Page 28 of The Enemy's Defector
I’d take anything.
Something.
Whatever he could offer me would be more than this despair and loneliness of missing him.
Forget about it, Kat.
Nik didn’t seem likely to welcome me into his life at all. It seemed that he’d gotten what he wanted that one night, and that was it.
Now, with us hiding together, it felt like a pathetic waiting game of when I’d be brave enough to walk away and fight for a better future that I deserved.
So much for wishing he’d want me forever after all I’d done for him.
I’ll never be anything more than someone he’ll assume is the enemy.
I covered my stomach with one hand and refrained from sniffling as a tear leaked from my closed eyes.
12
NIKOLAI
She cared enough to free me from that room.
And now she wants nothing to do with me?
In the middle of the night, when the nightmares and flashbacks from my captivity hit in full force, I shot upright and immediately tried not to breathe too hard to alert Katerina to the fact that I was suffering. Instead, I swallowed and gulped in deep inhales until I could calm myself down. It wasn’t only new nightmares of what I went through in the last month or so, but also older dreams from when I was taken as a child. The walk toward the execution room. The fearful looks on Damon and Maxim’s faces.
Making a sound could wake up Katerina, and until I could figure out this hot-and-cold treatment she was giving me, I didn’t want to make things weirder between us.
She cared. I sat there andknewthis. She had to care to get me out of that room. No one had asked her to risk her life to save me. No one had put her up to it. Katerina was too stubborn to be told to be a heroine.
Ever since we’d come to this safehouse, though, this unspoken awkwardness loomed larger and larger between us.This gap of some weird energy and distance yawned wider. I couldn’t figure out what her issue was.
What the fuck are you saying, man?
I shook my head and smirked at the wall across from me.
She was out on her own now. Of course, her head wasn’t in a good place right now. She explained how she’d defied Anton. How she’d killed his favorite guard when she left the mansion. And then how she’d dared to find me and break me out.
She was a wanted woman and she knew it.
So far, she hadn’t said where she’d go and what she’d do. That hadn’t come up mostly because I questioned her about what had happened while I was gone. The topic of her plans hadn’t come up because she got quiet and closed-lipped, too. Pensive and stuck in her head.
At first, I guessed that she was unsure of how to tread around me after we’d fucked. It changed things, obviously. Yet, as she stayed quiet and on the couch, almost avoiding me, I wondered if she was merely trying to give me space. To let me acclimate to the fact that I’d survived captivity again.
But why would you want to push me away like this?
I got up, unsettled about her acting so differently around me now. Something wasn’t adding up, and I was restless and aggravated to not know why we seemed to be out of connection like this.
This bed was large enough for both of us, but not a single second of flirtation or desire was hinted at.
She chose that couch, as if needing to exaggerate that she wasn’t interested in me at all.
And it stung.
Walking out to the living room, I kept my steps light so I wouldn’t wake her. I couldn’t handle more of her quietness, that almost nervous energy she seemed to have now.
I’d slept a lot over the last few days. I’d rested and zoned out, forced to let my body take over. Admitting I needed to recover wasn’t easy, but thatwasall I was capable of at first.
