Page 95 of Essence of Fear

“A waiting king never sleeps. Do let the Boykov brothers know.”

• • •

Pav’s vision was blurred—blackened at the edges, and fuzzy directly in the middle. And still, even with shaking hands, he tried dialing the number on his phone again. He knew he fucked up the numbers when the call failed and continued to not go through.

“Fuck,” he mumbled.

“Pav, what in the hell happened?”

Grisha’s voice was too close, and right then, he didn’t want the man near him at all. For Grisha’s safety, but also for Pav’s own selfish reasons. He continued walking past the huddled people in the loft, his face bruised and bleeding, his lips stained with cracking blood. He could feel the aching in his jaw and bones. If something wasn’t broken, he was going to be a lucky man, honestly.

But he could ignore it.

Right now, he could.

Surely.

“Pav!”

“Don’t,” Pav snapped over his shoulder. “Just … don’t.”

That was the best warning he could give Grisha. He knew the man had questions. Although no one in the loft had been touched except him and Viktoria—which should have been a clue that this was about them to Grisha—the man still had questions.

It wasn’t that simple for Pav.

He was in a bad fucking place.

His mind, so dark.

His heart, tearing itself apart.

His soul?

Entirely gone.

He hadn’t even realized he had a soul until Viktoria came around. All the vicious parts of her had clawed their way under his skin and burrowed deep into his body. She kept digging until she found the parts of him that he thought were long gone.

She took them, too.

Took them for herself.

And now she was gone.

That meant he was gone, too.

Pav could not be trusted in these moments. Not to care about someone else, even if it was Grisha or the people he was trying to help. He certainly couldn’t be trusted to show them care or concern if they got too close to him, when all he wanted to do was cause the worst kind of violence to make himself feel even a little bit better.

Yeah.

A bad fucking place.

Pav was almost to the front door—almost gone, but not at all better. Walking was difficult when he felt like his legs were unsteady. His head pounded hard enough to make him think it might explode at any moment. The constant taste of blood in his mouth had him worried.

Oh, he’d gotten worse beatings.

He’d been in far worse places.

It didn’t matter.