Page 90 of White Wolf

She should leave. Whatever he’d come out here to dwell on, he’d clearly wanted to be alone. Thoughts too precious for the crackle of the fire and the voices of his brothers.

She turned to go…and stepped right on a twig.

Damn it.

It snapped beneath her boot and Kolya whirled, face seeming too pale in its frame of long, dark hair.

Katya froze.

“What do you want?” He sounded more uncertain than angry.

That bit of rawness in his voice made her feel awful for spying. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude or…” Anxiety bubbled in her chest and she tried to let it out with a sigh. She realized she was more frightened of him now, after the sparring session, than before – back before she’d known he could snap her neck without effort. “I wanted to apologize. For what I said earlier. Making it personal. I’m sorry.”

A small voice in the back of her mind told her to walk away, now that she’d said what she needed to. But she waited, rooted to the spot, and so she could see him blink in obvious surprise.

“I called you a whore,” he said, disbelief in his voice. “Why areyouapologizing tome?” It was such a vulnerable statement – from any man, but especially from a state-owned thug – that she couldn’t help but read the vulnerability in it. She felt a softening toward him, a touch of warmth in her chest.

“I struck a nerve. And I was trying to. I shouldn’t have done that.”

He shook his head, one strong back-and-forth motion. “Nothing makes it alright to say what I said.” In an undertone: “I was raised better than that.”

The thought of him as a child, a boy with parents who taught him manners, put a smile on her face. He was so cold and stern and unreachable…but he’d been little once. Had sat on his father’s knee and felt his mother’s hand through his hair. Hopefully.

His head lifted and his eyes – a faint glimmer in the dark – found hers. “No one’s ever guessed that I danced. Nikita told you?”

“No. He said it wasn’t his business to tell.”

It was hard to tell, but she thought the shadows on his face shifted, one corner of his mouth flicking up in a quick, humorless smile. A silent thank you to his captain and friend, she thought.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“You glare like a killer…but you move much prettier than that. You’re very light on your feet in a way that most men aren’t.” In a way the Chekists who had come bursting into her home hadn’t been, boots heavy across the floorboards, hands rough as they…

Don’t think about it.

He gave her another of his not-quite smiles. “Yeah. I was a dancer,” he said. “A good one.” And then all the tension bled out of him and he slumped sideways, exhausted from holding onto the strain. Quietly, he added, “My mother was very proud.”

When he didn’t elaborate – and she was shocked he’d admitted as much as he had – she cleared the sudden catch in her throat and said, “Do you miss it?”

“Every day.”

The wind out here, in the wild, had a way of constantly sighing and whispering, threading through the tree trunks in cool tendrils.

It slipped between them now; Katya imagined it eased the strain of admission.

“I was never very good,” she said, because she thought she needed to offer her own admission, “but it was fun.” Back when she’d been just a girl, on the swept-clean floor of a barn, the rest of the village gathered under lantern light, precious oil burned so that they could drink, and smoke, and laugh, and twirl one another inexpertly around. Just so they’d have something to look forward to. Stolen moments of joy.

It surprised her when he straightened away from the tree and offered her his hand, palm-up, moonlight cupped in the little hollow there. The lines were deep, holding shadows, the calluses rough to the eye, even in the dark.

“What?” she asked.

The light caught his teeth as he grinned, a fast gleam. “You’re only as good as your dancing instructor, and you’ve clearly never danced with anyone as good as me.”

A startled laugh tickled up her throat. “You don’t have to.”

His smile slipped a little. “I miss it, remember?” Quiet, rough, self-conscious.

How could she refusethat?

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