Just get there. Get there.
She refused to acknowledge why the market was her goal or why she’d used the credit card there instead of paying cash. Not thinking too deeply wasn’t a challenge when the physical pain was so immense, either. She simply crawled on hands and knees across the quiet street, leaving a trail of blood in her wake, her bones shrieking with every inch she traveled. Until finally she collapsed in front of the now-dark store, her damaged eye using the cold sidewalk as a makeshift icepack.
Roksana drifted in and out of consciousness, rousing only when people passed, so she could deem them safe or a threat. Pain. So much pain. It hurt to breathe, to lift her head. She just wanted to sleep and…she refused to name the other thing she wanted, because it made no sense. She’d never really had him to begin with and definitely didn’t have him now.
The effort of staying alert eventually became too great, but just before she drifted off, a hallucination crept in. The streetlamps overhead guttered, flickers of light raining down and hissing in the gutter water on either side of the street—and the outraged howl of a man shattered the night. Her broken body was lifted off the sidewalk and cradled in arms she trusted enough to finally give in to blessed unconsciousness.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Roksana woke up neck deep in warm water.
A single bulb hung down from a stained ceiling and swayed, only giving off a modicum of light, the pull chain rattling quietly.
Panic bottomed out in her stomach and she pinwheeled, her arms and legs flailing and splashing water in every direction. The abused muscles of her abdomen protested mightily, but she couldn’t stop fighting. Where was she? How had she gotten here?
“You’re safe, Roksana,” said Elias’s gruff voice in her ear. “Stop fighting or you’ll injure yourself even worse.”
She went limp with relief. Hated herself for it.
But she had the immediate, indisputable faith that she was sheltered. Why? How dare she have such conviction about this vampire when she knew so well what he was capable of doing to a human being? She’d seen it with her own eyes.
Roksana peered down into the bathtub, but it was so dark, she couldn’t make out a single thing in the water’s depths. She could only feel the position of Elias behind her. Around her. His body was a hard, muscle-packed cushion between her and the back of the tub, his legs extended out on either side of her, his right knee raised. A washcloth was clutched in his fist, resting on the elevated leg, as if it had suspended in animation when she woke up.
Wait. Whoa. She was in a bathtub with Elias.
The intimacy of the act started her breath racing and she rushed to slow it down, lest she inhale a fatal dose of his perfect, spiced pine scent. Seriously, why couldn’t his scent have changed when he lost his humanity? “Am I naked?”
“No. And neither am I,” he drawled without missing a beat, as if he’d been anticipating that question. “We’re in a vacant apartment in Arbat. I wanted to get you indoors fast—”
“So you went into the closest building and looked for empty buzzer tags,” she said in a rush, still sounding breathless, dammit. She’d had no time to gather her wits. “I know that trick. I’ve done it many more times than you.”
Elias dipped the washcloth into the water, lifted it and wrung the water free over her shoulder, sending a cascade of heat over her sore muscles. “If your hurt pride is giving you the need to boast, you can give it a rest,” he rasped, bringing the cloth to her face and carefully scrubbing caked blood from her cheek. “I didn’t come to your rescue, I just owed you one.”
“Right,” she murmured, knowing very well the favor he referred to. “This is payback for the time I found you half dead in a slayer prison, da?”
“More like slightly incapacitated, but sure.”
She ignored his amused correction. “This does not mean you are safe from the ultimate payback, vampire. If I could lift my arms right now…” She whistled through her teeth, a sound totally at odds with the feeling welling in her throat. “You would be in big trouble.”
“Yeah,” he said solemnly. “It would be slaughter city.”
Roksana tried to turn her head and pain in her tendons robbed her of sight. She dropped her head back onto his shoulder, winded, her teeth buried in her bottom lip to keep from crying out. “Don’t humor me.”
She could hear his hard swallow against her ear. His voice was torn up gravel when he said, “I can’t believe your own fucking mother did this to you.”
Her teeth broke the skin on her lip. “She can’t take it easy on me just because I’m her daughter. There are consequences to my actions. Or lack thereof.”