“What are you doing awake, Shylah? I thought you were already asleep,” Draden whispered. “You’re exhausted.”
“I can’t go to sleep. I think I’ve gotten used to staying up all night and don’t know how to actually sleep when it’s dark.” There was a quaver in her voice. Small. Barely noticeable, but it was there and Draden didn’t like it.
He smoothed his hand down her back to the curve of her bottom and rubbed gently. She was afraid, and he couldn’t blame her. She’d just seen an entire village, men, women and children wiped out in a horrific way, and now she was facing that same death.
In the stillness of the night, there in the dark, it was impossible to hide from the brutal truth. That virus was inside of her. Unseen, but already wreaking havoc on her body. It was in him as well. For a moment panic welled up, and his heart rate accelerated. He fought dread and terror back, pushing them away. That way led to insanity and an ugly death. He had to be in control not only for himself, but for Shylah. His sweet peony. His delicate flower.
“We’re all right, sweetheart. It’s just the two of us here and for tonight we’re both just fine. More than fine.” He brushed kisses along her forehead and inhaled that perfect, tantalizing scent that he would always associate with her. Elusive. Subtle. Not all peonies had a scent, but the ones that did were unforgettable. Like his woman.
She rubbed her cheek along his chest. “It’s close tonight, Draden. Crouched like a monster ready to pounce if I close my eyes.”
“Now, I’m here, baby. Nothing is going to get you. Besides, I can see your gun sticking out from under the pillow.” He tried to ease the tension in her, massaging her bottom and teasing her to get her mind off the fact that they were both going to die in the next few days.
“I can’t shoot the virus unless I’m killing myself.”
He closed his eyes. He couldn’t think about anyone putting a bullet in her brain, and he didn’t want her thinking about it either. “I’m still holding out hope that Trap and Wyatt will come through for us. They’ve put together a team of virologists and they’re working around the clock. I believe they aren’t the only ones.” He moved his hand up her spine to the nape of her neck, kneading the hard knots there in an effort to comfort her.
“You’re amazing, Draden, and you don’t even know it. I hate that you have the virus in you as well, but if I had to go through this experience, I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else.”
Her voice rang with sincerity. He didn’t know why he was inexplicitly pleased, not when the virus was consuming him just as fast, but he was. “We’re getting married tomorrow. I’ve already asked Joe to facilitate the paperwork and have given him a list of items to find for us. Did you ever think about your wedding day and what you’d like to have there?”
“It never really occurred to me that I would have the chance to marry. I did fantasize about it but never thought it would actually happen.” Her fingers absently trailed across his heavy muscles. “I wanted flowers. Lots of flowers. I think more and more brides have opted not to have flowers because they can be very expensive, but I thought they brought something special to the wedding. Bellisia laughed at me, but Zara agreed. So, mostly, when I thought about a wedding, I thought of flowers.”
“That’s strange. I never thought much about getting married either, but when I did, it was always the flowers that seemed significant to me too. I thought it was just because most of the few good memories I have come from the time I worked in the nursery.”
She murmured a wordless sound of agreement and nuzzled his throat. “I like ceremonies. Rituals. Especially the ones that involve big family celebrations—probably because I never had a family of my own. Once I was in Russia. I had tracked this agent to St. Petersburg. He’d come to the United States and poisoned a defector—a man who just wanted to be able to be free to perfect his artistry. The man also was very wealthy and believed in everything Whitney was doing. He gave a great deal of money toward Whitney’s experiments. You can imagine how angry he was that this agent interrupted that flow of money.”
She fell silent, but he felt the fan of her long lashes against his skin. Her hand, stroking caresses and drawing letters over his chest, was sending little streaks of fire through him. He caught her wrist to still the movement.
“Keep going.” He wasn’t trying to distract her. He was genuinely interested in everything she had to say. If for no other reason, he loved the sound of her voice.
She shrugged. “It’s silly really. I was following him along this narrow backstreet and went around a corner to the main street. I couldn’t be obvious, so I stopped to stare in the window of the building. There were all these people inside.”
Shylah nuzzled his chest, lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “It was a large, extended family celebrating a birth. They’d all gathered. Men in suits, looking so handsome. Women in dresses, their hair up, makeup on, a true occasion, you know, where everyone wants to look their best. Children of various ages were running around, looking good in their dress-up clothing. But clearly, it was a family.”
His heart turned over. There was underlying sadness in her voice. She had never had a family and she knew she never would.
“I remember they had this very cool tea service. I noticed it because it was hand-painted and it had blue peonies on it. Can you imagine?” Now there was a smile in her voice. “Me, noticing peonies? It was this incredibly beautiful, clearly vintage tea service. I’m certain it must have been in their family for a generation or two. It was the way they touched it, so gently, almost reverently.”
