Chapter 16
Nikolai
W here the fuck are my soldiers? There should have been at least ten of them, two in the restaurant, and the rest outside but they’re nowhere in sight.
I don’t miss how strange it is that none of the patrons from the restaurant have come out to see the full-on war in the middle of the streets either.
No women screaming, no people rushing towards safety.
We’re not in the human district by any means but even the clash of vampires would have any species on alert and in fear.
Moving past damaged vehicles from the explosion, I see dismembered bodies and large amounts of blood splayed everywhere. Some from the effects of my bullets, some from my shadows and some from something else.
When my car exploded and I felt the threat moving in on us, on Aspen, my vision turned red and my mind went blank. When I finally came back to myself, Aspen was already gone and the only thing I could hear was distant shooting and metal clacking against the pavement.
Panic instantly took hold and my shadows started to retreat back into my body, allowing the light to shine on the streets again.
“Aspen!” I croak out, running, swiveling my head from side to side. I’ve been screaming her name for ten minutes straight now and the entire street is quiet. Not a living soul in sight .
Is she?
No.
“Aspen, fucking answer me now!” I roar.
“I’m behind you.” Her voice is hauntingly low.
I turn around just as an Asian man’s head is lifted off his shoulders by the katana in Aspen’s hand. She stands there tall and erect with her blade extended in front of her. Deadly doesn’t describe the look in her eyes and militant can’t express her stance.
Regal.
That’s the word. She looks like a decorated soldier who wasn’t just trained in regular military combat but something far more advanced.
Horror floods me. It fills in my stomach, in my bones.
She’s covered in blood from head to toe. I get to her in three short strides.
“Wh-where are you bleeding from?” I run my hands over her body, trying to find the wound.
She grabs my wrist. “It’s not mine,” she breathes out, exhausted as I watch as her brown eyes grow distant.
I grip the back of her head, pulling her forward until our foreheads touch. I breathe her in. My fractured heart slows and steadies itself.
She’s fine. She’s fucking fine.
Aspen mechanically hands me back my gun. “We need a car.” She goes to the only mildly damaged car in the small lot. “This will do.”
Pushing her to the side, I tell her, “I’ll drive.”
Her gaze slowly lifts to mine but she’s looking straight through me. Her breath comes out shallow and when I grip her hands, they’re clammy. Touching her pulse point in her wrist, her pulse is rapid and a bit weak .
She’s going into shock.
Bringing her to my side, I walk her to the passenger side of the car. When she lets me place her in the car, no words pass her lips as I click in her seat belt. Before I get to my seat, I pull out the panel under the steering wheel and hotwire the car. It comes on immediately.
It wasn’t until were minutes outside of the city that Aspen spares me a glance. Her eyes travel from my head down to my shoes then back to my left arm.
“You’re bleeding,” she says flatly while her fingers ghost around the area of the bullet wound on my shoulder. I flinch and she stops touching me. “Pull over.”
“No. I’ll handle this when we get home.”
“Pull over or I’ll pull over for you.” Her words are clipped and it bargained no compromise.
I do as she says. I can’t risk her harming both of us.
“Take off your jacket. I want to see,” she commands.
When I pull my left arm out of the sleeve of my jacket it’s the first time I feel the pain.
“Take your shirt off too.” She runs her fingers over the black veins that are starting to spread from the gunshot wound. She cringes. “It’s wolfsbane.”
My forehead wrinkles. “You would know that, how?”
“You read my file and know that Roman is in the SRU. He told me about your world. Even trained me how to fight against those like you.”
Right. He taught her well judging off of how she seized my gun from me and based off the amount of blood she’s covered in .
“You couldn’t fight my shadows,” I say in an attempt to try to lighten the mood. I failed.
“I couldn’t fight against your father’s either.” She pulls her favorite lipstick from her breast. She uncaps it and twists upward and a thin blade comes through the lipstick.
“What the fuck?”
When I saw her retract her katana back into her lipstick, that was one thing. But seeing that it can turn into a switchblade is another.
Who is Aspen really and who made this weapon for her?
“Be still, I need to get the bullet out before it gets more infected. I don’t think you want a scar on this creamy skin of yours.”
She adjusts herself until she’s on her knees in her seat. Hovering over my shoulder, without warning, she digs her blade into my arm before she starts digging her fingers into my wound.
“FUCK!”
Before I know it, she’s putting her now cut palm over my mouth, feeding me her blood. I pull back, spitting out her blood.
“What are you doing?”
“Take it, it’ll help you heal faster.”
“No,” I scowl. “Don’t ever do this again, this is dangerous, Malyshka!”
“I know exactly what I’m doing. Even though I removed the bullet, your bloodstream is already infected by the wolfsbane. If you don’t take my blood now, you may not make it back to the compound.”
She shoves her leaking palm back to my mouth, leaving me to only drink down every drop she’s gifting me.
She doesn’t know what she started.
***
Pulling into the curved drive, bodies litter the front of the compound. My father stands in the middle of all of it. His once cream-colored suit is rumpled and drenched in blood. He rushes to open Aspen’s car door before I come to a complete stop.
He grabs Aspen’s face. “Little one, look at me. Are you ok?”
“Vlad—”
“The blood isn’t hers.” Stepping out, I round the car until I’m next to him. “What the hell happen?”
“An ambush.” He pulls Aspen out the car, I bring her to my side. “You two look like shit.”
“I feel it too. Someone blew up my car and opened fire on us.”
“For fuck sakes.” He palms his face. “Did you see who they were?”
“They were mostly masked. The one I did see, he looked Asian.”
