23. Aleksandr
ALEKSANDR
Ihold Katerina tight to my chest.
Behind her shoulder, Alina is already stepping aside, her dark eyes flicking from me to Katerina as a small smile tugs at her lips.
She knows it’s time to leave us for a while. Of course she does. She’s seen this kind of desperation before, has felt it in her own bones when Sasha rescued her from her own father months ago.
She doesn’t speak. She simply presses a hand to my shoulder as she passes in a brief, silent acknowledgment, then closes the doors behind her with a soft click that echoes in my ears.
When I pull back to look at Katerina, I cup her face with both of my hands. Her hair is wild, strands of it plastered to her forehead with dried sweat. Her eyes are huge, glassy with shock and unshed tears, but they lock on me like I’m the only thing left in this world that tethers her to it.
She’s alive.
The relief hits me like a freight train, stealing the air from my lungs. My hands move before I can think.
I let go of her face and reach for her arms first, my fingers wrapping around her wrists as my thumbs press against the pulse points there, feeling the frantic thud that matches my own.
Next I walk them up her forearms to her biceps, feeling no broken bones or hidden bullet holes.
I slide my palms over the faint red marks where someone gripped her too hard—a detail I file away later to punish the enforcer who was stupid enough to do that to her—then down again to check for anything else I missed.
Her legs next.
I drop to my knees in front of her and run my hands along her calves, her thighs, pushing the hem of her nightshirt higher without thought while searching for blood, cuts, anything that would tell me she’s dying and I was too late.
But there’s nothing.
Just smooth skin with faint bruises that look old.
When I stand, I cup her cheeks with both hands again, my thumbs brushing the tear tracks that cut clean paths down her skin. Her lips are swollen, probably from chewing on it while she waited for my return. I trace the injury with the pad of my thumb, gentle, careful, like she’s made of glass.
“You’re okay,” I rasp. My voice sounds foreign to my own ears, raw with emotion.
She nods, the motion jerky. Her hands are on me next.
Her fingers curl into the front of my shirt, gripping so hard the fabric bunches.
She yanks it up to reveal the blood marring my skin, though none of it is mine.
Her eyes latch onto the bandage at my side covering the wound Sasha stitched up days ago.
Her eyes widen briefly before she snaps. “You reckless idiot, you got yourself shot?”
The scolding should amuse me. Normally, it does.
This time, it doesn’t, though. It cracks something wide open inside my chest.
“It’s old. I’m fine,” I tell her.
“You’re not fine.” Her voice rises, trembling around the edges. “You could have died.”
The terror in her eyes is unmistakable. She’s not angry at me. She’s terrified of losing me.
The realization steals the last of my restraint.
I surge forward, mouth crashing into hers.
The kiss is messy and desperate, tasting of salt and the copper tang of blood. She meets me with equal force, hands fisting in my hair, pulling me down until we’re tangled together on the floor and I’m half kneeling between her thighs.
My hands move on instinct.
I hook my fingers under the hem of her nightshirt and lift it over her head, parting only long enough to tug it off her before replacing my mouth on hers again.
My hands run over her bare shoulders, breasts, her stomach.
She doesn’t stop me. She helps, lifting her hips when my hands wander down to the shorts still covering her so I can shove the fabric down past her thighs and toss it aside.
I strip out of my own shirt, kicking off boots and pants in a frantic tangle until there’s nothing between us but skin and heat and the frantic thud of two hearts trying to prove they’re still beating.
I push her back down onto the rug in front of the fire, covering her body with mine. My weight pins her. She arches beneath me, legs wrapping around my hips, heels digging into the backs of my thighs.
I enter her in one hard thrust.
She gasps, nails scoring down my back, leaving fresh welts over older bruises. I don’t care. I need this. Need to feel her clench around me, need to hear the broken sounds she makes when I fill her to know she’s alive and warm and here choosing me.
I move hard at first, a punishing rhythm that has us both panting within seconds. Each thrust is a wordless demand that screams, stay, stay, stay. She meets every one of them, her hips rising, thighs squeezing around me and whispering my name like a prayer against my throat.
The adrenaline ebbs and the rhythm slows. I brace myself on my forearms, my forehead pressing to hers as I take her deeper, slower, grinding against her until her breath hitches and her eyes flutter closed. I kiss her then, tasting every tremor that runs through her.
