Page 77 of Unveiled

“I’ve had…conflicting emotions.”

Heblows out a breath, maintaining eye contact with me, and finally nods. "I know."

My heart aches. Semyonhasn’t.

I open my mouth to speak when suddenly the lights go out. We're cast into complete, utter darkness. I don't have my phone with me or a flashlight.

Semyon’s voice carries across the darkness. “Seems there's a power outage."

My chest constricts. I don't scare easily, but utter darkness triggers me.

"What do you mean?" My voice is shaky, trembling.

"Are you scared, Anya?" He sounds surprised.

"I don't like being in the dark,” I say in a whisper, not trusting my full voice. I might cry. "Stefan?—"

"—is sleeping," he finishes for me, utterly calm. "He's fine. We'll go upstairs and check on him if it’ll make you feel better. But first, we're going to get a flashlight or candle,” he says in a quiet voice. I'm reminded of the older brother who shielded his sisters from so many things. "Before we check on your brother, we're going to secure all of our exits to make sure that this is not something intentional.”

If someone came here and cut the power?—

"And then," he says calmly, rising. I can hear the way his clothes ruffle and feel warm fingers on my hand. “We're going to take a walk, check a few things, and go to bed—after I'm confident that we're not being sabotaged."

If Iwere home and the lights went out, I would light candles and put on a brave face for my brother. But I wouldn't ever have to worry about somebody coming into my house or being attacked.

But I’m Bratva now.

"I have candles in every room in this house and a power generator, but I'm not going to trigger the generator yet because it'll make it too easy for anyone who attacked us to disappear. So let's take a look."

He speaks so calmly, without question, as if it's just a matter of course. I don't know how he navigates the room in the dark, but it probably helps that it's unencumbered by clutter, and his memory is flawless.

I follow him, holding his hand. I hear the strike of a match, and candlelight flickers in front of him.

"You look like a ghost," I whisper to him.

"Maybe I am," he whispers back.

The corner of my lips quirks up. He takes the candle and rests it on a flat surface to cast light in the room before he takes out flashlights and hands me one.

We flick them on, and he methodically walks to the different exits. I half expect him to continue going room by room, but of course, he has a much simpler plan. He leads me over to a table, taps on a screen, and within ten seconds, twenty-five different views of access points to his estate pop up. He presses a button, and blue, yellow, and red zones appear.

"What's that?" I whisper to him.

"Thermal scans. It shows me if there's any presence of another body here. See this?"

He points to the bottom right screen. I squint my eyes and peer closer.

"Stefan," he says. "Yes," he answers himself. "It's red, which indicates body temperature. So either," he continues methodically, "a cold-blooded creature has made its way onto my estate, someone has the wherewithal to block their body temp, or it's just a power outage. Let's go up to bed."

He extinguishes the candle and hands me another flashlight. "I'll put this next to Stefan. If this keeps up for much longer, the generator will start up.”

My exhaustion kicks in again. I want to sleep, but I feel strange—the adrenaline still coursing through me even as my eyes sag with discomfort and fatigue. I wonder what he thinks in moments like this. It seems so natural for him to slide into the role of protector, to be ready to defend me and my brother. Just like he defended his sisters before him.

"Zoya was always afraid of the dark," he says, and I can't tell in the darkness if he's smiling.

"Was she?"

"She was afraid of a lot of things," he says, resting his hand on the small of my back as we go up the flight of stairs. I don’t tell him that I think she still is.

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