“Yes,” he said.
“I don’t believe you.” She pulled her hand back and crossed her arms. He would’ve mourned the lack of her touch, but the stern look she was giving him made up for it. “What in Dyna’s holy name possessed you to yank out your IV and try to leave the hospital, Nikhail?”
The way she said his name, all fire and worry, had him feeling more alive now than he had over the past month. Maybe even the past four years.
“I needed to get back to work,” he told her.
That was still the case, but somehow, it seemed less urgent now that she was here with him.
“Work?” She stared at him as though he’d lost his mind, and maybe she was right. Maybe he wasn’t thinking straight, and he’d sustained some kind of brain injury. Maybe that explained why he was desperate to get closer to her.
Wrapping his hands in the thin sheets to stop himself from reaching out for her, he reminded himself that this wasn’t just anyone. This was Ryker’s sister, she was significantly younger than him, and they were friends, nothing more.
All reasons he’d told himself hundreds of times before.
“You never would’ve made it out of the hospital, Nik.” Her voice pulled him out of his thoughts, and he refocused his eyes on her.
“I didn’t realize it was that serious.”
“Not that serious?” She laughed, the sound lacking all humor. It faded when she seemed to realize he wasn’t joking. “Nik.” How could one syllable sound so good? “You were knocking on death’s door.”
Maybe he should’ve been worried about his health, because this conversation felt different from any other one they’d had in the past. Deeper, somehow. More meaningful.
“I see.” At least that explained the immense pain he’d been in.
Her lips slanted down, and she stared at him with her gorgeous brown eyes. Gods above, those fuckingeyes.
At first glance, one would think they were just brown. But if someone spent enough time looking at them, if someone spent enough time dreaming about them, they would realize that brown was far too simple a word to describe them.
Gold flecks hovered near her pupils, a black ring ran around the outside, and in the right light, they were almost green.
Nikhail should know. He’d spent years looking at those eyes. Thinking about them. Dreaming about them. Fucking fantasizing about them.
It was wrong, but the problem was, he was inexplicably drawn to River. He’d long since given up trying to figure out why that was. He’d never acted on the way he was pulled to her, but in private, she crowded his thoughts. It had only gotten worse over the years. At first, he’d been able to ignore it. He’d gone on dates and slept around, but recently, he’d stopped doing that because it no longer felt right.
Nikhail was so lost in the depth of River’s gaze that her dark chuckle caught him off guard.
“Listen to me, Nikhail Galebringer.” He would listen to anything she had to say. “It’s a gods-damned miracle you didn’tdie as a direct result of your stupidity. If Lorna hadn’t been there when you pulled your stunt, it would’ve been too late for you. As it was, your wounds needed to be restitched.”
She scowled, fire flashing through those captivating eyes. Gods, he could lose himself in them for days, and he’d consider it time well-spent.
“River, I didn’t?—”
She spoke right over him, her voice rising. “What were you doing that nearly got you killed, Nik?” Panic flashed through her gaze, and the sight was a knife to his chest. “You were shot. Did you know that?”
“Shot?” he echoed, his mind racing to put together the pieces of what had happened.
River pursed her lips and dipped her chin. The cracks in the black wall in his mind grew, and then it shattered. Memories flooded him all at once.
Getting a lead on a key piece of intel. Kicking down a door. A dark room. Shouts. His skin prickling. Confusion running through him. No one was supposed to be there. He yelled something, and then, there was a loud bang.
After that…
Pain.
Excruciating, never-ending pain that started in his stomach and spiraled outward.
“Oh.” He licked his chapped lips, his throat suddenly dry. “I suppose that explains it.”