Page 7 of Inked Athena

But they matter. They’ll come for me. They’ll kill me.

If Samuil doesn’t do it first.

A sob skitters through my chest despite my efforts to choke it down. “Samuil, I didn’t— I wasn’t?—”

He shushes me again, his thumb stroking along my cheekbone in time with his breathing. “You’re going to be okay. I’ll take care of you.”

I want to believe him.

But hope is a dangerous thing.

“Sleep,krasavitsa.”

With no other option in front of me, I obey.

4

SAMUIL

“Samuil!”

Myles’s voice crackles and cuts out.

I tilt my phone towards the sky like that might make a difference in the shit reception. Unsurprisingly, it changes nothing.

“I was starting to think you’d gone full homesteader on me,” he says. “Long time, no chat.”

It’s only been a little over twenty-four hours since I texted him an update, which is approximately twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes longer than he can handle without having a meltdown.

“I’ve been occupied.” The word choice is deliberate. Clinical. A wall between what I’ve actually been doing—which is holding Nova through fever-dreams and wiping tears from her cheeks and pretending I don’t notice how she trembles when I change her bandages.

He snorts. “That usually means one of two things, and since you haven’t asked me to come clean up a crime scene, I’m guessing the two of you have beenverybusy.”

The suggestion in his voice is obvious, but I’m in no mood to tell him that Nova and I have shared a twin-sized bed for the last three days without me touching her.

I’m also in no mood to admit that the feeling of her curled into my body every night, safe and protected, has been more than enough.

The thought makes me grind my teeth. Since when has anything ever been “enough” for me?

“We can’t stay here,” I announce, getting straight to the point. “The doctor was back this morning and, according to him, Nova should be fit to be moved in a day or two.”

“We have safehouses all over the country. Name your coast of choice, and I can organize?—”

“No safehouses. Ilya knows about too many of them. I want—” I scan the rolling meadow in front of the cabin, the dense ring of trees. It’s on the tip of my tongue to say I want to stay here. “Forever” would be preferable. “… I want something more secure where Nova can recover.”

If Myles is curious why I’m worried about Nova’s recovery right now and not her plot with the Andropovs, he doesn’t mention it.

I’m glad. Because I don’t have an answer.

I’ve asked myself the same question a million times over the last three days and come up empty every single time. But it’s easy to ignore—because there’s a voice in my chest purring in contended delight.

She’s here. In my arms. She’s safe. She’s whole, more or less.

And as long as all that is true, everything else is fucking secondary.

“It would help if I knew where the fuck Ilya was.” Myles’s frustration bleeds through the phone.

“What about Leonid?”

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