He bobs his head. “We’re under a total lock down. No one in or out from this point on.”
Turning Aspen, I walk us towards the house and up the stairs. She’s moving slower than usual and when I look down, I see why. Her right ankle is swollen under her heel strap. It’s sprained.
Lifting her bridal-style, we go in the compound. She doesn’t resist, she doesn’t even squirm in my hold. She’s quiet and distant again. I hold her tighter, unease filling my veins. “Talk to me Malyshka.”
She doesn’t. She simply clutches her chest, keeping her eyes closed.
When we get to our suite, I take us straight to the shower. Placing her on the shower seat, I turn on all the sprayers. The water covers us completely. Still, no reaction from her. Even as blood washes off our clothes into the center floor drain, she doesn’t move.
“Malyshka, say something,” I plead.
I drop down to one knee, taking her left foot in my hand, I unclasp her heel buckle. Placing this foot down, I grab the other.
She hisses.
“I’m sorry.” When I bring my eyes up to her face, her eyes are already waiting. “I’ll be gentle.” And I am.
Standing back up, I cuff her brown face. “I need to take down your hair and wash out the blood. Is that ok?”
She nods slowly.
I grab the shampoo and lather her braids, massaging her scalp. She closes her eyes, tilting her head forward, leaning into me.
“Tilt your head back. Soap will get in your eyes this way.”
She does.
At least she’s responsive and compliant.
I rinse her hair until the water runs clear. “Aspen. I need to wash you. Can I take off your clothes?”
Several beats pass until she nods again.
Unzipping what’s left of her dress, I toss it along with her shoes outside of the shower. Grabbing a cloth, I pour in her favorite body wash. My shadows stand her up as I run the washcloth all over her body. My shadow washes the areas I know if she was coherent, she wouldn’t allow me.
It’s then that I notice that there is a symbol inside of a circle on her hip bone. It looks like a brand by the way the skin is raised but I can’t make out what it is. It’s not exactly the time to play twenty one questions, so I file this away for later.
After allowing the water to rinse her off, I drape a towel over her and walk her to the foot of the bed.
“I’ll grab some pajamas. Can you dry yourself off?”
No answer.
My shadows dry her off while I go to our closet and pull out one of my shirts and pajama pants. Not once since we’ve been married has Aspen worn anything outside of my sweats to bed. Tonight, it will be no different.
Making my way back into the room, she’s in the same spot where I left her. With the towel still covering her, I pull the shirt over her head and pull her arms through the sleeves. I lower myself as I help her into the legs of the pants before removing the towel altogether.
“Get under the covers, Aspen.”
She wordlessly follows my command.
Heading back into the shower, I wash myself.
Resting my head against the cool tile, images of tonight starts to replay in my head.
The images of Aspen springing into action and handling my gun with ease.
Disappearing only to come back drenched in blood, a man’s head flying off from her blade.
Then her removing the bullet from my arm and feeding me her blood so I could heal faster.
I rub the area, remembering her touch and her face of determination when she cut and dug the bullet out.
I think about how she let me take care of her. And then it’s her eerie silence. I’ve seen many people go into shock but to see her go from one hundred to zero within mere moments disturbs me.
I will kill each and every last one of those motherfuckers .
I’m fully dressed in a shirt and loose pants when I walk out of our closet when Aspen finally speaks.
“Where are you going?” she asks, the covers pulled up to her chin.
“The couch.”
“Could you sleep,” she fidgets with the blanket, “with me tonight?”
I scratch the back of my head.
“Just this once? You can stay on your side of the bed.” She pulls back the blanket, inviting me in.
I walk tentatively towards the bed. “Is this how you’ll kill me tonight?”
She snorts and the corners of my lips twitch. “Not tonight. Can’t say anything about tomorrow though.”
There she is.
A smile plays on my lips as I slip under the covers, facing her. She looks at me with doe eyes and my chest tightens. I don’t think I can deny that she’s rewriting my DNA. That she’s carved a spot in my frozen heart.
It thaws for her, it calls to her.
“You saved me tonight. Twice.”
I nod.
“Thank you.”
“We may have started out roughly, but I am your husband.”
She lowers her gaze.
“That means something to me.”
“I see.” She bites her lower lip, I use my fingers to unfurl them.
“And… you’re my friend. ”
That earns me a small laugh from her. Like the ones she gave at dinner before everything went to hell in a flash.
“Right. Friends. How could have I forgotten so fast?”
“You saved me too. Twice.”
Her brows crease.
“Once when you pulled my gun out and shot the fuckers behind me. Once when you pulled the wolfsbane bullet from my arm.” I raise my arm sleeve to show the wound is completely healed. There are still some black veins from the wolfsbane showing, but those will fade by morning.
She rubs the area where the scar should be. “I did.”
“We save each other. That’s what friends do.”
“For once,” she chuckles, “that’s something we can both agree on.”
“Tell me something. Where did you go? One moment you were the most lethal woman on the street and then the next, you were a shell of yourself.”
She takes a large breath before responding to me.
“I’ve been put in situations where it was either kill or be killed.
But I’ve never experienced anything like that.
Once the adrenaline subsided, everything rushed back to me.
The car explosion, the death in your eyes, the area covered in complete darkness.
For a moment, I couldn’t tell who you were.
Whether you were friend or foe. It was the first time I was ever scared. ”
I move the braid on her face to the back of her ear. “I would never hurt you, Malyshka.”
“I-I know. Well, I think I know that’s true.”
“Because it is true,” I reassure her. “Sometimes the beast has to come out to play when the anchor to its storm is in danger.”