He heard the wistfulness in his voice. “Describe it for me.”
She laid her cheek on his chest again. “I actually went back later, snuck in and took pictures, so I could look it up. It was a Russian samovar and was hand-painted with the blue peonies. It was a traditional Russian tea set, with a tray, teapot and warmer. The spigot and tap was this glorious gold, as were the legs of the warmer, spout and handle of the teapot. The tea glasses were crystal looking but the holders were hand-painted with the blue peonies and had gold filigree. It was so beautiful, Draden. I looked at that and thought about generations celebrating their own special occasions the same way, and I wanted to cry because I knew I’d never have that. Not in a million years.”
The wistfulness in her voice was heartbreaking. He wrapped his arms around her, trying to protect her from her life, from the virus, from knowing they were going to die an agonizing death. He wanted something, just one thing, to be perfect, to be everything she wanted before she was too sick to enjoy it. Before she died.
“I was there to kill someone, and that family was celebrating life, celebrating the birth of a child. That was the first time I realized that some people had something truly beautiful and it was called family. I wanted that for myself—and that tea set. It was elegant and beautiful, and it represented that bond they had as well as their connection to the past.”
“Family isn’t always blood, baby,” he said. “I was lucky enough to have a woman take me in as her child and teach me what family really is. We didn’t have much, but we had each other. She sang a lot, and every night she sat on the edge of the bed and told me stories. They were always about knights and dragons. Good versus evil kind of stories. I guess that was our ritual.”
He rubbed her back and hips, trying to ease the soreness out of her. “On Sunday mornings, she would make me eggs and pancakes with bacon. The pancakes were always cut in the shape of a shield. I know she didn’t have a mold, but she did it for me because I loved the idea of the two of us having a shield. She carved two dragons facing each other and words like courage, bravery and integrity into the pancakes. She said that was our crest. The way we lived.”
He was silent a moment, allowing his memories to flood his mind. It was painful to think about his mother, those long months of her illness while she wasted away in front of him and he was helpless to save her. “She kissed me every night. Every single night, even when she coul
dn’t get out of bed and I went to her. She would always say good night and tell me she loved me.”
Just whispering that much to Shylah, sharing something he fiercely guarded, something so private he held close, was difficult. Those days of happiness had been brief, but he treasured every one of them. He’d locked those memories away, keeping them safe from what he’d become, what the streets had shaped him into being.
“She sounds beautiful and amazing.” There were tears swimming in her eyes, and dripping off her lashes, but she smiled at him.
“She was. Even when she was dying she was beautiful. This light came from inside her.” He stroked more caresses down the back of her head, fingers tangling in her thick hair. “I’ve seen that same light in two other women. Nonny, Wyatt’s grandmother, and you.” It was the highest compliment he could pay her, and he hoped she understood.
She lifted her head and brushed his jaw with kisses. The little wisps of fire trailed down to his throat. He tightened his arms possessively. Yeah. She knew.
“I really love you, Draden. I don’t want you to think you weren’t loved after you lost her, because you are.”
“Not for my looks?” he teased.
“Mmm,” she hedged, her dark eyes dancing at him. “I have to think about that for a minute or two.”
He waited until she rubbed her cheek on his chest and then he nuzzled the top of her head, strands of her hair catching in the stubble growing along his jaw. He liked that. Liked that they were in the same bed. He enjoyed being with her.
“The photograph of that tea set. You still have it?” He knew she did. He could tell the tea service represented family and love to her, things she wanted but had never had.
She stretched her arm out lazily, reaching with her fingertips to draw her phone to her. He watched her put her passcode in and then she found the photograph and showed it to him. Draden had never paid much attention to things like women’s china, or even the ritual of drinking tea, but he recognized a beautiful work of art when he saw it.
“I love that. I can see why they’d keep it in the family.”
She looked at the photograph and lovingly ran the pad of her finger over it. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
The wistfulness in her voice was his undoing. His chest hurt from the need to change her life. As far as he was concerned, she’d suffered enough just being in Whitney’s hands, let alone everything else that had happened in her life. He really did want to give her the world.
“It is, Shylah. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He brushed more kisses on the top of her head, deliberately picking up more strands of her hair so they’d tie the two of them together. “I love that it has peonies painted on it.”
“I do too,” she admitted with some reluctance and then she sent him a smile, her eyes bright again. “How many tea services have you actually seen?”
“You don’t know, it could be thousands. Don’t be judging me.” He gave her a little shake. “You wanted flowers in your wedding and a tradition of some kind. What else? All girls dream of dresses. You must have.”
She turned her face away from him. “Zara smuggled in a catalogue of wedding dresses once. We were oohing and ahhing, being silly, and trying to decide which would look the best on us when Whitney came in with his smirking supersoldiers.”