Page 89 of Katya and the Young God

After,when he’s coated in a thin layer of sweat, and she’s pillowed next to him, her bed doesn’t feel too large anymore, but the silence is larger than anything she can think of.

“We left Stepan outside,” she says, instead of dealing with any emotions she might be having, and she sees the muscles of his torso ripple with suppressed laughter.

“Your bedroom talk leaves something to desire,” he says, his voice light, and somehow she’s gotten to the point in her life where she can tell he isn’t offended. “He’ll be fine, he likes the snow. Unless it thunders.”

He tilts his head, looking at her, and she’s very, very aware of how naked she is. How utterly without weapons or anything to shield herself.

And how much she doesn’t need them right now.

“So this is strange,” she says, aloud, because refusing to acknowledge awkwardness isn’t in her bones, and she prods him on his shoulder. “I didn’t ever think I was going to be in this position.”

He gives her a wry look, like he’s seeing all the way through her and finds her deeply, deeply amusing. “It would be strange if you did.” At odds with his words, he raises a hand to her face, caressing her. Pushing a strand of hair away from her eyes, tucking it behind her ears. “I stopped trying to predict how things would go a while back.”

She waits for him to continue, but instead he just blinks at her, slow and sated.

Katya shrugs, after a long moment of silence, feeling the slip of silk sheets against her skin. “And you just...go with what happens.”

“If you interrogate all your bed partners like this, I know why you’re single,” he says, but with good humor. Like the sex smoothed out his scowl, replacing it with something softer.

“And I’m going to guess that you’re single because you were domineering and controlling and immediately mocked any human,” she shoots back.

“Harsh,” he says, letting his hand rest on the small of her back, warm and welcoming.

“Anyone takes a shot at me, I’m gonna take one back,” Katya says, but can’t find it in herself to push any real effort into the statement.

He shifts, treating his wound tenderly, but the stark white bandage holds true. “Or was it the massive overabundance of weapons that did it?”

“Only if yours was impressing girls with being a Demigod then ending up entirely normal in bed,” she responds, and gets a crinkle around his eyes in return. “Or was it the property in Vegas?”

“Or was yours a freakish dedication to work even when most people would’ve given up?” He pillows his head in his arms.

It’s a fair criticism, one usually lobbied at her in a far less kind of voice, more in a yelling or pleading tone. Even a boss or two had spat that at her, sometimes in anger, usually in awe.

“That one’s more accurate,” she admits, and gets an alarmed look in return. “I’m aware enough to admit it.” And self-aware enough to know that if multiple people give identical criticism, there’s usually some truth in it. “Though usually friends, not lovers. Occasionally bosses.”

He’s still giving her that alarmed look, like he underestimated just how willing she is to be honest with herself.

“If I take a lover, they’re usually well aware of my weapon thing.”

He snorts at that, his face easing up again. “You shouldn’t have gone into that cave,” he bursts out, as if that’s what’s been bothering him, still, after all this time. “That’s an order you should have turned down.” His eyes are on her shoulder, on her scar, twisted and red.

And it’s a bit too intense of a gaze for Katya, so she turns away. “What else am I supposed to do?” She asks, not to him, per se, but to the room at large, as snow whistles outside the window. “There’s not a lot of work I’m cut out to do.”

“Assassin work,” he suggests, quicker than she would have liked. “I’m sure some government somewhere would hire you for that.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“Hell, there are enough Vampire clans in Europe that I’m sure they would love someone with your skills.” He begins counting off on his fingers. “There are the sirens in the Caribbean, they’d pay well, probably some of the mountain werewolves would take you —"

She tosses a pillow at him, he lets it thump beside him without catching it. “I know about those people, I just...”

“There’s a whole other world out there, besides just the Organization,” Pieter says, stuffing the pillow under his head. “Not all of them are untrustworthy or evil, either.”

“Like your Vegas empire?” She shoots back.

“That wasn’t the most un-evil,” he admits. “But those are gone, fully dissolved. Sold the condos, sold the hotels, sold the stakes in shows, fired everyone. Took me a while to do so, too.” His face loses a bit of the joyful teasing, the lines more obvious, and she regrets digging in like that. “But there was no point to them.”

It’s more than she would have given him credit for, if she hadn’t gone under the mountain, but pointing that out seems mean. Too much like hitting someone while they’re down.

---