Page 18 of The Promise

She kept muttering to herself, repeating a mantra that felt safe and loud even if it didn’t help the problem. It was the only thing she could think to do because even the idea of unraveling from the ball she’d tightened herself into on the floor where she sat was too draining. She wished they’d stop—those voices—that they’d go away, but they didn’t.

Or wouldn’t.

She was helpless and trapped in a body and mind that was battling to be occupied by two other voices. They sounded nothing like her.

They weren’t her.

And she didn’t want them out.

“Karine, hey, look at me.” The male voice broke sharply through her thoughts like metal falling through glass. Shattered fragments fell away. It was his hands curving under her tucked chin, tilting her face out of where she’d buried it in the darkness that sucked away everything and brought his face into clear focus. All at once. Roman stared back at Karine through the wetness of her tears, and asked softly, “Can you hear me?”

Yes.

Yes, she could.

The relief was instant, the silence in her mind bewildering, and Karine couldn’t help but launch herself away from the pit she’d fallen in and into the promise of safety Roman offered to her. Springing up from the floor and into his arms, open for her, her cheek hit his chest when she landed against him. His strong arms wrapped tightly around her body, and she heard the whoosh of air leave his lungs the second he held her.

“I know you heard me say to get the first aid kit—what are you standing there for?” asked Roman gruffly.

Karine looked around the room to find it had come back with walls and all. Masha stood only a foot away, deathly pale with worry writing heavy lines in her forehead. Had she been there all along?

“Yes, sorry, I know,” Masha whispered, wringing her hands together, “but I just wanted to calm her down a bit first, but she wouldn’t listen. She refused—it was like she couldn’t even hear me.”

The tearful strain in Masha’s hoarse voice drew Karine’s gaze to hers where she found the woman’s silent pleading staring back. Please be okay, she seemed to say.

Softly, Masha told Roman, “I’ll be right back with the kit.”

He didn’t reply, and Masha was quick to flee the room, closing the door behind her as she left. Karine pulled away from Roman’s arms, and he released her without argument. But only because it allowed him to bend down and survey the damage done to her feet. Cuts that she couldn’t explain marred the soles of her feet that were now throbbing with the same searing pain from earlier.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered, sucking air through his teeth before adding, “This looks bad.”

It wasn’t the cuts that bothered her the most, but the blood. She’d forgotten about that. Soaked into the large carpet where the bed sat and smeared across the floor, the stains had been violently dragged around where she’d seemingly walked in circles. Not that she could remember walking anywhere let alone in the same place.

The sight of all the blood made her nauseous, and without warning, Karine started to sway on the spot. Before she could meet the floor in a useless heap, Roman curled his arms around her and had her cradled in his hold like a child. The blood was gone from her view as he carried her over to a bed.

His bed, the younger voice whispered. See?

The image of Roman sleeping in that very bed flashed into her mind while hands that looked like hers sketched the image of him doing so at the same time. Karine shook her head wildly to rid the voice and the memory that didn’t feel like hers.

He must have gently put her down on the edge because she didn’t notice she was even on the bed until after she already was. Another blackout—the hardest part was the fact Karine had started to become aware of those minute-moments she couldn’t explain or stitch together in her own mind.

The next thing she knew, Karine stared down and watched Roman crouch between her legs. In his hand, he held her left foot while he examined her sole. She tried to be still, even the crinkle of her toes sent pain shooting through her feet.

If only she cared about the pain, then.

Karine was more concerned with the man touching her. She bit down hard on her lip at the sensation of his fingertips pressing along the side of her heel and then the arch of her foot, too. How could a man like him—who talked as harshly and cold as he sometimes did, who could silence her with nothing more than a look—also caress her so tenderly?

Carefully.

A thrill ran down her spine, the memory of his hands and those fingertips exploring her body filling her mind without warning. Heat spilled hot in her belly until she noticed the blood staining his hand. Roman muttered under his breath to himself, too low for her to hear.

“H-how did that happen?” she managed to ask.

Her voice was barely a whisper, her throat aching like she’d been screaming for hours.

Roman looked up with blue eyes as dark and as dangerous as a raging storm. There was something else reflecting back at her, too, something she couldn’t decipher.

He just seemed ... tired.