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It had seemed so much better when Luka had been the one to kiss her. Instead of holding still, his lips had clung to and brushed over hers. Just thinking about it made her pulse race.
Luka’s fingers tightened around her wrist. Then he was the one to shift his face closer to hers. His kiss was soft. It didn’t cling or deepen, just touched, and that touch made her feel safe and loved and calmer somehow.
Her eyes closed even as the kiss continued. She fell asleep with their lips still touching.
The sudden dip in the bed and the lack of pressure on her wrist woke her.
Luka lunged in the dim lighting that hinted dawn’s approach. He had a knife. His body collided with another person in the room.
The chuckle that came from the interloper sent ice down her spine. She felt like she was locked in her nightmare. Which made no sense, because the man who’d hurt her hadn’t laughed like that.
Luka’s hands were moving too quickly for her to follow, his knife slashing and plunging and hitting absolutely nothing. The other person was moving even quicker.
“There’s my little wolf. Rabid.” Flesh thumped against flesh as their hands blocked and collided. “Frenzied. Like you’d hoped I would come.”
Alina scrambled off the other side of the bed, ducking down as she watched Luka silently attack.
His eyes were blown wide. Panic filled them, an expression she’d rarely seen. They flicked toward her, and he missed the next block, was shoved hard into the wall. He sprang off as the other man looked toward her as well.
The man shifted free of Luka’s lunge, continuing to stare. “Hmmm, so this is the girl.” The gray of the coming morning darkened his hair even further. His eyes held an inhuman glow. Luka was fast, but the man hardly glanced at him as he returned a blow. “She’s a pretty little thing, even if she’s alive when she shouldn’t be.”
Luka dropped for his discarded knife.
The man must have thought he would stab or slash. He grappled with air while Luka put his body between her and the person who wanted to kill her.
Alina had no doubts that death was what he’d come for. Hers, not Luka’s. He could have already ended Luka. He was faster, even though that seemed impossible. His smile and laugh were ones that toyed. Provoked.
Luka was panting. A line of blood slid between his fingers on the ungloved hand holding the knife. She hadn’t even seen him get cut.
“That expression.” The man moaned in pleasure. “So delicious. It almost makes me want to keep her alive.” His pale gray eyes flitted toward her again. “Almost.”
Luka lunged. It was as if the man wanted his knife to plunge into him. He shouldn’t have smiled as it pierced his shoulder, not his chest like Luka had been aiming for. The laugh that followed as he gripped Luka’s arms, dragging him closer, sent shivers through her body.
“You’ve missed my brand of pain, haven’t you?” the man crooned.
Alina scrambled for the nightstand. Enzo had warned her to keep the gun he’d given her close. A couple of feet felt so very far away.
A thud sounded, and the wood of the dresser creaked, and then the gun was in her hand.
An arm wrapped around her chest, too large to ever be Luka’s, dragging her up. His opposite hand closed around hers, not taking the gun away but dragging her own grip high until the muzzle pressed against her head. “Naughty, naughty.” That creepy laugh. “Don’t pull the trigger yet. Let my little wolf watch.”
Luka froze where he crouched near the dresser, his eyes not on hers but on where her hand disappeared under a larger one. His peridot eyes became empty. Alina had never wanted to make him look like that.
A hum slid from the man’s throat. “That won’t do. No, not at all.” His fingers caressed her own on the gun, making bile rise in her throat. “Where has your frenzy gone?” He gripped her trigger finger between his, the one that had tried to move as far away as it could. A sudden jerk, and the sharp pain caused her to cry out. “See? She’s not dead. Not yet.”
Luka stood, but his body had begun to shake.
Alina breathed through the dimness at the edge of her vision. A mist creeped in that made the whole room appear unreal. Or maybe that was her thoughts, which couldn’t seem to focus on anything.
Her free hand lifted, finding the handle of the knife still embedded in the man’s shoulder, and she gave it a twist.
He didn’t cry out like she had. He laughed as he jerked back, releasing her but keeping the gun. She tripped over her numb legs, falling to the floor.
She wanted to call Luka’s name, but her throat had closed.
Luka was moving again, using that speed that made him seem to disappear. Leaping over her; past her. He grappled for the gun, their hands slamming into the wall.
The pain of her finger seemed like someone else’s. Alina tried to crawl for the door. She was holding Luka back. If she wasn’t there, he would never have frozen.