When she comes it’s quiet, a long shudder that rolls through her entire body. I follow a heartbeat later, burying myself as deep as I can and spilling inside her with a groan that feels like it’s been trapped in my chest for weeks.
We don’t move for a long time. I stay inside her, softening slowly while our breathing evens out. My arms shake from holding my weight off her until I finally settle on top of her. She doesn’t complain. She just wraps her arms around my neck and holds me.
I press my lips to her temple.
“I thought I lost you,” I admit. The words come out rough, barely above a whisper. “When they took you off that stage… when the car disappeared, I was sure I’d failed you. That I’d never see you again.”
For a man who has spent most of his life speaking with absolute certainty, the vulnerability in that confession feels foreign on my tongue.
But it’s the truth.
The image of her up on that stage is still burned behind my eyes. The chaos of the ballroom, the military police dragging her away, her voice calling my name, cutting through the noise just before she’d been dragged outside and thrown into the back of an SUV never to be seen again.
The helplessness of that moment had been unbearable.
Her fingers trace sling my jawline. She murmurs, “You didn’t fail me. You came for me. I knew you would.”
My throat tightens painfully. “Did you?”
The question slips out before I can stop it because part of me still can’t quite believe she trusted me that much.
She shifts beneath me, and I instinctively lift my head so I can see her face properly. When our eyes meet, the intensity there steals what little breath I had left. Her eyes are bright with unshed tears, but the fire behind them is unmistakable. The one that I love.
“Of course I did. You promised me I was yours, didn’t you?” she says firmly.
My heart thuds hard in my chest. “I did. I meant it.”
She cups my face with both hands, thumbs brushing the stubble along my jaw. “That’s why I sent you that letter. I knew once you got it, you’d come for me. You’d burn the damn house down if that’s what it took.”
A quiet chuckle escapes me.
She’s not wrong. If Sasha hadn’t found her in that tunnel, if the extraction had failed, I might very well have done exactly that.
My eyes sting unexpectedly, forcing me to blink a few times to relieve the pressure building behind them. I drag a slow breath into my lungs, trying to steady the storm of emotion threatening to surface.
The truth is, I don’t know what I would have done if the rescue mission had failed. There had been a small voice in the back of my mind during the entire operation, quiet and persistent with doubt.
A fear that Sasha might not reach her in time. That something would go wrong in the tunnel or Borchin’s security would intercept them before they reached the exit. If any of that had happened, I might have lost them both.
The thought had been suffocating, nearly impossible to ignore at the time. Now, sitting here with her beneath me, her warmth pressed against my chest, the reality of it all feels almost surreal.
“I love you,” she whispers.
The words hit harder than the bullet in my side did. My heart stutters as I stare at her, searching for the lie, the hesitation, anything that would convince me I misheard.
But there’s nothing.
Just certainty.
I pull her closer, burying my face in her hair. “I love you too. More than anything. More than the Pact… more than my own fucking life.”
She makes a soft, broken sound against my throat. I kiss up her neck until I find her lips again, moving them on hers slower this time, sealing the promise with every brush of lips and every shared breath captured between us.
We stay like that until the fire burns low.
Eventually, we’re forced to clean up.
There’s a small bathroom attached to the sitting room that I take her to.
I carry her there and set her on the counter.
I run warm water over washcloths to clean her, but she pushes me away, insisting on tending to my stitches first. When she unwraps the bandage, both of us are surprised to find minimal fluid leakage.
The wound is red and angry, but clean. No major damage.
“Good,” she murmurs, relief washing over her face as she presses a fresh bandage in place.
I catch her wrist, kissing each individual knuckle on her hand. “See? I can’t be that easily taken out.”
She smiles. It’s small and tired but real. When we finally dress, finding a pair of fresh clothes folded on the couch by the time we leave the bathroom courtesy of Alina, we step back into the hallway.
I take her by the hand and lead her down the hallway to Sasha’s study, finding him already waiting. He looks us over once we enter, noting the way Katerina’s hand is tangled in mine, and gives us both a short nod. “Ramil’s been settled downstairs.”
Katerina goes still beside me, her head whipping to me as soon as the words finally register. I feel her pulse jump under my thumb. Confusion and something unsettled flickers in her eyes. “What happens now?”
I meet her gaze, steady and unflinching.
“Ramil’s fate is yours to decide,” I tell her.