12. Kira
KIRA
After that little stunt Nikolai pulled earlier, I had no intention of pretending to sleep when he came in tonight.
I was sitting up against the headboard with my arms crossed and my mind running laps around exactly how I could get out of a marriage I never agreed to in the first place.
Eventually, he'd have to let me be a part of the real world again, but even then, I felt like it would be a battle.
So when the bedroom door opened, I was wide awake and ready to tell Niko exactly what I thought of him and his forged paperwork. But the words died in my throat when I saw him.
He staggered through the door looking haggard and defeated.
His shirt was soaked through with dark blood from his ribs down to his waistband, and his face was pale.
He didn't look right. The way his eyes were sunken and he moved more slowly than usual.
And when he started to undress with his back to me, I started to get worried about him.
It wasn't like him to not say anything to me when I was awake in the room, but I'd never seen him sneak home soaked in blood, either.
And it was obvious it was his blood, not someone else's.
"What happened?" I sat up straighter and the anger I'd been nursing all night went quiet, replaced by something I wasn't prepared for. "Niko, what happened to you?" Concern wrapped around my heart like a tight chain, making my heart kick in my chest.
"Busy night." He pulled the shirt off and dropped it on the floor. The wound on his left side below his ribs was a dark, ugly hole surrounded by bruised skin with a line of fresh stitches holding it closed.
Whoever had patched him up had done a rough job of it.
The thread was thick and the edges of the wound puckered where the needle had gone through.
"Who else got hurt?" I asked, but he wasn't responding. Panic started to set in too, fear that my life had been permanently altered somehow. "Is my father okay?"
Nikolai finally looked at me, but the pain in his eyes rivaled any other emotion he might be feeling. "Your father wasn't there… At least not in the action." I watched his Adam's apple bob, then looked down at the red stain across his belly.
He had to have bled a long time.
I felt so guilty for feeling relief at hearing my father wasn't harmed tonight.
Nikolai stood in front of me clearly in a lot of pain, but I was thinking only of myself and what I stood to lose. Not him.
And I shouldn't have cared. I should've been glad someone put a bullet in him.
But my chest felt tight looking at the dry blood on his stomach and the way he moved stiffly toward the bathroom.
This time, I couldn't pretend it was anger or rage. He looked so pathetic.
He disappeared through the bathroom door and I heard the faucet turn on. Then I heard him growl, then a shout.
I winced, pressing my eyes shut before I pinched the bridge of my nose. I told myself not to get up or care.
In fact, I rehearsed in my head how angry I had been when he had Vlad drag me into his office and hold a gun on me so I'd stand still and not interrupt that priest.
But when he shouted in pain and then whimpered, the sound went straight to my heart.
I was only human, and he might be a monster, but it didn't mean I had to be. I couldn't let this man's wickedness change who I was.
I slid off the bed and padded to the open bathroom door, peering in to see what was happening.
Nikolai was standing at the sink completely naked with his stained pants and boxers in a pile at his feet.
The exit wound on his back was worse than the front, a jagged tear held together with more of those rough stitches, and blood had dried in streaks down his lower back and hip.
He had a wet cloth in his hand and he'd been trying to reach behind himself to clean it, but the movement was pulling at the stitches and that was what made him growl.
When he turned slightly and I saw his entire naked body, my face went so hot so fast, I thought my cheeks might actually catch fire. I turned away sharply and stared at the wall.
"Sorry, I heard you and I thought you were in trouble."
"I am in trouble. I can't reach my back." For someone in need of help, he sure spoke to me like he needed nothing from me, so callous and hard. "Are you going to stand there or help me wash it?"
My lips pinched into an angry line and I clenched my jaw tightly, biting back my sharp reply. As nasty as he was being, I could see it was his pain, not him.
He needed my help and if I didn't do this, I'd have to listen to him whine.
My compassion won out, though I knew I was sending him the signal that I was easy to manipulate… but I knew in my heart, to know to do good and not do it was morally wrong.
I didn’t want to be like him—or my father.
"Fine," I said. "Get in the shower."
