
This is working. He wants me, and he's fighting it, and every moment he fights it makes him more invested in me. More determined to save me.
As evening falls, he lights the kerosene lamp, and the cabin fills with warm, golden light. It's almost cozy, if you ignore the howling wind outside and the fact that we're fugitives hiding from men who want to kill us.
“So what’s next?” I ask finally, curled up in my nest of blankets on the bed. “What happens when the storm dies down enough that we can leave?”
Kazimir lets out a breath, tapping his fingers against the wood as he sips a cup of hot, black coffee. I’m sure it’s not the kind of coffee he’s used to, but he truly doesn’t seem to mind. He seems as comfortable in this setting as he ever did back in Ilya’s world—maybe even a little more so.
“I’ve been trying to guess at where we’re at,” he says after a moment. “Based on how far I think we got from the compound, and where the compound is in relation to the city. If I’m right, I think there might be a safe house that I know of, about twenty or so miles from here.”
He must see the expression on my face, because he grimaces. “I know. It’s a hell of a hike. But maybe after some rest and food, we’ll be better able to manage it.”
We actually means me. I know that he’d have no trouble hoofing it twenty miles, even through deep snow, but I don’t say anything. I know he’s trying to be polite.
“So a safe house means… what, exactly? Iosef doesn’t know about it?”
“He shouldn’t. There’s the possibility he’s come across it, but I don’t have a better solution right now.
Once we get there, I’ll figure out how to get a message out to my contacts to extract us, and then I can get us back to Boston.
Getting out of these woods is the hard part; once I’ve gotten ahold of someone, we should be on our way back to civilization before long. ”
Civilization. Boston. I wince.
“What if I don’t want to go back to Boston?”
Kazimir looks at me curiously, but all he says is: “I can’t do much about getting you anywhere else, Svetlana. I’m already sticking my neck out doing this, in more ways than one. I can get you home. After that, it’s up to you to figure out what to do next.”
A sudden flash of anger burns in my veins.
If I had something in my hand, I’d throw it at him.
Just like last time, he’s going to do the bare minimum to get me out of this and then abandon me.
He doesn’t care what going back to Boston means for me or the danger I’ll face, the fact that I don’t have anything left there to ‘figure out what to do next.’
He doesn’t know that, though, a small voice in my head whispers. Just like he didn’t know before.
I shove the voice aside.
"And what about Ilya?" I ask. "Does he know you're doing this?"
Kazimir's expression hardens. "No."
Well, that’s interesting. I look at him curiously. "Why not?"
He's quiet for a long moment, and when he speaks, his voice is careful. "Because when it comes to this, what Ilya doesn't know won't hurt him. And because if you're smart, you'll keep quiet about this too."
There's a warning in his words. A threat, even if it's a gentle one.
"And what about you?" I ask. "What do you get out of this?"
Kazimir looks away from me. "I get to sleep at night knowing I didn't leave you to die."
“Again.”
His eyes snap over to me. “I didn’t leave you to die last time. You were alive. You walked out of there on your own.”
And look where you found me after that. I want to snap, but I don’t.
I just swallow, looking away from him as the tension in the air thickens.
I don’t want to tell him all the gory details of what happened either, all the betrayal and fear and pain.
All he’ll do is pity me even more, and I don’t want that, either.
"What if Ilya finds out?" I ask finally. "What if he discovers you've been hiding me?"
"He won't.” Kazimir’s jaw tightens. “I’ll make sure of it.”
"But what if he does?"
Kazimir lets out a sharp, irritated breath.
"Then we'll deal with it. But Svetlana, you need to understand something. Ilya is not who you thought he was. He’s not going to help you. He’s not going to want to have anything to do with you.
And that part of your life is over. I'm telling you, if he wanted you back, he would have come for you himself.
The fact that he didn't..." He trails off, shaking his head.
I realize with an angry shock that he thinks I’m still pining over Ilya.
Hoping that once he hears of my predicament, he’ll swoop in and save me, maybe even feel so guilty over what happened that he’ll choose me over Mara.
I don’t want or think any of that, but it’s clear that Kazimir thinks I’m still in love with a man who never wanted me.
"The fact that he didn't what?" I bite out, wanting to hear him finish the sentence.
"The fact that he didn't means you were never as important to him as you thought you were." Kazimir looks away, and I feel a jolt of pain in my chest despite myself.
The words are cruel, but they're also true.
I've known it for a long time. Ilya didn't come for me after what happened in the warehouse.
He didn't even look for me when I disappeared from his social circle entirely.
He just... let me go. He was glad I was gone, probably, so he could move on with the life he actually wanted.
I turn away from him, wrapping my arms around myself. The cabin suddenly feels too small, confining. I'm trapped here with Kazimir, trapped in this situation, trapped in a future I never wanted.
"I need some air," I whisper, more to myself than anything else.
Kazimir’s gaze snaps back to me. "You can't go outside. The storm—"
"I know,” I hiss. "I know I can't go outside. I know I'm trapped here. I know I have no choices. I know all of it, Kazimir."
He's quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry."
I don't know what to say to that. So I say nothing.
The evening wears on. We eat again—more canned food, more silence. The tension between us is thick enough to cut with a knife. I'm aware of every move he makes. Every glance. Every time he gets close to me, I feel it like a physical touch.
And I use it. I let my hand linger on his when he passes me food. I sit close enough that our knees touch. I let the shirt slip off my shoulder again, and this time I don't pull it back up right away.
His eyes track every movement. I can see the hunger in them, the restraint. He wants me, and he's fighting it, and watching him fight it gives me a sense of power I haven't felt in months.
But there are a few moments when I feel something, too…
when our eyes meet, and I feel a spark, a stirring, like I felt in that ballroom years ago, or when my bare hand touched his getting into a car.
A few moments, I know if I allowed it, I could feel the same hunger he does, despite how much I resent him. Hate him, even.
But I can't afford to feel. I can't afford to want him for real. That would make me vulnerable, and I’ve been vulnerable enough for a hundred lifetimes.
As night falls, Kazimir banks the fire and settles into his chair again. "You should sleep. We'll leave at first light if the storm clears."
"What about you?" I’m already curled into the blankets again. I try not to think about him joining me in the bed, even though I know he’d sleep in the chair before he allowed that to happen.
"I'll keep watch,” he says gruffly, checking his gun.
I huff out a breath. If I did manage to get him into the bed, I could tease him a little more. Let him feel what it’s like to have me against him, touching him, without actually letting it go any further. That would really keep him on the hook. "You can't stay awake forever."
"I'll manage."
I’m too exhausted to keep playing this game.
My body is using the relative safety to try to recover, and I can feel that it’s using every ounce of my energy.
I pull the blankets closer around me and snuggle down into the bed, but I don't close my eyes.
Instead, I watch him in the dim light of the dying fire.
He's staring out the window, his profile carved like marble in the shadows. There's something lonely about him, sitting there in the dark.
I wonder what he's thinking. If he's regretting saving me. If he's wishing he'd left me in that cell.
If he's thinking about what it would be like to touch me.
The thought sends a flutter through my stomach, and I push it away. I can't think like that. I can't want him.
But as I lie there in the dark, listening to the wind howl and watching Kazimir keep his lonely vigil, I can't help but wonder what would happen if I stopped playing games. If I let myself want him back.
But that's a thought for another day. Another life.
For now, I close my eyes and try to sleep, and I dream of nothing at all.