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Except, when Ilya began pounding on the table, Rayne didn’t run away or scream. She tried to help him.Be careful. You’re hurting yourself. Don’t hit the table.
I knew what would happen as soon as she touched Ilya’s arm, but I wasn’t fast enough to stop it. My brother hurled her back into the couch.
It’s her own damn fault. I told Rayne repeatedly not to come up here. I made it clear she didn’t belong in this place. So I should have been happy she’d learned her lesson. I should have relished in my brother dealing out some just desserts.
But the second Ilya swung in her direction, my heart froze up in my chest.
Once I got Ilya out of the room, the only thing I could focus on was getting Rayne out of there, too. Getting her out of danger.
For so long, my one and only concern in this life has been Ilya. Fuck everyone else. But Rayne is proving to be a distraction in more ways than one.
The moment I press the bandage to Ilya’s hand, he pulls it away from me. “Done?”
“Done,” I tell him. I pat his hand. “You have to be careful. You could have really hurt yourself.”
His forehead creases. He thinks for a long time. Long enough that I wonder if I’ve lost him. Sometimes, like so many other parts of himself, Ilya gets lost in his own head. Then suddenly, he lifts his hands and waves them through the air in a weird sort of wriggle.
“What is it?” I ask.
He does it again.
“Use your words. Tell me what you want.”
“Rayne,” he says clearly. Then he waves his fingers again. “Rayne.”
I blink, not quite able to believe what I’m hearing. “You remember her?”
He takes a deep breath. He wants to say something, but it seems like it’s hard for him. Like he’s digging deep to drag the information out of himself. “Her eyes. Like the water. Ocean.”
“Rayne has blue eyes,” I confirm. “You’re right, Ilya. She does.”
The most gorgeous blue eyes I’ve ever seen.Apparently, Ilya feels the same way.
He smiles to himself and then wags his fingers through the air in that same pattern. “Rayne.”
Maybe for most people, this moment doesn’t look big, but it is. It’s huge.
Ilya doesn’t take to new people well. It can take months or years for him to be calm around unfamiliar faces, and even longer to remember their names.
But he met Rayne for all of ten minutes and he can remember her name and the color of her eyes.
Either my brother has just had the biggest breakthrough in his disability since the day of his accident… or something about this infuriating woman is a little bit magic.
Right now, I’m inclined to believe it’s both.
* * *
Ilya goes to sleep early. His outbursts take a lot out of him. So I settle him into bed and then slip out of the apartment. My guards monitor the apartment around the clock and I always have an in-home nurse on standby. But it’s still hard to leave him.
Mentally, I’m still upstairs with my brother when I cross the entrance hall and hear a familiar laugh coming from the front porch.
I’m surprised Rayne didn’t run for the hills the second I shoved her out of the elevator. Then again, knowing her, I’m not surprised at all.
I ease closer, actually trying to sneak up on her this time as opposed to all the other times I manage to terrify her just by walking around my own home. As I near the door, I see one of my guards standing next to her on the porch. He’s one of the newer recruits—Dmitry, I believe.
“… you sure you don’t want a ride?” Dmitry is asking. “I’m leaving now. I’d be happy to drop you wherever you’re headed.”
Rayne waves him off. “That’s nice, but I have a ride coming already. They’ll be here any minute.”