Nikolai glowered at me as he turned on the water and with no shame stood stark naked in front of me while it heated up and started to steam the glass.
Then I helped him step in, and he braced himself against the tile with one arm while I adjusted the water to lukewarm so it wouldn't sting too badly.
I took the cloth and carefully worked around the exit wound on his back, wiping away the dried blood in slow passes.
He held still, but I could feel him flinch under my hand every time I got too close to the stitches.
He would hiss or suck in a breath through his teeth and jerk away.
Up close, the wound was angry and swollen, and it made my stomach turn to think how much worse it could've been—or how badly it must've hurt.
"A few inches over and this would've hit your kidney," I told him.
"So I've been told."
I kept cleaning.
The water ran pink down his back and swirled around the drain and I focused on that instead of the rest of him, which was difficult.
The rest of him was right there and my eyes kept drifting toward the curve of his ass, making my core warm and achy.
Then his hand found my wrist and he pulled me forward under the water.
My nightshirt soaked through instantly, clinging to me everywhere, and I gasped at how suddenly he'd jerked me off balance.
He turned slowly, wincing as he did, and his other hand came up to my face. He tilted my chin up and leaned in to kiss me.
"No," I said, putting my hand flat against his chest. "You're going to tear your stitches open."
"It's a kiss, Kira, not gymnastics."
"I said no," I told him before my lip caught in my teeth and I bit down. I felt conflicted.
After what he'd done, he didn't deserve any part of me, though my body told me how much I’d enjoy it.
Still, he actually was hurt, and his stitches would most likely pop open if he tried to exert himself.
But Nikolai let me go and I stepped away, giving him the shower to finish his business.
I stepped out onto the bathmat, which quickly became inundated by water dripping off my soaked shirt, and I had no choice but to peel the soggy fabric from my body and stand in front of him naked while reaching for a towel.
We dried off without talking.
Then I changed into a fresh shirt and a pair of his boxers while he pulled on shorts and nothing else, and we climbed into bed on our respective sides with the gap between us that had become routine.
He lay on his right side because his left was too torn up to put weight on, and I lay on my back staring at the ceiling.
It felt cold for a few minutes, long after he switched off the light, and with his back to me, I wasn't sure what was going through his head.
I didn't see the key around his neck tonight, and I couldn’t remember if I'd heard him lock that door or not, but if not, I knew I'd feel horribly guilty forcing him to chase me down the hallway when he was so badly hurt.
So I stayed put, almost dozing off when he spoke.
"You know," he said after a minute, "what you just did in there was dangerously close to what a wife would do for her husband."
"Don't start with me." I yawned and draped an arm over my eyes to block out more light, which after my eyes adjusted to the moon outside felt too bright to sleep through.
"I'm just making an observation."
"Well, observe quietly," I told him. "I'm trying to sleep."
He was quiet for a second, but I heard him breathing hard, like he was trying to fight back some comment. Then he let it out and I groaned audibly, wishing he'd shut up.
"You can't hate me forever, you know?"
"Do you have to talk?" I sat up, smacking the bed between us in an exasperated huff. "I mean, I was nice to you after you forced me to pretend to marry you—"
"It was real," he growled.
"Keep telling yourself that, Nikolai. But if you wanted a real wedding, you could've sincerely asked me, or dated me…
Or hell, I don't know, maybe not catfished me.
" Tears pricked my eyes, but I pinched them shut and flopped back onto my pillow.
"I deserve better than this, and you fucking know it. "
Those were the words that shut him up. Finally, he turned to his back, staring up at the ceiling next to me. When his hand found mine, I grimaced but I didn't pull away. And it made my heart flutter.
"You're right," he said calmly. "You do."
Whether he heard me start crying or not, I would never know.
But those tears burned scars into my soul and I fought them so damn hard, I almost couldn’t breathe.
But his heavy breathing devolved into light snoring, and I turned away from him, not willing to let him get any further into my mind and heart than he already was.
It was the closest he'd come to giving me an apology without saying those words I needed to hear, and I know I'd probably never hear them. From him or my father.