Page 123 of Dissection of Immortal Hearts

Alex was sure there was a special connection between them, but lately, she couldn’t help wondering… Was Callan avoiding her?

She dismissed it. In this lodge, there was no one else who could engage him in an intellectually stimulating conversation quite like she could.

She pouted, frustrated that she hadn’t yet breached the platonic boundary between them. Was Callan hesitant to touch her because Viktor was nearby? After all, during their last moments at the Hospital, before their escape, Callan had admitted that he found her beautiful.

Alex needed to act. She examined her face in her pocket mirror. Thick black lashes framed her chestnut eyes, and her lips had a natural fullness. She might not be stunning, but she possessed a charm that many would call ‘adorable.’

Tilting her head, she checked her profile. Viktor treated her like a child, though she had long since passed the age where others would do the same. She noticed how mortal men leered at her when she went into town for supplies.

She jumped off the bed and smoothed out the wrinkles in her short denim shorts. Her white tank top hinted at her figure without being provocative enough to anger Viktor.

Her lips pressed into a dissatisfied line. Over the past few months, her foster father had loosened his grip on her, but since they’d been living in the lodge, his obsession with monitoring her had returned in full force. She obeyed his rules only because of how close he was to Vaka Hara. However, there was one rule she refused to follow.

Nothingcould keep her away from Callan.

She was heading for the door when a noise outside stopped her. She cast a casual glance through the window. Her heart skipped a beat. Callan crouched in the middle of the yard, shirtless. Bronze skin over sculpted muscles gleamed in the sunlight as he hammered nails into a wooden chair.

He looked up and smiled, revealing that divine dimple on his left cheek.

But he wasn’t smiling at her.

Alex’s stomach twisted. He was with Amelia – again. Amelia, who should have reconciled with Korovin already. Instead, for yet another day, Alex caught her having a pleasant interaction withherCallan. She’d tried to tell herself there was nothing to worry about, but now Callan was fixing a chair for the Oracle, and…

Alex’s vision blurred with anger as she remembered Amelia had taken his journal. That proved the interest went both ways and, if Alex didn’t act fast, the love of her life might end up in someone else’s hands.

She hurried out of her room and skidded to a stop in front of one of the doors along the corridor. She knocked three times.

“Come in.”

She didn’t wait for a second invitation, bursting inside. However, when she stood face-to-face with Mikhail Korovin, she recalled how imposing he was, the type of man whose presence could send shivers down anyone’s spine. He wasn’t just the leader of the Hospital – he was her boss, Viktor’s best friend, and the last person she should be lying to.

“Mikhail… hi,” she managed, giving a small wave.

He studied her with his gold-green eyes, raising an eyebrow as if already bracing for whatever chaos she was about to bring into his life. Her original plan had been to tell him to get off his cold ass and win back his woman before someone else snatchedher, but standing in front of him now, she began to lose her nerve.

“What is it, pup?” he asked, his tone slightly easing her tension.

She fiddled with her hands, trying to find the best way to phrase her idea.

“Well, Amelia sent me to tell you something.” Mikhail tilted his head, waiting. “She… uh… she asked you to come to her after midnight. To… fix her broken furniture.”

His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Fix her furniture?”

Alex spread her hands. “I don’t know! She just said that you should do it when everyone else has gone to bed.”

She spun on her heel and fled.Idiot!Korovin could barely tolerate Amelia. Why would he bother fixing her furniture?

Alex rushed back to her room, peering through the window. Her throat constricted when she saw Amelia and Callan heading into the woods together.

As she replayed her own stupid words to Mikhail, she wanted to crawl under the bed.

She was a scholar. She could have come up with a better lie!

46

Mikhail

Mikhail emerged from the forest after a brief sprint in his transformed form. As he walked through the overgrown grass outside the lodge, he looked up at the sky. The stars shone high above, a constant reminder of another day gone without progress in freeing the Hospital. Presiyan was reaching out to more Tribunal members and allies, but all his actions remained cautious.