MIKHAIL
My fist connectedwith the wall, leaving behind a satisfying dent.
I closed my eyes, which was a big mistake because the only thing I saw whenever I closed my eyes in the past three days had been the image of Catalina bleeding on the fucking floor while chaos reigned around us, and I had been unable to get to her in time.
I was too fucking late.
Fuck.
My fists clenched tightly against my sides. I savored the pain caused by my broken skin there when it stretched a little.
We had been so close to losing her.
So fucking close, and there had been fuck all I would have been able to do about it.
She wasn’t supposed to matter. She was supposed to be nothing more than a pawn. A fucking obsession I could fuck out of my system and walk away from.
Instead, I found myself going crazy these past few days that she was out.
I punched the wall again.
And again.
And fuck, again, until blood dripped from my knuckles and the pain numbed some of the anger settling in my chest. The fact that I had her in my lap just moments before wasn’t enough. I wanted to chain myself to her and throw away the key.
When the urge hit the strongest, I gave her to Nikolay and walked away, as if to prove to myself that I could, and ignored how my skin had felt like it was on fire.
I let out a loud yell and punched the wall once more.
“Oh, yeah. Break your knuckles, as if that will help.”
I looked up at Damien with wild eyes.
Fuck, I didn’t even hear him come up. It was this kind of inattention that got men killed in our world.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be with Catalina?”
“Nico is with her. I doubt she wants two men crowding her while she gets ready for bed.”
I looked away from him, not wanting him to see the emotion in my eyes.
“What’s going on with you?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I answered bitterly. “Everything is just peachy.”
“Oh, yeah? ’Cause I’m sure that wall would beg to differ.”
“Whatever.”
I moved past him. I was done with this conversation, and I wasn’t in the mood to have my head examined. He stopped me with one hand on my shoulder.
“She’s okay, Mikki.”
I laughed. “Of course she fucking is. For now. But you know what it’s like living in our world. Our days are numbered; the moment we brought her into it, so were hers.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong. We didn’t bring her into this world. She was born into it. And one of the reasons for sharing one woman is that we can better protect her by working together.”
“A lot of fucking good that did. She was still shot. Taken from right under our fucking noses.”