Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 30165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 151(@200wpm)___ 121(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 151(@200wpm)___ 121(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
“Nikolai?” Mikhail’s voice sounded as if from a distance.
In the dim light of the room, Nikolai struggled to make sense of the shapes around him. Slowly, too damn slowly, his eyes regained the ability to focus.
Elbows braced on his knees, Mikhail sat in a chair by the side of his bed. Or, a bed, anyway. White walls and blankets. This wasn’t his room. An infirmary, then, and not the one in their city headquarters. They’d brought him to Vasilievskoe, his ancestral estate about an hour outside Moscow.
In that moment, as their gazes met, his friend’s brown eyes looked as ancient as he actually was. His head sagged on his shoulders and he clasped his hands where they hung between his knees. “I want to fucking kill you.”
Nikolai chuffed out a breath. “Mishka,” he said, infusing an apology into his friend’s nickname.
“Don’t Mishka me.”
He deserved the other man’s anger. What could he say? “I’m sorry.”
Mikhail cursed and shoved out of his seat, the chair screeching against the tile floor. He paced and muttered under his breath. The other man still wore his fighting gear, twisting Nikolai’s gut with guilt.
“How long have I been out?” Nikolai managed to ask as he heaved himself into a sitting position with a groan. The movement made him aware that IVs were attached to the crooks of both arms. And, damn, but everything hurt.
“It’s early afternoon. About ten hours.” Mikhail whirled on him. “Ten goddamn hours I didn’t know if my king, my friend, my brother, would die or live to see another night.”
He winced at the volume of his friend’s outrage. “I was stupid.”
“You were fucking moronic.” He braced his hands on his hips and glared.
The situation wasn’t funny, not in the least, but Nikolai felt the corners of his lips rise. “I’ll concede the point.” Few others had the balls to talk to him this way, but he and Mikhail had always been close, almost like true-blooded brothers. His stomach plummeted. Kyril and Evgeny were gone, but Mikhail was here, and Nikolai was going out of his way to piss on his friendship, wasn’t he.
“Look, Mishka—”
“Save it. I know, all right? I loved them, too. I lost them, too. They might not have been blooded brothers, but they were still my brothers. Like you. Since we were young. So I get it. I do. But I swear to Christ—” He covered his mouth and turned away.
Nikolai cleared the lump from his throat, cursing himself for failing Mikhail exactly as he knew he would, and dragged them back to safer ground. “So, give me the rundown on my condition.”
Mikhail turned and crossed his arms. “Broken femur and scapula. Bullet passed through the former, lodged in the latter. Doc got it out on the table. Hit to the right side of your neck took out your jugular and nicked your carotid. Lost half your volume of blood. He patched you up, though, and set up the transfusion before we brought you here. Says you’ll survive to be a pain in the ass another day.”
Ignoring the gibe, Nikolai frowned. How the hell had he survived such injuries?
No doubt about it, Anton was a master surgeon, but the blood loss alone…not to mention the poison…
A deep sense of something like déjà vu came over Nikolai. He frowned, suddenly certain he’d forgotten something important. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, hampered some by the connected tubes. “Jesus. What a mess.”
Mikhail sighed. “Yeah. Understatement of the century, my friend. Even more complicated by the girl. We need to decide what to do with her. She’s seen a lot.”
Nikolai narrowed his gaze and tried to decipher the words, but he had no idea what Mikhail was talking about. “What girl?”
Staring at him, Mikhail dropped back into the chair beside the bed. “What girl? The one who saved your life.”
Chapter 5
Kate woke up disoriented, hurting, and pissed off.
She eased into a sitting position, the back of her head throbbing harder as she rose, and tried to make sense of her dim surroundings.
Small, spartan cot, an empty wooden table with a single chair. She looked to the right and gasped. Bars. An iron-barred door.
Was she in jail? Or—she peered at the rough, stone walls—a freaking dungeon?
She flew to her feet and moaned. The small room spun around her. With her head in her hands, she sucked deep breaths until the dizziness passed. Clenching her eyelids, she prayed she’d been having a nightmare. She opened her eyes.
Oh, shit. No such luck.
Outrage bubbled up from Kate’s gut. Surveying the room, she located a high-tech security camera in one corner. Old-looking cell paired with modern surveillance equipment.
The vampires had her. Had to be.
Kate glared into the camera. “Let me out of here, damn you. Do you hear me? You have no right.” Her voice rose with each word until she was shouting, the sound echoing off the stone. Trying the door next, she shouted, “Let me out of here!”