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Now
I wokefrom dreams that were more memory than fiction and flinched as a headache like a sledgehammer slammed into the side of my head. My throat ached with a thirst unlike anything I’d ever felt. My body was heavy, like there was a leaden blanket covering me from neck to toe, even though I could see there wasn’t.
I blinked my eyes, feeling like they were gummed shut with glue. Light filtered in and I could gradually make out a high ceiling with crown molding and an ornate light fitting. I recognized it, but my mind was too muddy to place it.
Shifting my head a fraction, my eyes fell on a window bench seat, where the sunshine was shining over a figure. My heart squeezed hard in my chest, the first body part that felt somewhat normal, as I made out the achingly familiar sight of Molly.
Mallory Madison, here in her mother’s room, nine years and two lifetimes later, it felt like. She was writing in the journal I’d given her, biting her lip, her eyes focused on her pen, scrawling across the page with ease. I could have watched her all day.
I took a deep breath, something intense in me relaxing when I was dreaming. Molly was safe from harm. I’d protected her, and Henry could never hurt her again. In my twisted, confusing dreams, I’d seen Molly as a beaten teenager, and Henry falling to the ground again and again, my brother standing over the body, his face an emotionless mask.
I took another deep breath, and the air caught in my parched throat. I coughed, and the motion lit my body up with pain. My right lung burned, and my shoulder felt like it was being stabbed repeatedly with red-hot pokers. Having experienced the red poker method for myself a few years back, I could place the feeling with perfect confidence.
“Kirill?”
Molly’s soft voice pulled me from the haze of pain, and I blinked at her, seeing her rising from her seat. She crossed to me in four long steps and hovered over me. I couldn’t tear my eyes from her heart-shaped face. Her cloud of white-blonde hair was loose, streaming in ribbons over her shoulders. If there had ever been anything close to an angel to walk the earth, I was sure it was this woman. An angel to my devil.
She reached out and put her hand to my cheek. “Kirill. Do you need anything? I’ll get Doctor Petrov.”
I opened my mouth to tell her I didn’t need anything as long as she was there with me, but another coughing fit took me.
Molly pulled back, alarmed, and then turned away.“I have to get him.”
I tried to call to her to ask her to stay beside me, but she was already gone. By the time I heard her returning, with Doctor Petrov’s low tones accompanying her, I was already slipping back into the warm, dark oblivion.
19
MOLLY
My life in Woodhaven, in my childhood home turned Kirill’s recovery center, became routine. I went for a run around the grounds in the morning, trailed by Ivan, who always raced and beat me in the last few minutes. After I showered, I ate with Olga and Pyotr, usually coming off the night shift of manning the cameras. Then I went to Kirill’s room and settled in for the day. I’d read or write or chat to the nurses. Kirill was waking with more frequency now, and the Doctor was reducing his sedatives dose daily.
“Today, weird boy, we’re reading chapter three, and it’s about to get good, I can tell,” I called to him as he lay with his eyes closed on his bed.
Before I went to settle into my comfortable perch, I approached him, seeing his dark hair tumbling across his forehead. He hated that. Usually, he flicked it back, but his hair was longer than ever, like it had been in high school. Rich, dark chocolate waves that softened his often-brutal exterior. Right now, he looked like I’d always imagined he would after high school if his path had been different. I discounted the scars, old bullet wounds, and countless tattoos marking the rest of his battle-hardened body.
I reached over him, pushing his silky fringe back, and then bit down a scream when his hand circled my wrist in a sudden burst of motion I hadn’t expected. His eyes slammed open, more alert and brighter than I had seen them in weeks.
“I was wondering when you were going to wander close enough, Princess,” he murmured, his eyes running over my face like he’d missed me, even though I’d been right here.
I tried to pull back, but his grip tightened. “Be careful. You’ll hurt yourself,” I warned.
“Stop trying to get away, then.” His low murmur set my blood on fire. Damn, I was so far gone for this man. “Let me look at you.”
“Fine,” I muttered, letting my resistance drop.
He pulled me closer so my hair slid from my shoulder and lay against his face. His lungs expanded, like he was breathing me in, and then he coughed.
“See? Stop trying to inhale me. You have a punctured lung. Doesn’t it hurt?”
“It’s worth it,” he muttered as he let go of my wrist and cupped my face.
I was awkwardly sprawled across him, and I had to be pushing against his chest, but he wasn’t protesting.
“Kirill—” I stopped as his thumb rubbed across my lips, sealing my protests inside. “You’re hurt.”
“I’ve had worse.”
