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“Why?” I ask coolly, stabbing the eggs with my fork again. “So I can start working as your own personal broodmare again?”
Viktor’s expression changes in an instant, his face darkening. I see his jaw tighten, and he takes a sudden step closer to the bed, his entire body tensing as his heated blue eyes lock with mine.
I can’t help it. For all my defiance, I flinch back. The memory of Andrei and Stepan is still too close. And I’m still not entirely sure that Viktor wasn’t behind it.
He stops in an instant, the moment he sees me flinch, suddenly rooted in place as his mouth twitches. “That’s my Caterina,” he says, his voice a low, soft growl, and the shudder that it sends down my spine and over my body isn’t one of fear.
It’s a shudder that I’d hoped to never feel again. Not for him. Maybe not for anyone.
A deep, trembling shudder of desire.
His gaze holds mine, and I can feel the air between us thicken, crackling with that old electricity, the way it did before Moscow. It wasn’t all that long ago, two weeks perhaps or even less, but it feels like a lifetime. As if I were an entirely different person back then.
“Eat,” Viktor says, his voice still that soft growl. “I’ll be back to get you in a little while after you’re done.”
And then he turns away, and I feel the tension release when his gaze lets go of mine, like a rubber band snapping back into place. It sends another shiver through me, and it’s not until he walks out of the room, the door closing behind him, that I realize I was holding my breath the entire time.
Slowly, I let go of where I’d been gripping the quilt and pick up my fork again.
It sounds like I really am going to need my strength.
* * *
True to his word,Viktor comes back about an hour later, casting a glance at the breakfast tray I set aside. A look of satisfaction crosses his face, presumably at seeing it empty, and then he looks back towards me. “Levin is waiting for us out back,” he says. “I’ll help you up if you need it, but it would be good to see if you can stand on your own.”
“Why?” I narrow my eyes, although I go ahead and push back the quilt. I want to get out of the bed anyway—as painful as walking around was, ithadfelt good to get my blood moving, to stretch my wasted muscles, and feel as if I were somewhat human again, and not just an invalid. But the look on Viktor’s face is slightly alarming.
“You’ll see.” He nods towards me. “We don’t have a lot of time, though. We need the afternoon, so go ahead and get up.”
The flicker of heat that I feel at his commanding tone immediately wars with my inner desire to tell him to go fuck himself every time he tells me what to do. Still, I only have so much energy right now, and I suspect that I need to conserve it for whatever it is that he’s planned. So instead of snapping back, I simply start the process of getting my legs over the side of the bed, moving slowly and waiting for any hint of pain or pulling at the bandages that would tell me that I need to stop.
Surprisingly, I manage to get my feet on the floor and push myself upright in less amount of time than usual. I still feel sore and achy in every part of me, I already feel more capable than I did before, and that sends a rush of adrenaline through me that makes me wobble just a little, grabbing onto the bed frame for support.
“Easy,” Viktor says quietly. “Take it slow.”
“You said we didn’t have a lot of time.” I press my hand against my side, where I can feel one of the deeper, bandaged wounds starting to throb, and try to find my breath again.
“We won’t haveanytime if you pass out,” Viktor points out. “We don’t have all day, but don’t kill yourself either, Caterina.”
“I’ll do my best,” I mutter, closing my eyes until I feel the deep throb in my side start to fade, and then I take a short, shallow breath, stepping away from the bed.
It takes longer than I would have liked to make it outside. When we finally do get there, I see Levin standing in the open area behind the cabin, dressed in loose-fitting pants and a long-sleeved, tight t-shirt that shows off his impressive muscles. He’s built like a wrestler, or a bodybuilder, with broad shoulders and chest that taper down to a narrow waist and thickly muscled arms. Although he’s handsome enough, he's not my type, with a strong, stubbled jaw and those bright blue eyes that so many Russian men seem to have. He’s dark-haired too, like Viktor, his cut close to his head. His face is set in a stern expression that mirrors the one on Viktor’s, and I feel another tremor of anxiety ripple through me.
“Okay.” I glance between the two men. “What’s going on?”
Viktor turns to face me. “Have you ever learned any kind of self-defense, Caterina? Or how to shoot a gun?”
I stare at him for a moment, taken aback. That’s the last thing I’d expected him to say, and it takes me a moment to formulate a response. “No,” I say finally. “I haven’t. My father had security so that I wouldn’t need to.”
Viktor’s jaw tenses and I realize immediately how that sounded, as if I blame his lack of ability to protect me for what happened.Do I?I hadn’t really allowed myself to think about who or what I might blame for what had happened, if anything at all—only that ithad, and now I have to deal with it. Survive it, endure it, heal from it if I can.
I wonder if this new thing will be something to endure or something that can help me heal.
“We’re all in danger,” Viktor says tightly. “And though I fully intend to have heavy security on you at all times, I want to make sure you have the ability to protect yourself too, or at least some knowledge of it. So that’s what we’ll be doing today. Nothing too strenuous since you’re still healing, but the basics. Enough to get you started and know how to handle a weapon. Levin is going to help.”
His voice is hard now, rougher than before, and I know that my comment about my father cut deep. Part of me doesn’t care—how many times has he said things that have hurt me? But another part of me, the small part that refuses to remember that Viktor should mean nothing to me, wishes I’d phrased it differently. That I hadn’t hurt him.
This might be all his fault,I remind myself.He might have done all of this just to break you. You don’t know for certain.Even his tender care of me since coming to the cabin could be a trick, a way to make me feel grateful to him after breaking me down, to tighten his grip on me. It sounds paranoid even in my head, but I don’t know who or what to trust anymore. Nothing feels right.
