Page 167 of Hellbound

“On him.” Karsan circled his son. “For dragging you to me.”

She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.

“You’ve been trying to crack him for months.” He stopped behind Bohdan, his ring-covered hand on his shoulder. “You had him. More than once, you had him completely.”

His eyes lifted to hers. Tundra ice met quavering gold. “And yet, you didn’t deliver the killing blow.”

He tilted his head.

“Why is that?”

She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t scream.

Only the wet sound of her throat closing permeated the air.

“You wanted him ruined.” His smile widened. “And instead, he ruined you.”

She felt her heart crawl inward.

“Let me help you,” Karsan said softly, like a secret between friends.

A splatter of blood painted Ksenia’s face as Radegast skewered Bohdan’s chest from behind.

She screamed, and screamed.

Bohdan slid off the bloodied blade and Karsan casually cleaned it with a handkerchief.

40

His name was on Ksenia’s cracked lips as consciousness crashed over her like a wave battering rocks.

It wasn’t waves at all, but instead a rolling thunder and rain on the windows.

Each breath wheezed and scraped down her throat in bits and pieces. The faint taste of antiseptic was on her tongue as she hacked a cough. A chill made her shudder beneath the woolen covers, but her muscles were still on fire.

Tremors not only from her body, but from fear of a future she couldn’t control.

A warm, soothing touch met her shoulder. A lighthouse in this ocean of pain, drawing her back to reality with each reassuring brush of their fingers.

Her hypersensitive skin could feel their pulse, and she anchored herself to it. Breathing steadily in and out, matching every few beats.

Minutes, maybe hours, passed in this warm silence, safe from the storm.

Her head lolled to the side and she caught a glimpse of her savior. She froze, like a rabbit standing in an open trap.

Bohdan.

She had sought out the worst possible person for help.

She had to leave the trap before its iron-hinged jaws snapped her neck.

Slouched in a wooden chair, one long leg splayed out while the other was bent at the knee, he propped his elbow on the wooden arm and rested his head against his hand.

Exhaustion had carved deep shadows beneath his green eyes, his usually sharp features even more severe. His ebony hair was disheveled, falling across his forehead in unruly waves that spoke of him running anxious fingers through it for hours. His chin and cheeks were shadowed with stubble.

His usually immaculately pressed tunic was wrinkled and flecked with blood, rolled up to his elbows and hung open at the collar.

He stared forward, as if unwilling to meet her gaze quite yet.