Renata shook her head. "I asked him not to say anything to anyone. We can trust him."
"I guess it's as good a time as any to find that out, eh?"
"Nikolai," she said as he grabbed the shirt she'd been wearing and shrugged into the long sleeves. "About Jack...he's a good man. A decent man. I don't want anything to happen to him."
He smirked. "Don't worry. I'll try to be nice."
Chapter Nineteen
Nice," Niko exhaled through a tight grimace. He was feeling anything but nice as he closed the bathroom door and walked into the main room of the apartment.
Being alone with Renata while she sat nude in the tub, touching her - kissing her, for crissake - had shifted all of his systems into overdrive. But as torqued as he was, his raging hard-on was the least of those concerns as he approached the door where Jack was knocking again from outside. It was one thing to pretend there wasn't a tent pole erected in his pants, quite another to hope no one would notice that his eyes were burning as bright as hot coals and that his extended canines would put a rottweiler to shame.
At least the loose shirt covered his glyphs. Niko didn't have to see his body to know that his skin markings were alive and pulsing with the deep colors of arousal. Awfully hard to try to explain them away as tattoos now.
Nikolai stared at the door and willed himself to chill out, cool down. He had to extinguish the fire in his irises, and that meant powering down the lust that Renata's touch had stirred in him. He focused on slowing his pulse, a hell of a struggle when his cock was in command of his blood flow.
"Hello?" came the drawled greeting from outside. Jack knocked again, the dark shadow of his head bobbing on the other side of the curtained window of the door. He seemed conscious of keeping his voice at a discreet level. "Renata, that you, darlin'? You awake in there?"
Shit. No choice but to let him in. Nikolai growled low under his breath as he reached out to flip the dead bolt. He'd assured Renata that he would go easy on the old guy, but things could go south as soon as he opened the damned door. And if the human gave off so much as a whiff of suspicion, he was going to find himself on the short list for a mind scrub.
Niko freed the lock and twisted the doorknob. He backed off from the wedge of daylight that poured in through the opening and positioned himself behind the door as it swung open.
"Renata? All right if I come in for a minute?" A scuffed brown cowboy boot stepped over the threshold. "Thought I'd better look in on you this morning before I get busy around the house with the kids."
As the human in worn-out Levi's and a white cotton undershirt entered, Nikolai splayed his hand on the door and eased it shut to seal out the morning sunshine. He sized up the aged man in a glance, taking in the craggy face, shrewd eyes, and silvered, military-style buzzcut. He was a big man, a little soft around the middle, a little bowed around the knees, but his tattooed arms were tan and still firm with enough muscle to indicate that while he might be old, it didn't mean he was afraid of hard work.
"You must be Jack," Nikolai said, careful to speak in a way that kept his fangs under wraps behind his lip.
"That's right." A small nod as Niko was subjected to a similar measuring look. "And you're Renata's friend...She, ah, didn't get around to telling me your name last night."
Apparently the amber glow was gone from Niko's blue irises, since he doubted Jack would be reaching out to shake his hand right now if the old guy was staring into a pair of otherworldly eyes that threw off sparks like a furnace.
"I'm Nick," he said, sticking close enough to the truth for now. He gave the former soldier's hand a brief shake. "Thanks for helping us out."
Jack nodded. "You're looking a lot better this morning, Nick. Glad to see you're up and around. How's Renata doing?" "Okay. She's in the bathroom washing up."
He didn't see any reason to bring up the infection. No sense getting well-meaning Jack so worried that he started talking about doctors or trips to the hospital. Although based on what Nikolai had seen of Renata's wound, if her healing process didn't get a serious boost - and get one soon - there would be no alternative but a visit to the nearest ER.
"I'm not gonna ask how it is she ended up with a bullet hole in her shoulder," Jack said, watching Nikolai closely. "From the shape the both of you were in last night, and the fact I had to adios an apparently stolen medical supply truck, I'd be tempted to guess whatever trouble's chasing you is drug-related. But I know Renata's smarter than that. I don't believe for a minute she'd let herself get mixed up in something like drugs. She didn't want to tell me about any of it, and I promised her I wouldn't press. I'm a man of my word.">He gave her a no-arguments lift of his brow. "The shirt, Renata. Let me help you out of it so I can have a better look at what's going on with that wound."
Obviously, he wasn't about to give it up. Renata sat very still as Nikolai unfastened the last few buttons on the tent-sized oxford and gently eased it off her. The cotton fell in a soft crush on her lap and around her hips. Despite that she was wearing a bra, modesty ingrained in her from her early years in the church orphanage made her lift her hands up to shield her breasts from his eyes. But he wasn't looking at her in a sexual way just then. All his focus was on her shoulder right now. He was gentle, careful, his fingers probing lightly around the area. He followed the curve of her shoulder over and around to where the bullet had left her flesh. "Does it hurt when I touch you here?"
Even though his touch was barely a skimming contact, pain radiated through her. She winced, sucking in her breath.
"Sorry. There's a lot of redness and swelling near the exit wound," he said, his deep voice vibrating in her bones while his touch moved lightly on her. "It doesn't look great, but I think if we flush it out and..."
As his voice trailed off, she knew what he was seeing now. Not the raw gunshot wound, but two other blemishes on the otherwise smooth skin of her back. She felt those marks sear as hotly as they had the night they'd been put there.
"Holy hell." Nikolai's breath left him in a slow sigh. "What happened to you? Are these burn marks? Jesus...are they brands?"
Renata closed her eyes. Part of her wanted nothing more than to shrink away and vanish into the tile, but she forced herself to remain still, her spine rigidly erect. "They are nothing."
"Bullshit." He stood before her and lifted her chin on the edge of his hand. She let her gaze drift up to meet his and found his pale eyes sharp with intensity. There was no pity in those eyes, only a cold outrage that took her aback. "Tell me. Who did this to you - was it Yakut?"
She shrugged. "Just one of his more creative ways of reminding me that it's not a good idea to piss him off."
"That son of a bitch," Nikolai fumed. "He had his death coming. Just for this - for everything he did to you - the bastard damn well had it coming."