Page 131 of Stolen Empire
"No one touches you again. No one takes you. I'll burn this whole city down first."
She tilts her head back to look at me.
Her eyes search my face for something I can’t name.
"You really mean that."
It’s not a question, but I answer anyway.
"Yes."
She kisses me again, softer this time but no less intense.
I roll her beneath me and lose myself in her warmth, letting the outside world fade away until nothing exists except the two of us and the promises we make in the darkness.
21
KATYA
Iwake to the sound of footsteps wearing a path in the hardwood floor.
My body aches in places I didn’t know could ache, and when I shift under the sheets, pain radiates across my ribs.
The cut on my cheek throbs with my pulse, and my wrists burn where the ropes bit into my skin.
Someone bandaged me while I slept.
The gauze clings around my forearms, and a smaller bandage sits taped below my eye.
I don’t remember any of it.
Dimitri paces at the foot of the bed with his phone pressed to his ear.
He speaks in English too rapid for me to catch more than a few words, but it sounds like he's giving commands.
His shirt hangs unbuttoned and wrinkled, and dark circles shadow his eyes.
He hasn’t slept.
I wonder if he stayed awake watching me breathe.
The thought makes something in my chest feel too large for the space it occupies.
He ends the call and notices I’m awake.
His pacing stops, and for a moment we simply look at each other across his bedroom.
The morning light slants through the windows and catches in his dark hair, turning the edges gold.
He looks exhausted and dangerous.
"How do you feel?" he asks.
"Like I got kidnapped and tied to a chair."
I try to force the joke but my throat feels raw, probably from screaming for help.
"But alive, so that's something."
