Page 81 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

Which might not be a bad thing if it wasn’t constant. The obsessive thoughts only eased when Vera was near enough for him to see and touch, but that was because then he could focus all that energy and silent fixation into reality.

Igor’s lifting brow said what he didn’t. The sight alone was enough to irritate Vaslav to the ends of the earth and back. He knew how he sounded, he didn’t need Igor’s fucking expression to spell it out, too.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he muttered.

Igor cleared his throat. “I’m not looking at you—”

“You are like that. Big eyes and high eyebrows. Just because you don’t speak doesn’t mean I can’t hear.”

“Hear what?”

The sight of a black mass bounding around the corner of the house stopped Vaslav from answering the question. Marrow, with snowflakes clinging to his shaggy black hair, made his way along the side of the house until he came to the steps where he took them one at a time to the very top. Never once did the pup look at Igor, and he certainly didn’t bother with Vaslav.

At the front door, Marrow plunked his heavy backside down, tipped his snout high, and started to howl. One long whine after another. Each louder than the last.

Igor cringed at the sound. “Another reason to hate the winter ... that thing likes the house.”

“He’s not a thing.”

“He’s not a normal dog, either,” Igor returned just as fast. “He’d be shot anywhere else, Vas. No one would put up with him the way you do.”

Well ...

Maybe the dog was just misunderstood.

On his fifth howl, Marrow turned until his dark eyes found Vaslav. It was almost like the dog’s soul was screaming through his black eyes for his master to listen—get me the fuck out of here. Vaslav wasn’t the only beating heart on the property that hated the snow more than the sight of their own reflection.

“I know, it’s hard when the bunnies turn white, and you can’t see them in the snow, huh?” he asked the dog.

Marrow howled at that, too.

Vaslav cackled right back.

Finally, the front door opened a crack. Barely an inch, but it stopped Marrow’s howl instantly. Suddenly, the usually feral and wild dog was an overgrown puppy, and he laid himself flat to the stone step with a fast-wagging tail. He whined at the woman eyeing him from beyond the front door.

Mira tried to keep a serious face. “Is it cold?”

Marrow didn’t move. Except for his tail.

He didn’t make a sound, either.

“Shake first,” Mira said.

Standing the moment the words left her lips, Marrow turned into a ball of shuddering black fur and tumbling snowflakes. A second later, the door opened wider, and the dog stepped into the darkness inside. All the while, his fluffy tail wagged.

Igor shook his head when Vaslav turned back around with a chuckle.

“He barely even nips at her when he wants something like being let inside,” Igor pointed out. “See, he can be nice when he chooses to be. He never does that for me.”

“Jealousy is unbecoming.”

That had his man scoffing.

Hard.

“Right,” Igor choked out in a laugh. “A fucking joke, that.”

The noise between the men settled down while Igor hit the auto start on the SUV, and the engine purred to life. The smoke sputtered from the tailpipe, the only source of heat in the bitter chill of the air.