Page 40 of Vows of Blood
“Wow.” Pavel’s eyebrows rise as he regards me briefly. “You know… when Kira died all those years ago, you said that you were done with love. You said you wouldn’t even bother trying again until you were healed enough from Kira. Maybe this is a sign that you’re not quite healed yet.”
I don’t respond to that, but it makes sense, I suppose. Maybe in some weird way, this could mean I’m not over Kira.
Then again… this last week has been the first in a long time where I didn’t have her on my mind as much. What does that mean, I wonder?
The sun is starting to set as we pull up to the front of the penthouse. The sky is starting to go from dark blue to orange in gradients over the skyscrapers above us.
I’ve left Isabella alone for almost a full day. I shouldn’t be surprised if I go up there and she’s gone. It’s probably better that way if she is, anyway, now that this alliance has fallen apart.
“I’ll call you after I speak with Father,” Pavel says. “In the meantime, get some rest.”
“I will.” He fist bumps me, then I get out of the car.
My shoulder starts to throb on the way up to the elevator. It hasn’t even been an hour since I took one of those pain pills and it’s already hurting again. Guess they aren’t as strong as Dok said they were.
When I get to the penthouse, I just walk in and collapse on the couch. I don’t see her, even though I can smell her perfume. Maybe she waited as long as she could and…
“Alexei?”
I open my eyes and see her standing at the end of the couch. She’s wearing a little yellow nightshirt, her pixie cut a little mussed. Her eyes are wide and electric blue as she looks at me, then at the burn hole in my shirt and the bandage underneath.
I glance down at it and see that I’m bleeding through my shirt again.
15
ISABELLA
When I heard him come in a little while ago, my first thought was to lay into him about his being gone all day. I walked out here with the full intention of giving him an earful for this bullshit letter about giving us a chance when he just decides to abandon me for so long.
Only now I’m staring at him as he lies on the couch, eyes closed, with a circle of blood slowly staining his shirt.
“Alexei?”
He opens his eyes and they widen slightly with surprise. He sits up, grunting with pain as he gets himself upright.
“What happened to you?” I ask as I sit down next to him. “Your shirt…”
He looks down at his shirt and tsks. “Shit. And I really liked this shirt, too.”
Dammit, he’s gonna bleed all over the place if I don’t do something about this.
“I need a new bandage,” he says as he starts to stand. I stop him from getting up with a touch to his chest.
“I’ll do it. You stay there. Where are the bandages, first aid stuff?”
“Under the sink in the kitchen.”
That’s an odd place to have such things, but at least they’re there. “I sincerely hope you’re going to tell me what happened to you today.”
“Went out to get the paper,” I hear from the living room as I bend down and open the cabinets under the sink. “Got a really big papercut.”
“So, he has a sense of humor,” I say as I return with bandages and some antiseptic. “Take off your shirt.”
He sighs as if it’s putting him out to follow an order, but he takes off the shirt just the same. In the light of the dying sunset coming in through the window, I look down at his chest for the second time since we met. His chest is like a solid wall of defined muscle that almost looks like it was sculpted out of marble. The patch of bloody gauze on his chest sits a little lopsided, a flaw in the artwork.
My eyes drift down to the line of hair down the center of his chest that fans out in a light covering over the hills of his abs. For everything it’s worth, bullet wound and all, Alexei is an astonishingly beautiful man.
But here in this light, I notice something else, the raised marks of old wounds disrupting his masterpiece of a body. There’s a large one in his ribcage, going from part of the front to his back. Another running diagonally over the right side of his abs.Moving upward, he’s got a thin one that goes from his clavicle and up his neck. When my eyes meet his, his mouth twitches slightly as if he’s holding back a smile.
