Page 67 of Deadly Knight

“Katya—”

“No, Dimi—” My name cuts off, like she can’t physically bring herself to say it, and I find myself clinging to those syllables more than what’s healthy. “No,” she repeats with a firm jerk of her head. “No, you—he—no. Nothing will rationalize any of this.”

That I agree with.

“We’re thirty thousand feet in the air, Katya. Taking you home isn’t possible.”

“Turn the plane around.”

“Also not possible.” I reach for my drink, holding it up to her. “Want one? Might help calm you.”

“Calmme? How else should I be reacting?” She paces, her hands scratching at her arms, nails leaving angry red lines. She’s harming herself from stress, and that I will not stand for.

I lift to my feet, pulling at her wrists to remove her hands. My touch activates something else in her, and she shoves away, back landing against the bathroom door.

“Don’t! Don’t touch me. Just…don’t. If you touch me, then I won’t be able to prete—” She abruptly cuts herself off with a confused look, like she nearly said more than she wanted to.

“Don’t hurt yourself over this.” My eyes drop to her arms, to where her hand hovers out of instinct.

“I won’t.” She glances over my shoulder. “You know what? I’ll speak with the pilot myself.”

I reach for her, looping an arm around her waist before she takes another step. I haul her back against me, and she screeches, wriggling in my hold, legs kicking.

“Katya, stop.”

“I asked you not to touch me. Put me down!”

She keeps kicking like a madman. Like a woman scorned. A woman trying to protect herself.

The plane dips, reminding me in a few hours we’ll arrive in Russia. The moment the doors open, she’ll bolt, and I don’t have it in me to chase her, not that she has anywhere to go. Still, I bring my hand up to her face, ending her complaints while going against her request to not touch her.

My fingers lightly pinch her nose, my palm covering her mouth. With her rapid breaths and attempted fight, she’s halfway exhausted anyway, so after a few seconds, she passes out, her body slumping against mine.

Though I should lay her on her couch, I rest her on my lap, knowing very well that this might be my final time getting to hold her.

She remains passedout for the remainder of the trip and the entire drive to the Bratva mansion. With the plane’s landing,Vanessa was made aware I’m home and is standing in the foyer when I enter, Anastasia and Lev each flanking her.

With Katya in my arms bridal-style and probably about to wake soon, I head for the staircase.

“Dimitri!” my cousin hollers after me. “Is that?—”

“Yes.”

Her footsteps pause three steps below mine. “What have you done?”

“I’ve kept her safe. I’ve failed in the past, but not again.”

Once,after discussing positive memories of Dimitri, Ava asked me if I believe in the concept of soulmates.

“I once did,”I told her.

She asked what changed my mind.

“I’m still surviving. If soulmates were real, I gave mine up and shouldn’t be alive.”

Now, I take it back, because when waking up on that plane and seeinghimacross from me, my heart beat for the first time in a decade. Masked beneath fear, apprehension, shock, and anger, but it had. Soulmates are real, and mine re-discovered hers.

In that instant, everything fell into place…and everything fell apart at the same time.