Chapter 5 #4
The man actually laughs and the passing streetlights catch the humor in his gaze.
"I will pass that question on to my brothers. But I for one do not wear a cape and or…”
“Spandex,” I finish for him.
He pauses and I see the humor drop away.
“You're not a stranger, malyshka. Why are you surprised to get your wish granted? You do know how wishes work, da?" he turns the ring on his finger as he speaks.
"Nyet," I answer in his native tongue. "I just hoped." And that is the simple truth of how close I came to dying tonight.
Silence fills the space for several miles until my phone goes off again.
His eyes flick to the phone in my lap when I tap the screen and pull up Raine’s missed call. Her name comes on the screen and I try the number she called from but yet again, I get no answer. This time the call doesn’t even go through.
He doesn't ask who she is. He just looks, and then his eyes are back on the road.
I grip the locket at my throat and thank my guardian angels something went right tonight. Daddy Volkov isn’t the guardian angel I expected but he’s exactly who I needed and isn’t that ironic.
The city thins outside the window. Suburbs blur into trees. The road narrows, climbs, and the streetlights disappear and I'm being driven into the woods outside Chicago by a man whose last name is the reason I'm running.
He says he’s taking me to safety and I have to believe him. At this point I'm too exhausted to care.
My bodyguard slows the car and pulls onto a gravel road.
After about a mile of thick trees and nothing else, the end of the road opens up to reveal a modest cabin.
It has a cedar exterior weathered to silver-gray.
Cozy and unassuming. I look at this massive man in his blood-speckled shirt and look at the cabin and nothing about the equation adds up.
“You don’t seem the country living type.”
The engine cuts and the silence rushes in. Wind fingers through tall pines and the bare branches of oaks. If I strain, I can hear the distant sound of water somewhere below us.
Rowan gets out without a word and comes around to my side. The door opens and cold air wraps around my bare legs.
I step onto gravel in my gardening boots, clutching the towel at my chest.
He eyes my cell phone. “You won’t need that here. There’s no cell service.”
“As a matter of fact, I think I do.” It’s my only way of communication. There’s no way I’m handing over my phone.
“Have it your way.”
Funny, nothing has gone my way for a while now.
He walks toward the cabin and doesn't bother looking back to see if I'm following. Either he's confident I will or he doesn't care now that we are both out of danger.
I look around and then down at my lack of real clothing. Off in the distance I hear wolves call up to the full moon.
Yeah, okay. That gets my feet moving in the direction of the cabin. My other option is standing in the woods in a towel at one in the morning, and my survival instincts have terrible taste but they're not stupid.
He leads me through the front door without turning on lights, navigating by memory through a sparse living room.
Book in five different languages fill the shelves, but I don’t get to linger.
He moves quickly past them, past a kitchen with only one chair I notice and deeper still.
Back here the moonlight can’t reach so I have to place a hand on his shoulder or risk smashing into something.
He pauses and I can feel him turn his head and look at me over his shoulder more than see the action. A few seconds later he turns on a small lamp on a side table to reveal something I did not expect to see in a single story cabin.
“An elevator?”
He steps inside and turns to face me.
“An elevator.”
The elevator light catches him and I get my first real look at the man who just carried me out of my apartment like a rolled carpet.
He has no suit jacket nor tie. He’s got on a pair of black slacks and a white dress shirt with the top two buttons undone at the neck.
The sleeves are rolled to the elbows. Blood streaks across the white of his shirt in dark smears, some of it from the split across his knuckles I’m guessing, but most of it is from the men he put down.
A close-cropped beard frames a firmly set jaw, the hair a shade darker than the dirty blond on his head.
He's bigger than I remember. Broader.
His right hand rests against the elevator door, holding it open.
The silver ring catches the light and below it, inked into the skin of his hand is a viper's head with ruby eyes.
The black ink is so detailed I can see the individual scales.
The body of the snake disappears beneath his rolled sleeve and my eyes follow the dark lines up the inside of his forearm, tracing the coils until the fabric cuts them off.
I can’t help but wonder how far it goes.
He doesn't rush me as I take all of him in and weigh my options.
He doesn't speak. The man who saved my life tonight simply stands there with his hand holding the door and his pale blue eyes steady on mine. The patience in his gaze doesn’t match the blood drying on his shirt or the violence I watched him deliver tonight.
His shoulders are relaxed and his breathing comes out even.
He looks like he can stand there all night if that's how long it takes for me to decide.
I look at his outstretched hand and slowly place mine over his. He turns his hand and closes his fingers over mine. His touch is warm, rough and calming.
He pulls me gently into the elevator and we descend in silence.
A few moments later, the doors open and I step into a world that doesn't belong beneath a modest cabin in the woods.
Black marble stretches under my muddy boots. Floor-to-ceiling windows are carved into the rock face. Lake Michigan spreads dark and massive beyond the glass. An underground pool casts blue light across a stone ceiling, the water throwing slow ripples in the light.
We walk deeper and I spy what I think is a library down one of the hallways that branches into different directions. A bedroom. A kitchen. A living room space.
My brow furrows and I look up at him not really knowing what to expect when I ask, “What is this place?”
“My underworld.”